Lately

by Sara Pritchard

In this deliciously heart-rending collection, eleven interconnected stories present women and men whose lives have been influenced by Bob Dylan and Vietnam, childhood accidents and family mysteries. When two sisters throw a divorce party, it's a Martha Stewart vision gone haywire. A coed in the late 1960s muddles through an unplanned pregnancy while the father is missing in action. A vacationer thinks she sees her late father on a transatlantic flight. With charming prose, offbeat characters, and emotional depth, Sara Pritchard illuminates our defining moments.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Along with Help Wanted: Female (Etruscan Press, 2013), Sara Pritchard is the author of the novel-in-stories, Crackpots, and the linked-story collection, Lately. Pritchard won the Bakeless Prize for Fiction in 2003 with Crackpots, which went on to be a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She lives in Morgantown, West Virginia, and teaches in the Wilkes Low-Residency Creative Writing Program in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Reviews

[Randy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me preface this by saying that, having heard Sara read her stories on several occasions, I got the distinct pleasure of hearing all of these stories 'aloud' in my head in her wonderfully fey voice.

Like her first book, Crackpots, Lately consists of interconnected stories. However, unlike Crackpots--which was about one central character and was, therefore, more novelistic--the connections in Lately are more tenuous, scattered. Subsequently their power is a bit more diffused and the quality a bit more uneven (ranging from just 'good' to 'outstanding'--no 'poor' or 'fair' here).

The best of them combine Pritchard's ability to create distinctive and quirky characters with her talent for fully immersing the reader in their POV, their psyches, and her knack for backing out of the action and going into flights of deep introspection/retrospection. In 'The Christening', for example, we are dropped right into the thoughts and perceptions of an elderly grandmother in the throes of senility only to switch later to the perspective of her terminally ill daughter. It's a nifty trick with a subtle but worthwhile payoff. Both 'The Wonders of the World' and 'The Pink Hotel' move easily between past and present, action and reflection. Both deal with grief and abandonment and they rip your heart out without even trying. 'The Honor of Your Presence' is a terrific mix of pathos and humor.

Even the less effective stories ('The Lost Pilot', 'Reading Raymond Carver, Waiting for Bob Dylan) are sweetened by Pritchard's wry and quirky observations and gentle humor.

For fans of short fiction, Pritchard is a talent worth discovering. And if you ever get a chance to see her read, do so posthaste.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of short stories that are fascinating and unusual and extremely well written. This is a writer to watch. Her use of metaphor is nothing short of astonishing.

[Barb Anders · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book more towards the end than the beginning....it's a book of short stories (14 of them) and while i liked some of them, others I couldn't relate to. The author is a great writer and there were a couple of them that I really enjoyed. One called Here on Earth made me laugh in parts....very witty and funny writing, with a sense of humor like my own. The Christening is about dementia and that one hit a bit close to home, but still beautifully written. All in all, a good book. It's nice to read short stories and really absorb yourself in them.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review on its way.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even before I started reading Lately by Sara Pritchard, I've been thinking about religion. Raised Catholic but not practicing, I can't help but to feel like I'm in Limbo. Don't get me wrong, I say my rosary every day and am mindful--do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I just have been feeling a little push to do a little something more with my spiritual life. I'm just thinking about what that little something is. I don't necessarily agree with the Catholic Church on several issues. (I don't have time to get into right now.) And I've always been told that if you want to be part of a club you have to follow the club's rules. Hence, I am no longer a practicing member of the Catholic Club. At the same time, I don't think any other form of Christianity is as hip to the Virgin Mary as Catholicism and me. See how I have already arrived at Limbo...I digress...

Lately, to put it in Amanda terms, is the biggity bomb! I don't say this because I went to graduate school with Sara Pritchard or because she's a totally rad human being. I say this as a dedicated, skeptical reader. The beauty of theses linked stories (not exactly a novel and not exactly separate short stories--the setting/location overlaps in each story and some characters appear in more than one story) is its unique and well-developed characters. These are people you feel you know only after two pages of reading. You trust their voices and actions. You'd think they are real, and Pritchard is just relaying the facts. Most times, at least one of the characters in each story reminds me of Stokes--he or she is a truly wacky, lovable peep with a very unique perspective on life.

Seriously, there's so much I love about this book, but I don't have the time right now to get into it fully. Here are some highlights: Of course, I was attracted to the themes of religion/spirituality. It almost seemed cosmic that I was reading it during this time of my own spiritual reflection. I LOVE the things in Pritchard's stories. She always includes object that resonate on multiple levels for me--things I have owned, have desired from a distance, or associate with people close to me. Examples: ESPRIT (yes, the 80s label we all loved) boots, Chinese character tattoos, Lucky Strike cigs, Martha Stewart, Bob Dylan (pop icons can count as objects to a certain degree...). Also, I LOVE her writing style, how she weaves several stories together at one time but she always comes back to the main story at hand--this is EXACTLY how my brain works!

My favorites in this collection: "The Honor of Your Presence," "The Pink Motel," "Reading Raymond Carver, Waiting for Bob Dylan," and "Here on Earth." My favorite scene involves the Virgin Mary taking the wheel (No, Carrie Underwood, not Jesus, but Mary) in "La Vecchietta in Siena."

I highly recommend this book. It's a fun and a smart read. I give it four and a half Hello Kittys.

[Kori · Rating 4 out of 5]

A memorable collection of linked stories featuring quirky, unusual characters. This was my third time through this book, having read it twice before for a fiction workshop two years ago, but I found myself being more critical of it this go-around. Since I'm studying linked collections to find a possible model for my own, I was thinking about exactly what the "link" is here. Is it thematic? Setting-based? Character driven? Maybe it's all of these, but I found myself thinking about certain characters more than others, especially small narratives, like the story of Beryl, a teenage who becomes pregnant after her sister gives birth to a deformed child, that captured my interest, but vanished from the story rather quickly. This is no fault at all to Ms. Pritchard - this book is gorgeous, electric and vivid. But it does make me think, as Crackpots did, about form and the elements that can be used as devices to link related stories.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stumbled upon this book of short stories when the title of one of them, "Reading Raymond Carver, Waiting for Bob Dylan" came up in a search for something else entirely. Captured by the mixing of past memories with present situations in that story, I read on and discovered a voice that really spoke to me--"charming prose, offbeat characters, and emotional depth." It doesn't hurt that she clearly has some ties to Pennsylvania, or a place she calls Northwest Pennsy-hi-o, part PA, part the Ohio River Valley, part New Jersey, part New York, and part northern West Virginia--all the places I've lived and/or are familiar with. This is especially strong in the story "Here on Earth." The eccentricities and elusiveness of the main character in another story, "The Lost Pilot," compassionately reminds me of a man in my own life.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did truly love this book, and would have even if I didn't know Sara and didn't hear her lovely little voice in my head as I read. The stories are so fresh and original. I hardly ever use the word, but they were "delighful". That's the only word for them. Of course, the neurotic in me had to make lists of the characters in each story so I'd be able to see how they all connected, but that was fun and kept me engaged (not that I needed anything else to do that). The way these stories show the connections people have--deep or periphary--and how people come and go, maybe just touching lightly, but always leaving some sort of mark, is beautiful and true to life. I liked this one even better than Crackpots!

[Gerry LaFemina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a fun read--chock full of quirky characters with real situations: the main character in her story “The Lost Pilot” who once saved an entire airliner full of people by landing without landing gear, but who is ready now for the Bermuda Triangle. Or Miriam–an elderly woman who as her dementia gets worse, sees her daughter Celeste as the “woman in the blue linen suit” who perhaps is stalking her. Or Maggie who prepares for her divorce party–an anti-matrimony affair hosted by her friend Jack who collects paint-by-number paintings of the Last Supper. Pritchard handles it all with deft complex narratives, heart without setimentality, and humor without pandering.

[Jan Priddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

All of life. Prichard adeptly moves with her characters’ consciousness through entire lifetimes as they attempt to reconcile their hopes and dreams, the early pain of childhood and the reality of where they are in middle age, approaching death. Addiction, estrangement from children and parents, loss of parents, destroyed marriages, dementia in old age are recurrent elements. “Time seemed to have just accumulated, wadded up like hair in a drain . . . Were we like stars, visible only at certain times, under certain circumstances, in certain lighting—or the lack of it?” (“Reading Raymond Carver, Waiting for Bob Dylan” 130).

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm getting to the point where I don't like short stories. I'm unable to emotionally invest in them because I know they're brief, so it always feels like a chore to finish the collection. I just prefer novels.

[Sydney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had read one or two previously, but felt compelled to return to the collection. A few of the stories I love, but some leave me cold. It is the story of the mother walking in the snow that draws me back — so ethereal, but at the same time emotionally real.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

hilarious. absurd.
Pritchard manages to bring the most ridiculous details into her short stories. It is not annoying or forced. It is simply hilarious. Check out her website, too. It is fantastic.

[Lori]

This is an interesting, quirky and memorable collection of stories.

[Chunkeemonkee77 · Rating 5 out of 5]

AWESOME!