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Fire Year
Jason K. Friedman investigates art, sexuality, love, and religion in seven unconventional and engrossing short stories, winner of the 2012 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. A gay man attends his high school reunion, where he's pursued by the now-married former football star. An awkward teenager grapples with notions of God and girls at his bar mitzvah. A curator's assistant struggles to understand a five hundred-year-old Italian painter's body of work, until his boyfriend (whom he's previously written off as frivolous), makes an accidental discovery that challenges decades of art criticism. A moving picture of the trials religious, cultural, and sexual minorities experience in Georgia and the Deep South.
- GenresShort StoriesLGBTJewish
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 30, 2016
Jason K. Friedman's "Fire Year" is a collection of 7 pieces of short fiction that Salvatore Scibona threatens, in the forward (not to be confused with The Forvartz), will make the reader "remember the first time you read Philip Roth."
These stories didn't bring Philip Roth to mind for a second when I read it, but do they need to? And why? Because both writers are guys who write about Jewish protagonists? A lot of writers write about Jewish protagonists and not many writers remind me of Roth. (I am someone who appreciates Roth, but also, isn't Roth Rothian enough? Does anyone else need to Roth out, or try to out-Roth Roth?)
Which is all to say, I'm glad Friedman isn't particularly Rothian, and even more glad that he takes on a lot of things Roth tends to shy away from (like being Jewish and queer and in the south).
If anything (if we're gonna play Jewish geography, the literary edition), "The Cantor's Miracles," my favorite story of the collection, reminded me a touch of Malamud.
Friedman's stories are okay. I thought the potential for humor often didn't turn into actual humor (there must be a physics equation having to do with kinetic potential comedic somethingerother plus or minus banana peels, but I don't know it). But I'm glad I got this book out of the library. I didn't love it, but there are not a lot of short stories that I love. I tend to go in for the quiet ones that don't seem to be doing much, and yet are completely engrossing and build a whole emotional world in just a few pages. You feel like you've barely taken a step and somehow you've wound up in unfamiliar, yet unnervingly familiar, emotionally resonant territory.
What I am trying to say is I often find the artifice, the mundane or exaggerated and formulaic pouring on of contextual information in short fiction, trying. And I definitely found these stories showing their mechanics a bit too much for my taste. As Frank O'hara says, if someone's chasing you with a knife, you just run. You don't turn around and yell "I was on the track team of Mineola Prep!" That quote may be way off, but I think I'm close. And moreover, that's not quite the point. It's more like, when you run, you don't necessarily say, "I'm running I'm running I'm running" the whole time. Because that's exhausting. But sometimes when reading these stories I thought I heard the writer's voice, "I'm running, I'm running, I'm running." But when that voice quieted down, I enjoyed the strange entanglements and absurd predicaments and the tender and fraught struggles to connect.
These stories didn't bring Philip Roth to mind for a second when I read it, but do they need to? And why? Because both writers are guys who write about Jewish protagonists? A lot of writers write about Jewish protagonists and not many writers remind me of Roth. (I am someone who appreciates Roth, but also, isn't Roth Rothian enough? Does anyone else need to Roth out, or try to out-Roth Roth?)
Which is all to say, I'm glad Friedman isn't particularly Rothian, and even more glad that he takes on a lot of things Roth tends to shy away from (like being Jewish and queer and in the south).
If anything (if we're gonna play Jewish geography, the literary edition), "The Cantor's Miracles," my favorite story of the collection, reminded me a touch of Malamud.
Friedman's stories are okay. I thought the potential for humor often didn't turn into actual humor (there must be a physics equation having to do with kinetic potential comedic somethingerother plus or minus banana peels, but I don't know it). But I'm glad I got this book out of the library. I didn't love it, but there are not a lot of short stories that I love. I tend to go in for the quiet ones that don't seem to be doing much, and yet are completely engrossing and build a whole emotional world in just a few pages. You feel like you've barely taken a step and somehow you've wound up in unfamiliar, yet unnervingly familiar, emotionally resonant territory.
What I am trying to say is I often find the artifice, the mundane or exaggerated and formulaic pouring on of contextual information in short fiction, trying. And I definitely found these stories showing their mechanics a bit too much for my taste. As Frank O'hara says, if someone's chasing you with a knife, you just run. You don't turn around and yell "I was on the track team of Mineola Prep!" That quote may be way off, but I think I'm close. And moreover, that's not quite the point. It's more like, when you run, you don't necessarily say, "I'm running I'm running I'm running" the whole time. Because that's exhausting. But sometimes when reading these stories I thought I heard the writer's voice, "I'm running, I'm running, I'm running." But when that voice quieted down, I enjoyed the strange entanglements and absurd predicaments and the tender and fraught struggles to connect.
