Make It Right: A Novella and Eight Stories

by Ron Yates

"Secrets involving death and shame have a way of rising up in your throat, and for a moment I felt like I might throw up. I fought it, though, and began to feel better when I saw the round barn looming on my right, growing larger as we approached. ... The way it tugged at me felt even stronger than before, and I knew the time would sooner or later come when me and Shane would go inside." - from Make It Right, the novella by Ron Yates.

The characters in these stories are defined by bad choices that reverberate, resulting in multigenerational damage. Realistic landscapes are strewn with wreckage. Each story - through people, places, and conflicts we recognize - asks, how can this mess be fixed? Readers will want to dig for answers, and those who look for rays of hope will find them. They are the ones who can eventually Make It Right.

208 pages, Paperback

Published April 15, 2019

About the author

Ron Yates has been learning to write for most of his life. He whipped out good essays in high school, but his adolescent energies were largely devoted to tinkering with old cars, drag racing, drinking beer, and trying to stay out of trouble.

Although encouraged by his English teachers to pursue higher education, Yates, after graduating high school in lackluster fashion, spent time languishing in factory jobs. An aching back and a caring girlfriend prompted him to explore other options.

His enduring love of reading and nascent knack for writing guided him to a degree in English and a career teaching high school. Years later he earned an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte.

Yates, who lives near Mt. Cheaha on the shore of beautiful Lake Wedowee, Alabama, has published stories in a variety of journals including Hemingway Shorts, KYSO Flash, Still: the Journal, The Oddville Press, and Prime Number Magazine. He has a son and daughter and is married to his sweetheart, Carol Yates.

Reviews

[Jeff Koeppen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh boy, this was gritty, raw, and dark. This book contains a novella and eight short stories, and the theme is people making bad decisions and how their decision affect themselves, friends, and family. Sometimes the final consequences are bad and sometimes things seem to work out, but usually not. All of the stories are set in the southern US, and mostly in rural locations. Growing up in small town Wisconsin, some of the settings actually felt familiar to me.

The novella “Make It Right” comprises about half of this book. It felt like a YA story, which I am not keen to, and was full over over-the-top teenage angst and drama, sprinkled with drinking, sex, and violence. I did not enjoy it.

I did not take to the short stories either, with exception to “I Sank the Mandolin” which was very short and strange in a good way. The balance of the short stories exhibited the same tone and similar themes as the novella, and I can’t really say I liked any of them. I do love a good short story and I don’t mind reading literature which makes me feel uncomfortable, but I just found too much of the content to be off-putting and sometimes over the top. This just wasn’t for me.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Special thanks to LibraryThing's Early Reviewer's Program and Ron Yates for the opportunity to read and review this book. This book consists of one novella and eight short stories. I really enjoyed the novella called "Make it Right," which shows that family definitely comes from the same tree. Out of all the short stories, the ones I enjoyed the most were "Syncretism", "Shadow Of Death", and "I Sank the Mandolin." In "Syncretism" the theme of family is also portrayed but in the fashion of, how much do we really know our own family? In "Shadow of Death" the theme of right and wrong is explored. While all the stories offered thoughts to ponder these were the ones that resonated with me. I'll also give a special shout out to "I Sank the Mandolin" on it's random creativity. It was such a different type of short story and I am still thinking about it. Kudos to Ron Yates! 3-1/2 stars!

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

With each story in Make It Right, Ron Yates gives us characters who are so devastatingly human, that at times the stories were difficult to get through. However, the pay off at the end was always worth it. My favorites in this collection were "Make It Right," "Spooky House," "Boiler Room" and "Shadow of Death." Each story is filled with flawed characters, choices both made and unmade, with consequences that inevitably reveal some of our darkest human truths. The writing is direct and deceivingly simple, and yet the world Yates creates here is tragic, beautiful and so heart-breakingly real. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

[Clifford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ron Yates is an enormously talented writer and this is a powerful collection of stories. From the shocking prologue to the bittersweet finale, Make it Right exudes gritty realism and an abundance of sympathetic characters facing excruciating challenges. That they don’t always make the right choices only enhances the appeal of this gripping debut.

[Kelly L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ron Yates’s collection Make it Right begins with the novella of the same title. A ruthless workaholic father backhands his wife, knocking her down, and killing her. He tasks his son with helping cover up the crime. Then he promises, “By God, I’ll make it right.” This theme carries throughout the oftentimes dark and always provocative next eight stories.

In the opening novella, Yates follows son Shane’s life through a disturbing mix of guilt and shame. We watch, fascinated and horrified, as the decision not to stand up to his father slowly takes everything away from Shane.

Other themes of haves vs. have-nots, superiority and being ‘good enough’ run through this heartbreaking story. Within the heartache are beautiful lines such as: “I’ve learned that there’s a price to pay for pleasing people and that sometimes what we think of as pleasure is really pain waiting to happen.”

Set in Alabama, Yates’s gothic rendering of violence, loss, guilt, shame, fear, self-protection is beautifully and painfully laid out with many coming-of-age stories during emotional crises. Violence is also a recurrent theme.

In “Inertia,” Yates describes Ty as he “passed just to the left of death’s sharp edge.” In “Mandolin” a man tries to break the chains of his father—“nothing and everything had changed.” These are the stories of outliers like Randy in “Operating Expenses” who choose, in spite of everything, to do the right thing. In just a few short pages in the story “Barbeque,” Yates captures the horror of Vietnam as a returned Vet tries to help a burning man. In “Spooky House,” the young protagonist doesn’t stand up for right and ghosts suck him down. In the last story, “The Shadow of Death,” Yates returns to the theme of making it right. And the question, what does that mean? And about what a life is reduced to—or not.

Throughout these tales, Yates shows his droll side with some laugh-out-loud lines when you least expect it. And moves seamlessly in an out of male and female voices.

Yates’s collection is extremely well-written, oftentimes dark and unsettling, and challenges us in our views and thoughts, and is not to be missed.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Good fiction presents plausible problems. Chekhov maintained that the artist is not required to solve the problem but to correctly formulate it. I feel cheated when an author provides a tidy package without allowing me to participate in wrapping it up. I'd hate to deny my readers the opportunity of struggling with the problems I've formulated. In grappling with them, the reader will decide if they've been correctly formulated."

When I saw these words in the preface, my heart sank. I don't want to grapple with problems. I do that all day. When I settle in to read I want all the hard work done for me. I guess I want to be cheated with tidy packages. It's also been my experience that when an author or screenwriter makes these claims, it usually feels like they were just lazy and couldn't figure out how to finish the book or movie they were working on. I'm very relieved this wasn't true of Ron Yates and these offerings.

I really enjoyed these stories and didn't feel I was left hanging after finishing any of them. That's not to say it was all over as soon as the last page was turned. I still find images and thoughts of most of these stories popping into my head at odd times, especially "I Sank the Mandolin."

I love the way Ron Yates writes -- direct and to the point -- and his style was quite refreshing. There isn't a word in these stories that doesn't belong and make sense; no verbose scene-setting to skim through. But you still get that feeling of, say, exploring the old abandoned barn. And you still know enough about the characters to actually care about what happens to them, or to realize you have people in your own life who are just like that.

This is a short book and a quick, thought-provoking read.

[Dorie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Make It Right: A Novella and Eight Stories
by Ron Yates
2018
Ardent Writer Press
4.3 / 5.0

The theme of personal choice-and the repercussions of those choices- are central in these stories and bring each to life. The dilemmas, questions of personal responsibility and morality hint at the harsh realities of our own sometimes self-sabotaging decisions. Told straightforwardly, the honesty makes the people in the stories so real and relatable, but leaves the resolution to the individual reader.

'Make It Right' the opening novella is wonderfully crafted and is a stand-out piece. It was one of my favorites. Stories of loneliness, manhood, being a homeless orphan, the haunting of a mandolin and one about a spooky house pull you right into them. My favorites were 'Make It Right'; 'Operating Expenses'; 'Spooky House' and 'Shadow of Death'. Among the best are 'Boiler Room' and 'Barbeque'.

The harsh realities of life explored in this anthology bring life to the power of our choices, our own resilience and the spirit within us all. Ron Yates is a wildly talented writer whose stories I welcome. Wonderful stories.

Thanks to Ron Yates and Ardent Writer Press for this book for review. Thanks also to LibraryThing.

[Mollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novella and collection of short stories are set in the Deep South. Not all in the same small town, but the feeling of balmy summers, checkered pasts, and small-town familiarity permeates each piece. There is a running theme in each story of unfinished business, wrongs that haven't been reckoned, a looming comeuppance. Each story is told simply with characters that immediately spark curiosity and sympathy, each one working through past mistakes and missed opportunities. Of particular note is "I Sank the Mandolin." This story at once a poetic and straightforward about the murder of a musical instrument and the divergence of a man's future from that of his family. I grew up playing music obsessively, and I've contemplated my viola's demise more times than I care to count. I can relate. There is a darkness and a depth to each story and a few of them made me shudder with secondhand dread. It was a deeply affecting read, I highly recommend it.

[Jeff Abney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of stories by Ron Yates is a thought-provoking, entertaining, and sometimes disturbing read. I very much like that the characters are complex and sometimes do things that are disturbing. I grew up in the rural South in east Alabama, and I immediately knew the people in these stories. Ron's stories are quite well-written with flawed characters who are real and often struggling to "make it right." I just wish the book was longer! I'm eager to read more from Ron Yates!

[Wendi Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Characters this true and this tempted, deserve attention. Through Yates’s rendering, redemption is possible–as long as it’s kept in the family.