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A Relative Stranger: Stories
"In his quiet cosmic wonderment, Baxter is the equal of John Updike and Anne Tyler at their largest and best."― GQ Without question Charles Baxter, whose ravishing novel The Feast of Love was a National Book Award finalist, is one of our finest contemporary writers. These two books, set in the Michigan landscape that Baxter has made his own, display his unparalleled gift for revealing the unexpected in everyday life. The often-curious connections of relatives and strangers are illuminated in the thirteen exquisite stories of A Relative Stranger . "You can't just get a brother off the street," a character says, but indeed he does.
236 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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About the author
Charles Baxter
94 books428 followersCharles Baxter was born in Minneapolis and graduated from Macalester College, in Saint Paul. After completing graduate work in English at the State University of New York at Buffalo, he taught for several years at Wayne State University in Detroit. In 1989, he moved to the Department of English at the University of Michigan--Ann Arbor and its MFA program. He now teaches at the University of Minnesota.
Baxter is the author of 4 novels, 4 collections of short stories, 3 collections of poems, a collection of essays on fiction and is the editor of other works. His works of fiction include Believers , The Feast of Love (nominated for the National Book Award), Saul and Patsy , and Through the Safety Net . He lives in Minneapolis.
Baxter is the author of 4 novels, 4 collections of short stories, 3 collections of poems, a collection of essays on fiction and is the editor of other works. His works of fiction include Believers , The Feast of Love (nominated for the National Book Award), Saul and Patsy , and Through the Safety Net . He lives in Minneapolis.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
August 8, 2020
Overall I was disappointed in this collection of short stories. Many of the stories were “dated” (they were written in 1990 and they dealt with things or topics relevant in the 1960s-1990s and if you were not from that time I doubt the stories would mean a whole lot to you IMHO…they did not wear well…to me. A number of the stories irrespective of the time period were not interesting in the slightest…to me.
And I say “to me”…I picked this book because one GR reviewer gave it 5 stars and a good review, and that intrigued me enough to get the book from the library. I had never heard of Charles Baxter before. Six of the stories were previously published in well-respected periodicals: The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harpers, The Paris Review, Story, and Grand Street (defunct). Five were published in periodicals run out of universities. Therefore, practically all the stories were vetted by people who make it a living to decide whether a short story has the qualities that merit publication in their periodical. What’s more on the back cover were accolades from such established and respected writers as Ann Beattie, Tim O’Brien, and Francine Prose. So my overall negative assessment is a personal one. The stories, aside from two of the 11, did not do anything for me. With some, I just wanted them to end so I could say “bye, bye”. ☹
Many of the stories had their setting as some place in Michigan — the author at that time taught in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan.
There was one story that brought back pleasant, nostalgic memories to me because I was either a child or a young adult in the time period in which the stories took place and in which certain things were mentioned: transistor radios, the ’64 Crayola Box’ (I remember how they were displayed in the box, tiered, they looked so nice and there were 64 of them all of different shades and hues, with nice names and I liked to use them [at that time I think they were the only crayons sold], AM Top Forty (I remember one week the Beatles had a tie for the #1 song, one was Eight Days a Week), and crystal radio sets (all of these were mentioned in the story “Snow” published in The New Yorker).
Here are the stories in the collection and where they had been published and the number of stars I gave each story, so you see how my overall rating was 2 stars…
• Fenstad’s Mother, published in The Atlantic and republished in Best American Short Stories 1989, and the author published it in memory of Helen Baxter, 4 stars
• Westland, published in The Paris Review and republished in Pushcart Prize XIV, 2 stars
• Prowlers, published in Grand Street, 2 stars
• A Relative Stranger, published in Indiana Review as “How I Found My Brother” and republished in Best American Short Stories 1987, 3 stars
• Shelter, published in The Georgia Review, 3 stars
• Snow, published in The New Yorker, 2 stars
• Silent Movies (I very much liked this story, 5 stars)
It was a story about a women who leaves her husband who is always talking, talking, talking…”what she wanted was a vacation from words spoken by voices below middle C”. Great line! … I couldn’t find a prior publishing site, frontispiece stated that several lines of the story were taken from “Tulips” in Ariel by Sylvia Plath.
• The Old Fascist in Retirement, published in Denver Quarterly, 1 star
• Lake Stephen, published in PEN Syndicated Fiction, 2 stars
• Scissors, (Note: this story and the following two were connected by a larger title, “Three Parabolic Tales”, but I did not see the connection), published in Story, 2.5 stars
• Scheherazade, published in Harper’s, 3.5 stars
• The Disappeared, published in Michigan Quarterly Review, 1 star (Note: I am not sure Mr. Baxter runs because in the story he has a young man eating a hot dog, and then meeting a women and immediately going out on a run with her…eating a hot dog and then running is an oxymoron 😊
• Saul and Patsy Are Pregnant, published in The Iowa Review, 2 stars (Notes: 1. This was an interconnected story in that it made reference to a character in “Scissors” who was a barber and a character in “Westland” who took four pistol shots at a nuclear reactor. 2. In 2003, I guess he must have greatly expanded on this story in that he wrote a novel about it! Same title as the short story.)
Reviews:
• From a blog site: https://theerstwhilephilistine.wordpr...
• There was a book review in the New York Times on October 21, 1990, but I could not access the site because I do not have an online subscription
About the author, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles...
I just found out he co-edited a book of essays on one of my fave authors, William Maxwell, A William Maxwell Portrait: Memories and Appreciations
And I say “to me”…I picked this book because one GR reviewer gave it 5 stars and a good review, and that intrigued me enough to get the book from the library. I had never heard of Charles Baxter before. Six of the stories were previously published in well-respected periodicals: The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harpers, The Paris Review, Story, and Grand Street (defunct). Five were published in periodicals run out of universities. Therefore, practically all the stories were vetted by people who make it a living to decide whether a short story has the qualities that merit publication in their periodical. What’s more on the back cover were accolades from such established and respected writers as Ann Beattie, Tim O’Brien, and Francine Prose. So my overall negative assessment is a personal one. The stories, aside from two of the 11, did not do anything for me. With some, I just wanted them to end so I could say “bye, bye”. ☹
Many of the stories had their setting as some place in Michigan — the author at that time taught in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan.
There was one story that brought back pleasant, nostalgic memories to me because I was either a child or a young adult in the time period in which the stories took place and in which certain things were mentioned: transistor radios, the ’64 Crayola Box’ (I remember how they were displayed in the box, tiered, they looked so nice and there were 64 of them all of different shades and hues, with nice names and I liked to use them [at that time I think they were the only crayons sold], AM Top Forty (I remember one week the Beatles had a tie for the #1 song, one was Eight Days a Week), and crystal radio sets (all of these were mentioned in the story “Snow” published in The New Yorker).
Here are the stories in the collection and where they had been published and the number of stars I gave each story, so you see how my overall rating was 2 stars…
• Fenstad’s Mother, published in The Atlantic and republished in Best American Short Stories 1989, and the author published it in memory of Helen Baxter, 4 stars
• Westland, published in The Paris Review and republished in Pushcart Prize XIV, 2 stars
• Prowlers, published in Grand Street, 2 stars
• A Relative Stranger, published in Indiana Review as “How I Found My Brother” and republished in Best American Short Stories 1987, 3 stars
• Shelter, published in The Georgia Review, 3 stars
• Snow, published in The New Yorker, 2 stars
• Silent Movies (I very much liked this story, 5 stars)
It was a story about a women who leaves her husband who is always talking, talking, talking…”what she wanted was a vacation from words spoken by voices below middle C”. Great line! … I couldn’t find a prior publishing site, frontispiece stated that several lines of the story were taken from “Tulips” in Ariel by Sylvia Plath.
• The Old Fascist in Retirement, published in Denver Quarterly, 1 star
• Lake Stephen, published in PEN Syndicated Fiction, 2 stars
• Scissors, (Note: this story and the following two were connected by a larger title, “Three Parabolic Tales”, but I did not see the connection), published in Story, 2.5 stars
• Scheherazade, published in Harper’s, 3.5 stars
• The Disappeared, published in Michigan Quarterly Review, 1 star (Note: I am not sure Mr. Baxter runs because in the story he has a young man eating a hot dog, and then meeting a women and immediately going out on a run with her…eating a hot dog and then running is an oxymoron 😊
• Saul and Patsy Are Pregnant, published in The Iowa Review, 2 stars (Notes: 1. This was an interconnected story in that it made reference to a character in “Scissors” who was a barber and a character in “Westland” who took four pistol shots at a nuclear reactor. 2. In 2003, I guess he must have greatly expanded on this story in that he wrote a novel about it! Same title as the short story.)
Reviews:
• From a blog site: https://theerstwhilephilistine.wordpr...
• There was a book review in the New York Times on October 21, 1990, but I could not access the site because I do not have an online subscription
About the author, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles...
I just found out he co-edited a book of essays on one of my fave authors, William Maxwell, A William Maxwell Portrait: Memories and Appreciations
December 22, 2014
These stories are descendants of Hemingway, growing from the good Michigan soil alongside the crops sown by wind and rain and toil. But the people aren’t farmers—they live among farmers, practicing their trade or cultivating professions. They are decent people, and they have manners. Yet they’re missing something inside themselves for which they suffer a nameless hunger, like the denizens of Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio.” Baxter is thus a child of the Midwest doing right by the country that raised him. He gives us believable people and honors them with rich interior lives. Saul is nearly crippled by anxiety over how plain he is; Fenstad worries that his mother will smell the communion wine on his breath; Robinson is a self-sacrificing paragon of upright virtue, almost incapable of caring for himself, in a world that has no need for his virtue or his self-sacrifice; Warren fires his gun at the nuclear reactor.
Baxter’s characters are conflicted and anguished, but they always act out in ways that separate them from Hemingway or Anderson. Baxter provides too many details of the lush Michigan countryside for these stories to qualify as minimalism; too much of the conflict is performed in the real world, outside fever-dreams or chance conversations, for the collection to invite close comparisons to “Winesburg, Ohio.” Baxter gets the balance just right. He captures the simmering savagery below the veils of peace and calm that characterized late twentieth century life in the Midwest. In the stories, transplants and visitors from the east coast or as far as away as Norway grapple with these peculiarities. “Midwesterners,” observes Saul, are “connoisseurs of violence and piety.” The empty fields and thin woods are the scene of a vast ache, a spiritual hunger that gnaws at everyone. Baxter’s characters find relief in the usual ways: family, or sitting in judgment of others, or acts of random desperation.
This is the way we suffer, and the way we grope past suffering toward redemption. This is how we settle for connection, for each other’s touch, how despair becomes contentment. This is how we lose ourselves and struggle to regain them. This collection was a delightful surprise sitting in plain sight on my bookshelf for years, unopened and overlooked. I’m so glad I took the time.
Baxter’s characters are conflicted and anguished, but they always act out in ways that separate them from Hemingway or Anderson. Baxter provides too many details of the lush Michigan countryside for these stories to qualify as minimalism; too much of the conflict is performed in the real world, outside fever-dreams or chance conversations, for the collection to invite close comparisons to “Winesburg, Ohio.” Baxter gets the balance just right. He captures the simmering savagery below the veils of peace and calm that characterized late twentieth century life in the Midwest. In the stories, transplants and visitors from the east coast or as far as away as Norway grapple with these peculiarities. “Midwesterners,” observes Saul, are “connoisseurs of violence and piety.” The empty fields and thin woods are the scene of a vast ache, a spiritual hunger that gnaws at everyone. Baxter’s characters find relief in the usual ways: family, or sitting in judgment of others, or acts of random desperation.
This is the way we suffer, and the way we grope past suffering toward redemption. This is how we settle for connection, for each other’s touch, how despair becomes contentment. This is how we lose ourselves and struggle to regain them. This collection was a delightful surprise sitting in plain sight on my bookshelf for years, unopened and overlooked. I’m so glad I took the time.
June 9, 2008
Quite simply some of the best short stories I've ever read. By the third story I had this wonderful feeling of confidence and safety in Baxter's literary hands... I knew the places he would lead me would be challenging, beautiful and rewarding.
I can't say enough about this collection of stories. They each take facets of the human experience and cause the reader to reexamine the way they look at life and existence... and they do it with beauty, grace and deep confidence.
READ THESE NOW. This means all of you, goodreads friends.
I can't say enough about this collection of stories. They each take facets of the human experience and cause the reader to reexamine the way they look at life and existence... and they do it with beauty, grace and deep confidence.
READ THESE NOW. This means all of you, goodreads friends.
February 29, 2012
I think it was Raymond Carver who was touted as being one of the writers responsible for "reviving" the lost art of the short story. Carver was an astonishing writer, an author capable of throwing his two cents in but making them look like one. He joins, for my money, writers like O'Connor and Ford (among others), authors with a taste for grit, putting out the kind of deceptively simple stuff that sometimes doesn't really punch you until after you've shelved the book and are thinking about something completely unreleated. "Dirty realism," I believe the critics called it, minimalism's orphaned brother. (Bukowski would perfect it before scrubbing it dry.) Where does Baxter fit in here, though?
He's a hopeful. This collection contains stories often so whithered of meaning, that they rely on nothing more than the reader to give them any kind of serious impact. I'm not going to go into the solipsism and deconstruction that might make these little literary bon mots interesting or clever; sure enough, there's a potency in Baxter's prose, a certain definable direction. Instead of letting the landmarks of his landscape point us onward, though, Baxter usually pounds some pretty large, reflective signposts into place. The best stories in this collection ("The Disappeared," "Saul and Patsy Are Pregnant," and "Snow") are gussied up with abstract philosophizing at the last minute, made cutely poignant by (maybe) the artist's fear of an uneducated audience.
Baxter's point, unfortunately, is pretty much the same in every tale. Every story contains a man who cannot (or won't) be happy, who finds distraction in a world at odds with the awkward ambition man's soul seems to be fat with from the moment he crawls mewling from the womb. God bless these poor tortured fellows.
In some cases, they are blessed -- by women. There's a lilting sexuality in most of the tales, an almost innocent sensuousness that tries impassively to guide these poor, self-deluded souls into calm and peaceful waters. It reads like congratulatory pitying, to me, these peaceful, clairvoyant ladies offering the guidance of only a wrist's slight pressure. There are moments where it's truly beautiful (the end of "Prowlers," the concept behind "Scheherazade," the multiple mockeries of "Shelter"). Still, it doesn't fit right, like a too-tight tie or stockings one-size large; Baxter wants to slip his simple thoughts into the stories like sweet, invisible splinters, but most of them clank in place like rotting railroad ties.
In spite of the sometimes ingratiating mendacity of many of the tales ("Silent Movie" is not what it wants to be, "The Old Fascist in Retirement" is much more than it should), Baxter proves he's got skill. "Scissors" and "Westland" both prove he's capable of telling a story without also clubbing it flat with moralizing metaphors; these are about as good as stories get. It seems, like the dirty realists before him, Baxter's going for something simply wet, something unremarkably muddy, and sometimes he gets there. In other cases, though, the tales are either too clean, too clumsy, or just plain small. I came to this collection at the advice of a friend; I haven't given up on the man ("The Feast of Love" lies somewhere in my stack). I'm not what you would call turned off on the guy, but I've yet to be impressed.
He's a hopeful. This collection contains stories often so whithered of meaning, that they rely on nothing more than the reader to give them any kind of serious impact. I'm not going to go into the solipsism and deconstruction that might make these little literary bon mots interesting or clever; sure enough, there's a potency in Baxter's prose, a certain definable direction. Instead of letting the landmarks of his landscape point us onward, though, Baxter usually pounds some pretty large, reflective signposts into place. The best stories in this collection ("The Disappeared," "Saul and Patsy Are Pregnant," and "Snow") are gussied up with abstract philosophizing at the last minute, made cutely poignant by (maybe) the artist's fear of an uneducated audience.
Baxter's point, unfortunately, is pretty much the same in every tale. Every story contains a man who cannot (or won't) be happy, who finds distraction in a world at odds with the awkward ambition man's soul seems to be fat with from the moment he crawls mewling from the womb. God bless these poor tortured fellows.
In some cases, they are blessed -- by women. There's a lilting sexuality in most of the tales, an almost innocent sensuousness that tries impassively to guide these poor, self-deluded souls into calm and peaceful waters. It reads like congratulatory pitying, to me, these peaceful, clairvoyant ladies offering the guidance of only a wrist's slight pressure. There are moments where it's truly beautiful (the end of "Prowlers," the concept behind "Scheherazade," the multiple mockeries of "Shelter"). Still, it doesn't fit right, like a too-tight tie or stockings one-size large; Baxter wants to slip his simple thoughts into the stories like sweet, invisible splinters, but most of them clank in place like rotting railroad ties.
In spite of the sometimes ingratiating mendacity of many of the tales ("Silent Movie" is not what it wants to be, "The Old Fascist in Retirement" is much more than it should), Baxter proves he's got skill. "Scissors" and "Westland" both prove he's capable of telling a story without also clubbing it flat with moralizing metaphors; these are about as good as stories get. It seems, like the dirty realists before him, Baxter's going for something simply wet, something unremarkably muddy, and sometimes he gets there. In other cases, though, the tales are either too clean, too clumsy, or just plain small. I came to this collection at the advice of a friend; I haven't given up on the man ("The Feast of Love" lies somewhere in my stack). I'm not what you would call turned off on the guy, but I've yet to be impressed.
September 20, 2010
I read a short story by C. Baxter in a creative writing class and it was a story that was included in the Best American Short Stories collection, but I cannot remember what year it was. These stories were beautifully written and have a nice flow to them. I read this book over a 2 day period because I just couldn't put it down. It contains stories about family, friends, lovers, and strangers, and how we interact with each other in various ways.
July 17, 2015
Flawless prose. The stories all come together beautifully in the last piece, "Saul and Patsy Are Pregnant," but my personal favorite is definitely the title story. As someone raised by adopted parents, I strongly related to the main character, though I've not yet run into any "mystery" siblings...
More people should read Charles Baxter-- he has a rare talent for writing stories both unique and universal.
More people should read Charles Baxter-- he has a rare talent for writing stories both unique and universal.
January 24, 2008
I came across this book on a list of the "best novels you've never read."
A beautiful book of short stories. A quick read because the stories are so well-written and interesting. I re-read a few of the essays because they were that lovely! Plus, some of the essays are set in Michigan and I found that charming!
A beautiful book of short stories. A quick read because the stories are so well-written and interesting. I re-read a few of the essays because they were that lovely! Plus, some of the essays are set in Michigan and I found that charming!
April 6, 2008
This was my first time reading Baxter and I enjoyed the element of surprise he brings to his stories, from dialogue to plot.
Favorite line in the book's signature story:
“I don’t like people watching me when they think they’re going to get a skeleton key to my character. I’m not a door and I won’t be opened that easily.”
Favorite line in the book's signature story:
“I don’t like people watching me when they think they’re going to get a skeleton key to my character. I’m not a door and I won’t be opened that easily.”
May 2, 2008
I loved the title story--it had this line that felt just perfect to me ("I have never had a car worth locking; it was not a goal.") I also really liked Fenstad's Mother, Westland, and Snow (which has an awesome first line: "Twelve years old, and I was so bored I was combing my hair just for the hell of it"). There were several stories I didn't care for, but some of these were really impressive.
September 30, 2008
there are some really stellar stories in here, along with a couple mediocre, and 1 rather bizarre. but most of them are delightful morsels sure to make you reflect and/or savor.
intrigued? there are several folks who had time to give this a proper review -- go to the book page. :)
intrigued? there are several folks who had time to give this a proper review -- go to the book page. :)
August 1, 2012
4.5 stars
Collection of short stories: Fenstad's Mother, Westland, Prowlers, A Relative Stranger, Shelter, Snow, Silent Movie, The Old Fascist in Retirement, Three Parabolic Tales: Lake Stephen, Scissors, Scheherazade, The Disappeared, Saul and Patsy are Pregnant. Baxter rocks.
Collection of short stories: Fenstad's Mother, Westland, Prowlers, A Relative Stranger, Shelter, Snow, Silent Movie, The Old Fascist in Retirement, Three Parabolic Tales: Lake Stephen, Scissors, Scheherazade, The Disappeared, Saul and Patsy are Pregnant. Baxter rocks.
May 1, 2007
Oooh I just love this collection and, for that matter, most of Baxter's shorts. I've traveled through small towns and suburban townhouses across this country just on his words and vivid pictures.
September 25, 2008
I first read "Snow" in college, and the final image of that story has stuck with me all this time. I think about it at least every month or so.
April 6, 2009
Profound, tightly-written stories about human interactions, set in Michigan. Very mid-west focused. Loved.
June 10, 2010
Characters who don't fit in their skins, where their internal dialogue is what fuels the story - I loved these and will read more by Baxter.
March 21, 2014
This book contains 13 short stories, 11 of them I enjoyed greatly. Recommended
November 10, 2013
Beautiful. I loved these stories, well I guess I still do. My copy looks like a dictionary from the library, I just keep going back to it.
August 1, 2015
Really good, interesting stories about regular people.
June 14, 2016
Great collection of stories, often dealing with sad, lonely characters that hits you right in the feels.
March 4, 2009
A Relative Stranger is a good collection of stories, but it left me feeling a little uneven. I'm going to stand by my belief that most short story collections include two or three stories that shouldn't be there and A Relative Stranger is no exception. This may have something to do with publishing, but as a reader, I don't like to be yanked around. Collections, I think, should be about continuity of feeling, unless it's an anthology of an author's work; in that case, yes, I want the spectrum. I've read many other GoodReads reviews of this book and review after review discusses Baxter's fascination with "ordinary people." And, I think they are right. The stories in this collection present slices of odd but ultimately mundane lives. Most of the time. Seven out of the thirteen stories here are billiant: sad, funny, and poetically unpretentious. I get the same feeling reading Baxter's stories that I do reading Neil Simon's plays--not so much in the humor, but in the distinctly American patterns of speech. Baxter is a master of dialogue and I like the way the stories meander in unexpected directions. "Shelter," "Snow," and "Lake Stephen," are my favorites. "Westland" is great in the beginning, but meanders too much in the end for me to recommend it as a whole. "Prowlers" and "The Disappeared" are too long, as is "Saul and Patsy," though the dialogue and images in this last story are enough to let Baxter off the hook. "Saul and Patsy" is haunting and just the right kind of American melancholy. My beef is with the structuring of the book as a collection. My guess is that Baxter wrote "S&P" and then decided it was the bookend to the collection; thus his confusing and overly convienent attempt to tie most of the stories together right in the middle of "S&P." And why, all of the sudden, do we get "Three Parabolic Tales" right in the middle of everything? At first, I thought it was the book dating itself. I thought, maybe this is what writers did in the early Nineties, just as some people wore stone-washed jeans or listened to Roxette. But, I can't forget that Denis Johnson was writing Jesus' Son around the same time. Long story short--the book feels like a hodge-podge with some flashes of utter genius thrown in.
p.s.--"The Old Fascist in Retirement" is COMPLETELY different from the rest of the collection and, to my mind, just a long poem; Baxter, like most poets, never really lets you into his funhouse. He doesn't identify the main character at all and we are left to believe he is an undying "Poet for All Ages." I skipped this story over and over and then reluctantly read it. Its tone and structure baffled me, because most of the other stories in A Relative Stranger are so rooted in real characters. Also, "Silent Movie" is boring and typical and feels like filler. "Fenstad's Mother" is a poor choice for an opener, when he could have just as easily gone with the title story, which is really good.
All that being said, I am interested in Baxter as a reader and a writer, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to go just anywhere with him. At least not yet.
But then again, maybe the negative tone of my review is due to my being put on the waiting list for his writing program. Hypocrites unite!
p.s.--"The Old Fascist in Retirement" is COMPLETELY different from the rest of the collection and, to my mind, just a long poem; Baxter, like most poets, never really lets you into his funhouse. He doesn't identify the main character at all and we are left to believe he is an undying "Poet for All Ages." I skipped this story over and over and then reluctantly read it. Its tone and structure baffled me, because most of the other stories in A Relative Stranger are so rooted in real characters. Also, "Silent Movie" is boring and typical and feels like filler. "Fenstad's Mother" is a poor choice for an opener, when he could have just as easily gone with the title story, which is really good.
All that being said, I am interested in Baxter as a reader and a writer, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to go just anywhere with him. At least not yet.
But then again, maybe the negative tone of my review is due to my being put on the waiting list for his writing program. Hypocrites unite!
June 20, 2021
Overall, I enjoyed this collection of short stories, with my favorites being "Shelter" and "The Disappeared," the latter for its excellent portrayal of Detroit as seen through a European's eyes. I also enjoyed "Saul and Patsy Are Pregnant," enough so that I'd be interested to read the writer's novel titled Saul and Patsy. I was intrigued by the story "Prowlers," but somehow the end seemed unsatisfying and I wanted more. Many of the characters are suffering from a vague sort of depression or ennui, and interactions with other people leave them questioning their own happiness and life choices. My least favorite of the collection was "The Old Fascist in Retirement." I really hated that story, enough so that I was ready to put the book down rather than struggle through it.
March 21, 2008
I would include Baxter's "Snow" in my top 20 or 25 short stories. I read it years ago and always wanted to check out more of his work. This collection overall was a disappointment. Besides "Snow", which is in this collection, only three other stories stuck out for me: "The Old Fascist in Retirement", "Shelter", and "Saul and Patsy are Pregnant". Though those three hardly measure up to "Snow". The rest of the stories were either tolerable but forgettable, or the kind of story you'd expect to find in an undergraduate creative writing class. Baxter is too cute with his characters, with his plots and surprises, and with his dialogue. It's like he is writing for television: some thought provoking show about a small town and all its quirky inhabitants. "The feisty old lady who shows her young son what life is about", or "Even a preacher can learn something about faith". When you can sum up a story in one sentence something is wrong. And something is very wrong here, because I don't understand how the guy who wrote "Snow" ( how many times can I repeat that title in this review?) can be the same guy who wrote "Lake Stephen".
One other note, events of a couple of the stories are mentioned in another, but just as passing facts overheard in conversations or read in newspapers. Usually I hate that kind of thing. In my opinion that would be another instance of being cute. But here I think it actually adds to my appreciation of the story where he uses those events. HIs stories center around ordinary people enduring private crises or small, but important dilemmas. He succeeds in staging his characters partly separated from those around them because of these private conflicts when the person next to them: wife, barber, mother, are experiencing something as private and as important. By bringing past stories' events into another, for me it helps to illuminate that divide.
One other note, events of a couple of the stories are mentioned in another, but just as passing facts overheard in conversations or read in newspapers. Usually I hate that kind of thing. In my opinion that would be another instance of being cute. But here I think it actually adds to my appreciation of the story where he uses those events. HIs stories center around ordinary people enduring private crises or small, but important dilemmas. He succeeds in staging his characters partly separated from those around them because of these private conflicts when the person next to them: wife, barber, mother, are experiencing something as private and as important. By bringing past stories' events into another, for me it helps to illuminate that divide.
January 4, 2009
Ann Arbor writer who writes about Michigan - one story in and I'm already wondering what took me so long to pick up one of his collections.
ETA: Excellent, excellent introduction to Charles Baxter - the title story in particular was a standout with its version of counterpoint characters that Baxter includes in a great deal of his work. Especially noteworthy are the stories "Westland" and "The Disappeared" which deal with the outside (in this case European) perspective on the overindustrialization and desensitivity of American culture - the characters take in big handfuls of American culture and then struggle to get out. Another interesting story is "Shelter" which explores upper middle-class guilt complexes.
ETA: Excellent, excellent introduction to Charles Baxter - the title story in particular was a standout with its version of counterpoint characters that Baxter includes in a great deal of his work. Especially noteworthy are the stories "Westland" and "The Disappeared" which deal with the outside (in this case European) perspective on the overindustrialization and desensitivity of American culture - the characters take in big handfuls of American culture and then struggle to get out. Another interesting story is "Shelter" which explores upper middle-class guilt complexes.
June 12, 2020
Adequate late twentieth-century, white male fiction of the sort designed to fit smoothly into the pages of the Atlantic or the New Yorker of its day. Baxter has a polished style that flows well, but his stories lack depth. The plotless plots unfold, characters react to one another (often, of course, half-heartedly), but the anticipated payoff--the actual point that should justify each story's existence--never quite arrives.
January 2, 2017
A collection of short stories that'll leave you hanging, begging for more, begging to know how it turns out, only to move on to the next story. Each character is brought alive by the writings of The author. Many stories are set in, or reference places in, Michigan, giving this book a special place in my heart.
March 26, 2018
This is a great book of short stories concerning ordinary and unusual characters and, whether related or not, they often are relative strangers, with thought provoking topics. I particularly liked Fenstad’s Mother, Shelter, Westland, A Relative Stranger, Prowlers, The Old Fascist in Retirement, and The Disappeared.
June 1, 2010
I enjoyed these stories. There's a certain uneasiness about them that kept me off-balance. There are ones, like "The Disappeared," that I'd like to re-read and discuss. The language is straightforward with an occasional breathtaking line or image.
April 11, 2011
Overall I liked these stories and Baxter is a good writer. I enjoy his Michigan settings and his characters. A few felt a little less developed that I would have liked, but an enjoyable collection all the same.
October 27, 2011
Suddenly, the last few stories in this collection, blew me away. I revisited some of the earlier stories, but no, it wasn't me, they didn't pack the same wallop. Solid overall, with a few duds and a few, like i said, real gooduns.
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