December 8, 2013
I've discovered a new Jewish writer I'll want to read AGAIN!!!!
This book is a WONDERFUL collection 'Jewish-theme' short stories!
1) Blue, Reunion, All the World's a Field, The Cantor's Miracle, The Golem, There's Hope for Us All, and Fire Year.
I remember being a Jewish teenager living in the Bay Area-- thinking we are not 'AS' JEWISH as the kids on the EAST coast. (heck, schools closed for High Holiday's on the East coast)....lol
but the SOUTH? Jewish kids grew up in the South? Jason K. Friedman did. A GREAT writer to boot!!!!
I only wonder what 'else' he has coming out next? I'm getting in line!
This book is a WONDERFUL collection 'Jewish-theme' short stories!
1) Blue, Reunion, All the World's a Field, The Cantor's Miracle, The Golem, There's Hope for Us All, and Fire Year.
I remember being a Jewish teenager living in the Bay Area-- thinking we are not 'AS' JEWISH as the kids on the EAST coast. (heck, schools closed for High Holiday's on the East coast)....lol
but the SOUTH? Jewish kids grew up in the South? Jason K. Friedman did. A GREAT writer to boot!!!!
I only wonder what 'else' he has coming out next? I'm getting in line!
March 9, 2023
JEWISH IN THE DEEP SOUTH
I didn’t know what to expect when I picked up Jason K. Friedman’s Fire Year: Stories. The back cover blurb says, “In his humorous and tender debut collection, Jason K. Friedman investigates art, sexuality, love, and religion in seven unconventional and engrossing short stories.” The seven stories are certainly humorous and tender. All of the seven engrossing stories but one concern Jewish characters living in the American South. The juxtaposition of Jewish and Southern is extremely intriguing. Four of the stories have gay narrators or protagonists, several of them young Jewish men who are exploring and coming to terms with their sexuality.
When I turned to the first page of the first story, “Blue,” narrated by a young man who has just had his bar mitzvah, Friedman’s clear, readable prose hooked me and I kept reading the stories, one after the other, until I reached the last page of the last story. Friedman often begins his stories with wonderful first lines. For example, “Sing to me, Muse, of why anyone would attend their high school reunion” (“Reunion”). Or, “They were moving and the cow wasn’t coming with them” (All the World’s a Field”). Also, Friedman’s endings to his stories are beautifully written and immensely satisfying.
Rather than summarize each of the stories in the collection, I’d like to quote a line from each one to give a hint of the flavor of the writing and to pique readers’ interests in these stories.
“Blue”: “A comradeship of outcasts is no comradeship at all.”
“Reunion”: “He was giving me that got-a-homo-in-my-face look, wary but curious.”
“All the World’s a Field”: “Dora looked hard at the green bean in her hand and tore off the string.”
“The Cantor’s Miracles”: “There isn’t any major for being a housewife and mother unless it’s Criminal Justice or Abnormal Psychology.”
“The Golem”: “Rarely in a businessman’s life did a hiring opportunity permit the fulfillment of a mitzvah.”
“There’s Hope for Us All”: “I want that you understand what you have done.”
“Fire Year”: “That his father had led him to this pleasure of the senses was proof that the path of righteousness did not always diverge from the path of physical pleasure.”
I’m glad I met Jason K. Friedman’s characters and spent time with them.
I didn’t know what to expect when I picked up Jason K. Friedman’s Fire Year: Stories. The back cover blurb says, “In his humorous and tender debut collection, Jason K. Friedman investigates art, sexuality, love, and religion in seven unconventional and engrossing short stories.” The seven stories are certainly humorous and tender. All of the seven engrossing stories but one concern Jewish characters living in the American South. The juxtaposition of Jewish and Southern is extremely intriguing. Four of the stories have gay narrators or protagonists, several of them young Jewish men who are exploring and coming to terms with their sexuality.
When I turned to the first page of the first story, “Blue,” narrated by a young man who has just had his bar mitzvah, Friedman’s clear, readable prose hooked me and I kept reading the stories, one after the other, until I reached the last page of the last story. Friedman often begins his stories with wonderful first lines. For example, “Sing to me, Muse, of why anyone would attend their high school reunion” (“Reunion”). Or, “They were moving and the cow wasn’t coming with them” (All the World’s a Field”). Also, Friedman’s endings to his stories are beautifully written and immensely satisfying.
