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Feeding the Eagles: Short Stories
A story of loyalty and honesty, attachment to people and place, love and the inevitable losses of life. The eleven stories feature Miriam Batson, a Southerner transplanted to the Midwest through marriage.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 17, 2015
Miriam Batson, the protagonist of Unforgettable, first appeared in this 1983 collection published by Graywolf Press. Of the 11 stories here, seven are in the third person and four in the first person. They dart back and forth in time: sometimes Miriam is married and back in South Carolina visiting her parents and sister; other times she’s a young graduate student on the way back to California. It was particularly interesting for me, having read Alden’s memoir, Crossing the Moon, to trace the autobiographical roots of many of the stories. I even spotted a couple of lines taken word for word from life: “‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ [Miriam’s] mother says slowly. ‘I think people who don’t have children are the most selfish people in the world.’”
These stories are strong on symbolism and often have memorable endings. For instance, the title phrase seems odd but in context is a beautiful image of turning failure into a positive. Miriam and her husband Ted have gone out fishing from their Minnesota cabin. Ted throws a big fish back, hoping the hook injury wasn’t too deep, but a while later they see it floating on its side. They’re feeling a little guilty – until an eagle drops in and snatches the dead fish. “‘Now you don’t have to feel so bad,’ Ted says. ‘We’re feeding the eagles.’” Elsewhere, Miriam’s grandmother’s wig is a peculiar token of family inheritance, while a snake encountered at a campground is a reminder of excessive sensuality.
As in both Unforgettable and Crossing the Moon, the overarching theme of the book is a woman’s identity and how this shifts through life. Miriam is a daughter, a wife, a grown sister, a writer. She is not a mother, a decision that defines her as much as any other. But even within these roles, time creeps in and changes things. With her elderly parents facing bankruptcy, Miriam realizes, “It occurred to me for the first time that maybe my father didn’t know what was going on.” That sense of a turning of the generations, of the child taking on the responsible parent guise, is undoubtedly true to life.
Another central theme is how places of safety and familiarity lose their capacity to reassure us. For Miriam/Alden, the South becomes increasingly foreign but still has a metaphorical hold on her. “Stretching out around us in every direction are the flat Midwestern plains, and it comes to me that I will not live my life as I have always imagined I would—without even thinking of it—in South Carolina.” All the same, as she drives to the old family cabin in South Carolina before it passes out of their hands for good, she thinks how “all of the roads of her life lead back to this one.”
On this reading the story that meant most to me was “At the Beach,” in which Miriam and her sister Linda take a rare vacation together and marvel at how their parents are aging. “Just so you take them in in their old age,” Miriam jokes, but beneath the quip lies deep concern. I could recognize my sister and myself – now separated by an ocean but not so much anymore by the eight years between us – in this sentence: “It seems we talk more now that we are older, now that we live so far apart and have so little time together.”
One thing I love about Alden’s books is how she seems to see life in discrete parts but also, looking back nostalgically, as a coherent narrative that leads logically and inevitably to the present. This makes for a gently bittersweet tone, but I come away sensing gratitude. As my favorite lines from Crossing the Moon have it, “who can say what is ‘best’? Maybe it’s possible to get to a place where what is best is simply what is.”
(Included in my blog post “Paulette Bates Alden: An Underrated Author.”)
These stories are strong on symbolism and often have memorable endings. For instance, the title phrase seems odd but in context is a beautiful image of turning failure into a positive. Miriam and her husband Ted have gone out fishing from their Minnesota cabin. Ted throws a big fish back, hoping the hook injury wasn’t too deep, but a while later they see it floating on its side. They’re feeling a little guilty – until an eagle drops in and snatches the dead fish. “‘Now you don’t have to feel so bad,’ Ted says. ‘We’re feeding the eagles.’” Elsewhere, Miriam’s grandmother’s wig is a peculiar token of family inheritance, while a snake encountered at a campground is a reminder of excessive sensuality.
As in both Unforgettable and Crossing the Moon, the overarching theme of the book is a woman’s identity and how this shifts through life. Miriam is a daughter, a wife, a grown sister, a writer. She is not a mother, a decision that defines her as much as any other. But even within these roles, time creeps in and changes things. With her elderly parents facing bankruptcy, Miriam realizes, “It occurred to me for the first time that maybe my father didn’t know what was going on.” That sense of a turning of the generations, of the child taking on the responsible parent guise, is undoubtedly true to life.
Another central theme is how places of safety and familiarity lose their capacity to reassure us. For Miriam/Alden, the South becomes increasingly foreign but still has a metaphorical hold on her. “Stretching out around us in every direction are the flat Midwestern plains, and it comes to me that I will not live my life as I have always imagined I would—without even thinking of it—in South Carolina.” All the same, as she drives to the old family cabin in South Carolina before it passes out of their hands for good, she thinks how “all of the roads of her life lead back to this one.”
On this reading the story that meant most to me was “At the Beach,” in which Miriam and her sister Linda take a rare vacation together and marvel at how their parents are aging. “Just so you take them in in their old age,” Miriam jokes, but beneath the quip lies deep concern. I could recognize my sister and myself – now separated by an ocean but not so much anymore by the eight years between us – in this sentence: “It seems we talk more now that we are older, now that we live so far apart and have so little time together.”
One thing I love about Alden’s books is how she seems to see life in discrete parts but also, looking back nostalgically, as a coherent narrative that leads logically and inevitably to the present. This makes for a gently bittersweet tone, but I come away sensing gratitude. As my favorite lines from Crossing the Moon have it, “who can say what is ‘best’? Maybe it’s possible to get to a place where what is best is simply what is.”
(Included in my blog post “Paulette Bates Alden: An Underrated Author.”)
January 5, 2017
mildly entertaining, but far from riveting. took forever to finish mainly because I wasn't that interested. reading on Kindle, forgot that it was labeled as "short stories." read more like a somewhat disjointed novel.
1-interesting-assortment
May 1, 20240.00 on amazon
October 7, 2024
Bought this at a book sale months ago. I’ve never read a book of short stories before, I loved it!
October 10, 2013
Another book by Paulette Bates Alden was available through Book Bub about a month ago. I am picky about what books I get from Book Bub, but often they have turned out quite good. When I was looking at Alden's memoir, I noticed that these short stories were also available for free. I like reading short stories, so I downloaded both titles.
I found theses stories to be entertaining - they were written as a bit of history from one woman's life. These stories are 25 years old - they were first published in 1988. I suspect that the stories are autobiographical, but I did not check to see if that was true. The passage of time plays a big part in the stories, the narrator is watching herself and her family age through the book. I had not experienced life as the narrator has, but she made her feelings and experiences clear. I am glad to have been able to vicariously live through these stories.
If you like short stories, especially those that are linked together, you should try this book. I also recommend them to women who are younger than I am - maybe in their 30's and 40's - I think their lives would more closely mirror what is happening in these tales.
I found theses stories to be entertaining - they were written as a bit of history from one woman's life. These stories are 25 years old - they were first published in 1988. I suspect that the stories are autobiographical, but I did not check to see if that was true. The passage of time plays a big part in the stories, the narrator is watching herself and her family age through the book. I had not experienced life as the narrator has, but she made her feelings and experiences clear. I am glad to have been able to vicariously live through these stories.
If you like short stories, especially those that are linked together, you should try this book. I also recommend them to women who are younger than I am - maybe in their 30's and 40's - I think their lives would more closely mirror what is happening in these tales.
April 28, 2012
This book of quietly elegant short stories really packs a punch. Each story
builds on the next as you get a complex portrait of Miriam Batson,
a young woman who grew up in the South and gradually becomes
a different person as she moves to California and Minnesota. Having
grown up in the South, I can attest to its authenticity. Highly enjoyable.
builds on the next as you get a complex portrait of Miriam Batson,
a young woman who grew up in the South and gradually becomes
a different person as she moves to California and Minnesota. Having
grown up in the South, I can attest to its authenticity. Highly enjoyable.
August 27, 2016
The writing in this book is very good. As in most short stories I have read, the stories seem a little depressing to me, which is why I gave it 3 stars instead of 4. A lot of the stories deal with a woman who is divorced with no kids, or married with no kids, or just all alone.
January 25, 2012
author was one of my childhood school mates, so these stories about my hometown were special to me
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews