Legacies: Stories

by Starling Lawrence

"These finely crafted stories expose the author's wicked intent-to place the reader defenseless in the path of onrushing truth. With the assistance of some unforgettable characters, Starling Lawrence succeeds admirably."―Harper Lee Starling Lawrence's evocative and subtle stories are about illuminations that alter the course of ordinary lives, about moments where the known world is dissolved in fierce recognition. In stories such as "Legacy" or "The Chosen People" the defining moment takes place in childhood, and we are left to wonder what burden of memory these events will impose. For the protagonists of "Butterflies" and "The Crown of Light," or for the narrator of "Immortality," a seed that has been sown years earlier comes to flower under very specific circumstances. "Eight fictional reflections on the nature of love and loss, written with such grace and devotion to character that they echo like elegy in the reader's mind. . . . A writer notable for his ability to create fully imagined lives, and to convey these to us in sure and elegant prose. . . . Evocative fictional debut."―Jessica Treadway, Boston Globe "Super . . . bright and illuminating. . . . Each of his stories works like a cunning, cruel trap and readers will soon thank Lawrence for setting them up, even as they realize it is happening again."― Cleveland Plain Dealer "Elegantly built and taunting mazes and mirror-shows. . . . Fascinating."― San Jose Mercury News

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Starling Lawrence is the editor-at-large at W. W. Norton and the author of Legacies, a short story collection, and the highly praised Montenegro and The Lightning Keeper. His fiction has been awarded the Lytle Prize by the Sewanne Review and the Balch Prize by the Virginia Quarterly Review. He lives in New York and northwestern Connecticut.

Reviews

[fletch · Rating 2 out of 5]

This short story collection starts out strong with "The Crown of Light," tracking the thoughts of an old man as he slips between past and present, the slow and steady movements of one who has dedicated his life to his land, yet battles with a body that is deteriorating. The last image of him walking toward his death while gazing at the aurora borealis seemed a bit dramatic, yes, but Lawrence had sufficiently built up to such a climax. But soon I realized that each of the following stories ended in some sort of sensationalist death or suicide, to make up for lifeless characters and plots. I gave up in the middle of "Reunion," when the main character, a married woman who is traveling on a bus to meet up with an ex-lover, gets assaulted by a fellow passenger: "This man was what she deserved, and perhaps that was why she had not resisted. You were willing for a man who is not your husband to put his hands on you; well, here he is." Bullshit! And then, when she gets to Duluth she inexplicably buys a handgun, presumably to kill her ex, or herself. I was too disgusted to read anything else he'd written.