Rather than summarize each of the stories in the collection, I’d like to quote a line from each one to give a hint of the flavor of the writing and to pique readers’ interests in these stories.
“Blue”: “A comradeship of outcasts is no comradeship at all.”
“Reunion”: “He was giving me that got-a-homo-in-my-face look, wary but curious.”
“All the World’s a Field”: “Dora looked hard at the green bean in her hand and tore off the string.”
“The Cantor’s Miracles”: “There isn’t any major for being a housewife and mother unless it’s Criminal Justice or Abnormal Psychology.”
“The Golem”: “Rarely in a businessman’s life did a hiring opportunity permit the fulfillment of a mitzvah.”
“There’s Hope for Us All”: “I want that you understand what you have done.”
“Fire Year”: “That his father had led him to this pleasure of the senses was proof that the path of righteousness did not always diverge from the path of physical pleasure.”
I’m glad I met Jason K. Friedman’s characters and spent time with them.
March 13, 2014
I liked Fire Year a lot. I don't know much about what it's like to be Jewish in the South and found these stories fascinating. My favorite story was "There's Hope for Us All." I thought about it for days afterwards, a sure sign that it made a big impression on me. I'll be very interested to see what Jason Friedman writes next.
April 26, 2018
Catherine make a goodreads so I can RECC THIS TO YOU anyway. Far from perfect but I love the style; part parable, fully immersive. The endings of each of the stories are perfect little mysteries- they aren’t twists exactly, but totally unexpected, always delightful, and allowing for a widening of the interpretation of each piece. Favorite: “There’s Hope For Us All”.
December 11, 2019
Glad to read a book of short stories by gay, Jewish author injecting themes related to these identities into stories. For me, however, the short story format is just too limiting and I find it rarely satisfying. I don't need a fully tied-up ending, but short stories generally leave me cold—left hanging, but not really wanting more.
June 8, 2018
The stories were either hit or miss for me. I either really enjoyed them or struggled to finish.
April 9, 2019
In Fire Year, the 2012 winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, Jason Friedman mines two very distinct veins of American fiction: that of the American Jewish experience, and that of the American South, particularly Georgia. And though those might seem incompatible, Friedman blends them in engaging ways.
Without a doubt, the Jewish element of his stories stands out more prominently. In the opening story, “Blue,” a young man at his bar mitzvah contends with both his growing awareness of his sexuality as well as his communion with the Jewish community at large. The titular cantor in “The Cantor’s Miracles” grapples with issues of faith, charity and proper renumeration.
Friedman also takes on two historical situations. “All the World’s a Field,” for instance, follows the migration of one end of Savannah to the other in the early 20th century, causing friction between a traditional mother and her more ‘modern’ son, while the title story has a mythic, back-to-the-shtetl feel reminiscent of Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Friedman’s stories show a light tone throughout. The cantor, for instance, at one point debates with his girlfriend, if hush puppies are kosher if they’ve been fried in the same oil as shrimp. (“Besides,” she concludes, “at five hundred degress, anything trayf gets killed.”) This mordant humor serves Friedman well, and a big-hearted authorial largesse keeps the bathos at bay. A sexual tryst on a beach between a gay man and a former football player in “Reunion,” for example ends with the football player saying, “Well, that answers a question,” as he realizes that he’s not gay after all. The narrator reflects: “I felt a surprising relief. I didn’t need him to be gay and his wife certainly didn’t need him to be gay.”
Indeed, at times, it feels as if Friedman’s generosity to his characters extends a little too far. At times, Friedman lingers too long on ancillary characters, and despite the vivid and apt descriptions, the stories can feel saggy as well.
I was more struck, however, by how the setting seems to have only a slight impact on the narratives. Obviously, Jews-in-the-South stories aren’t required to be sociological examinations of intolerance and discrimination, but by the same token, “The Golem” could have taken place in almost any setting, if it weren’t for a brief mention of plantations. The Georgian setting, for the most part, exists more for its scenic qualities (“Endless pineforest and marsh surrounded Savannah on three sides, the ocean on the other…”), rather than for any possible political ramifications.
But when Friedman melds the picturesque and the political, as in “There’s Hope for All of Us,” his work shines brighter. In that story, the longest and richest in the collection, the boyfriend of an assistant curator makes a startling discovery about a Renaissance painter, which sends reverberations not only throughout Atlanta, but into the larger art world as well. The ways in which homosexuality, art, commerce and race intersect in this story adds a lush texture to the narrative and suggest the ways in which art—and, by extension, fiction—can and should change one’s perception of the world.
Without a doubt, the Jewish element of his stories stands out more prominently. In the opening story, “Blue,” a young man at his bar mitzvah contends with both his growing awareness of his sexuality as well as his communion with the Jewish community at large. The titular cantor in “The Cantor’s Miracles” grapples with issues of faith, charity and proper renumeration.
Friedman also takes on two historical situations. “All the World’s a Field,” for instance, follows the migration of one end of Savannah to the other in the early 20th century, causing friction between a traditional mother and her more ‘modern’ son, while the title story has a mythic, back-to-the-shtetl feel reminiscent of Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Friedman’s stories show a light tone throughout. The cantor, for instance, at one point debates with his girlfriend, if hush puppies are kosher if they’ve been fried in the same oil as shrimp. (“Besides,” she concludes, “at five hundred degress, anything trayf gets killed.”) This mordant humor serves Friedman well, and a big-hearted authorial largesse keeps the bathos at bay. A sexual tryst on a beach between a gay man and a former football player in “Reunion,” for example ends with the football player saying, “Well, that answers a question,” as he realizes that he’s not gay after all. The narrator reflects: “I felt a surprising relief. I didn’t need him to be gay and his wife certainly didn’t need him to be gay.”
Indeed, at times, it feels as if Friedman’s generosity to his characters extends a little too far. At times, Friedman lingers too long on ancillary characters, and despite the vivid and apt descriptions, the stories can feel saggy as well.
I was more struck, however, by how the setting seems to have only a slight impact on the narratives. Obviously, Jews-in-the-South stories aren’t required to be sociological examinations of intolerance and discrimination, but by the same token, “The Golem” could have taken place in almost any setting, if it weren’t for a brief mention of plantations. The Georgian setting, for the most part, exists more for its scenic qualities (“Endless pineforest and marsh surrounded Savannah on three sides, the ocean on the other…”), rather than for any possible political ramifications.
But when Friedman melds the picturesque and the political, as in “There’s Hope for All of Us,” his work shines brighter. In that story, the longest and richest in the collection, the boyfriend of an assistant curator makes a startling discovery about a Renaissance painter, which sends reverberations not only throughout Atlanta, but into the larger art world as well. The ways in which homosexuality, art, commerce and race intersect in this story adds a lush texture to the narrative and suggest the ways in which art—and, by extension, fiction—can and should change one’s perception of the world.
March 23, 2024
I want to say two things about this book one is that it is a superb collection of stories the second is my annoyance with the introduction by Salvatore Scibona (when I first read this collection I had no idea who this was - no doubt the result of my ignorance though living in the UK may have meant I wasn't aware of him) who compares the author to Philip Roth which is either laziness or simply that he hasn't really given the stories any real thought or attention and is simply seizing on the Jewishness of the two authors to make an easy link. I don't see any real literary comparison, except that they are both Jewish, but then is every Irish writer to be compared to - take your pick - it should be obvious what I am saying.
So the stories are excellent, thoughtful, funny and well worth reading - maybe all the more so because they don't remind me of Philip Roth.
One oddity the book says on the cover that 'Fire Year' won the 2012 Mary McCarthy prize for short fiction but, oddly enough, Goodreads doesn't include the book in its incomplete list of Mary McCarthy short fiction award winners and says that L Anette Binder's 'Rise' won the 2102 Mary McCarthy award in short fiction. I have no doubt that Goodreads is wrong.
So the stories are excellent, thoughtful, funny and well worth reading - maybe all the more so because they don't remind me of Philip Roth.
One oddity the book says on the cover that 'Fire Year' won the 2012 Mary McCarthy prize for short fiction but, oddly enough, Goodreads doesn't include the book in its incomplete list of Mary McCarthy short fiction award winners and says that L Anette Binder's 'Rise' won the 2102 Mary McCarthy award in short fiction. I have no doubt that Goodreads is wrong.
February 10, 2014
Rather flat and uninteresting (at least to me)...
April 9, 2014
Seven unconventional short stories about art, love, religion set in Georgia and the Deep South. Thought provoking. About people who remain outsiders.
June 9, 2014
Review is here: http://outinprintblog.wordpress.com/2...
June 13, 2014
Read my review at http://www.thereportergroup.org/Artic...
August 15, 2014
Thoroughly enjoyable read. Interesting stories, well developed characters, enough to make one think without being dry.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews