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You Know What Is Right
YOU KNOW WHAT IS RIGHT evokes a rural American past that lingers still in our imagination. In these stories Jim Heynen develops a unique fictional form that touches us with truth and beauty.
189 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 26, 2019
Heynen was doing short shorts (1 or 2 pages long) long before most people, and he developed a strongly individual approach to the form before most readers had even thought about it. I've been carrying this book around for more than 30 years and had dipped into it from time to time, but now I've sat with it for a couple of days and have read it through.
Heynen has many stories, here and elsewhere, about the "boys." These are memories of rural America, and growing up on farms. Some readers might find these way too nostalgic, but I love them. This is the world I remember from my childhood in western Canada -- boys tipping over outhouses for fun, pigs being born, elaborate mechanical devices for raising the hay up into the hay lofts. Yeah, some of the words are different, and the crops are different, but it is the same world. I am particularly taken with these stories.
I also like the very few he has where the imagination takes over entirely and he allows himself to enter a dream world. He doesn't have very many like these, but they have a subdued eroticism that is wonderful.
He also has quite a few at the end that are mostly jokes -- often fart and masturbation. They are funny, and a couple made me chuckle, but they are intentionally quite a bit more slight than the others.
Still, the book is fun. And it's great to see an early practitioner of this form do his stuff.
Heynen has many stories, here and elsewhere, about the "boys." These are memories of rural America, and growing up on farms. Some readers might find these way too nostalgic, but I love them. This is the world I remember from my childhood in western Canada -- boys tipping over outhouses for fun, pigs being born, elaborate mechanical devices for raising the hay up into the hay lofts. Yeah, some of the words are different, and the crops are different, but it is the same world. I am particularly taken with these stories.
I also like the very few he has where the imagination takes over entirely and he allows himself to enter a dream world. He doesn't have very many like these, but they have a subdued eroticism that is wonderful.
He also has quite a few at the end that are mostly jokes -- often fart and masturbation. They are funny, and a couple made me chuckle, but they are intentionally quite a bit more slight than the others.
Still, the book is fun. And it's great to see an early practitioner of this form do his stuff.
July 27, 2025
This review is solely with reference to the "Ice Storm" story. It's a simple premise - young boys doing the right thing when no one's watching - but I really liked it. Short (only a handful of paragraphs) but scenic and heart-smiling.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews