The Expendables: Stories

by Antonya Nelson

Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award, Antonya Nelson's debut collection of stories displays the off-beat perceptions, the humor, and the sensibility that have won the author not only critical acclaim but a host of devoted readers.

Most of the stories in The Expendables are about marriage -- marriage in process, about to be, about not to be anymore, possibly transgressed, and decidedly not transgressed. In the title story, a teenage boy participates in the spectacle of his sister's second marriage. In "Dog Problems," a husband muses about his wife's attachment to her dog, a bond that predates their marriage and will -- he fears -- outlast it. There is the woman in "Affair Life," happily encircled by her husband and child, who still must choose between her marriage and what is not quite yet an infidelity. Ranging in setting from Atlanta to Chicago and Kansas City, from the arid Southwest to the course of a river running through Colorado canyon walls, the stories in The Expendables show our relationship with destiny, whether resisted, invented, obeyed, or forced.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Antonya Nelson is the author of nine books of fiction, including Nothing Right and the novels Talking in Bed, Nobody’s Girl, and Living to Tell. Nelson’s work has appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, Redbook, and many other magazines, as well as in anthologies such as Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and The Best American Short Stories. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Grant, the Rea Award for the Short Story, and, recently, the United States Artists Simon Fellowship. She is married to the writer Robert Boswell and lives in New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas, where she holds the Cullen Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Houston.

Reviews

[Socraticist · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories aren’t nicey-nice, clean and sanitized. Antonya Nelson has dirt under her fingernails, and the pictures she paints ain’t too pretty. The situations and characters are all at various stages well below anything we would call contentment or success. Most of the characters are unsettled or in psychic pain. Most of the marriages are in need of mending, if that is even possible. All of it is messy, unfixed, and somewhat bleak. Not very pleasurable to read but often the truth hurts.


The best stories are:

Maggie’s Baby
Cold Places
Affair Lite
Mud Season
Slickrock to Bedrock

[Fr. Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book came out in 1989, my second year of college. I was 19, and beginning to embrace what became a failed hope that I would pursue the writer's life, specifically in fiction, and my first creative writing instruction at the college level was from Antonya Nelson at New Mexico State University. It was from her that I learned quite a bit, including the somewhat earth-shattering news that there was such a thing as literary fiction. Literary fiction, to my not-quite-adult mind, was basically non-genre fiction. Later I'd learn about magical realism, and even later I learned about post-modernism, but one of the most difficult things for me to get around was channeling my imagination into a literary, non-genre sphere. I don't know that I ever really mastered that.

The more important message, though, something I still embrace and about which I learn more every time I explore the Genre (capital-G, which has to do with a different level of the writing sphere: capital-G for me encompasses Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction, Playwriting...and within that, you have Short Stories verses Novels, for example), is that short stories and novels are quite different.

I remember a conversation we had, about how frequently, if a novel can do the same thing as a short story, why would someone write a novel instead? I suspect that it has to do with "what sells" and that's even more true now than it was twenty-five years ago. Do people outside of college-level creative writing programs buy short story collections anymore, other than those written by Stephen King?

I hope so.

Nelson is a master of the short story. The Expendables was her first collection, for which she won the Flannery O'Connor award for short fiction (if you've read the other reviews, you already know this), and whose book jacket bears a blurb from none other than Raymond Carver.

There are a few occasions where the writer's hand is perhaps too visible. The most obvious for me is in "Helen in Hollywood," but even therein the content, if not the telling, is strong. Others may disagree, which is why I put the title as a spoiler. It would be better if you read it without my opinion coloring your experience.

My favorite part of the book are the penultimate two stories, the paired "Mud Season" and "Looking for Tower Hall," about a family recovering from the sudden and bewildering death of one of its members. There are many other strong stories here, and I certainly recommend it to those who like their fiction to explore (and thereby reveal) the humanity within the internal process of living, and questioning, one's place within the specific relationships people find themselves. I revisited the collection this month, and I'm so glad I did. I'm an adult now, after all.

http://darkmagnet.blogspot.com/

[Anne Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first published collection of short stories by one of America's best contemporary short story writers. She is a master of the form, managing to accomplish narrative dexterity, consistently authentic characters and surprising but uncannily accurate insights into human relationships. She weaves in these stories intricate webs out of the intersection between destiny, circumstance and the random acts of fate that bedevil us all.

Most of her characters are women, casting about in one way or another to find a life that rationalises their innate desire to belong with the drive to forge their own identity and find some sense of self-actualisation that goes far beyond catering to the needs of others. I'm looking forward to reading her subsequent collection "Female Trouble" which extrapolates even further on this theme.

[Haley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pleasantly impressed by this unsuspecting read. Compelling & intimate examination of human relationships. How we intricately intertwine with or savagely splinter apart from family and chosen individuals. Nuanced and creative.

[Karina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love her writing, for this collection some stories resonated deeply and others I never really got into. All in all it’s a good collection of stories from a great author.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book of short stories I have really enjoyed. One of the stories, Dog Problems, was about a young couple, Adrienne and David and their dog Blanche. Adrienne and Blanche were a couple before David came into the picture, and very quickly, we discover that David often feels like the outsider looking in. Blanche is well behaved and affectionate with both humans, but there is clearly a connection between her and Adrienne that does not include David. One day David calls in sick even though he is not; feeling guilty about missing work, he decides to be helpful to Adrienne and wash the dog. Unfortunately, the Blanche has a stroke during the bath, and David feels responsible. Now he has to manage his feelings of guilt, magnified by his previous jealousy. I will look for other books by this author.

[Nicholas George · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection shows us many individuals in couples in transitional periods in their relationships. The writing is generally very good (although there were some places where a copy editor should have stepped in) but I couldn't sense any theme connecting these pieces, which would have brought a little more needed weight and message.

[sarah]

awesome

[Deidre · Rating 4 out of 5]

More very well written short stories.

[Sara]

flannery o'connor award for short fiction