Shiloh

by Bobbie Ann Mason

Bobbie Ann Mason, nacida en 1941, creció en una granja cerca de Maryfield, Kentucky. Estudió en las universidades de Kentucky y Nueva York y se doctoró con una tesis sobreAda o el ardor. Ha publicado dos libros de ensayo: Nabokov's Garden y Girl Sleuth.

Su primer libro de relatos, Shiloh (1982), fue acogido como una gran relevación por parte de la crítica, se lo otorgó el Premio Hemingway a la mejor «opera prima» del año, y resultó finalista en los del Book Critics Circle, American Book Awards y P.E.N./Faulkner.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, School, Classics, American

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Bobbie Ann Mason has won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Book Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her books include In Country and Feather Crowns. She lives in Kentucky.

Reviews

[Adina ( catching up..very slowly) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read with the Short Story Club

Another story about the failing of a marriage. A truck driver is forced to quit his job after an accident and, as a result, spends a lot more time at home with his wife. The wife does not appreciate it as much as he thought she would.

[Cecily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this sadly, simply realist in some ways, but the cultural backdrop was too unfamiliar to gauge the relevance of some aspects. It isn't a bad story, but I didn't like it or engage with it, hence my low rating.

I presume it's set roughly when it was published in 1982. Leroy and his wife Norma Jean married at 18, endured a tragedy, and now, aged 34, an injury means he can't drive his truck, and unemployed.
“Now he is home alone much of the time… He sees things about Norma Jean that he never realized before.”

Spending more time together, they're struggling to readjust or talk about anything meaningful.
“Leroy used to tell hitchhikers his whole life story… Now Leroy has the impulse to tell Norma Jean about himself, as if he had just met her. They have known each other so long they have forgotten a lot about each other.”
She turns to self-improvement; he turns to pipe dreams.


Image: Panorama of Shiloh Military Park, Tennessee (Source)

Good points

I like the conflict of Shiloh being an almost heavenly place to Leroy's mother (as well as its being the name of an Old Testament person and sanctuary) but a battleground both historically (the US civil war) and in the present of the story.

It ends on a cliffhanger.

Short story club

I reread this as one of the stories in The Art of the Short Story, by Dana Gioia, from which I'm aiming to read one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 2 May 2022.

You can read this story here.

You can join the group here.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leroy Moffitt injured his leg in an accident while driving his big rig. He's been recovering at home for four months, and his wife, Norma Jean, is having a hard time adjusting to Leroy's constant presence. Norma Jean has been becoming more independent, exercises, and is learning new skills. The Women's Movement is gaining importance in the 1960s and 1970s.

Leroy is having difficulty realizing how many changes have been taking place in their town while he's been on the road during the last fifteen years. He wants to build a log cabin home, a return to the past, but Norma Jean has no interest in that.

The story has an ambiguous ending as the couple visits Shiloh, the site of an 1862 Civil War battle with many casualties, but no victor. Author Bobbie Ann Mason includes many references to pop culture in this story, giving it a strong sense of time and place. 3.5 stars.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“She got a B on her first paper--a how-to theme on soup-based casseroles.”

Leroy had an accident in his long-haul truck, and is now home all the time with his wife Norma Jean, whose mother Mabel visits too frequently. It’s a story about lives lacking meaning, and lacking the options to find meaning even when they go looking. Very real, and very depressing to read.

But I’m intrigued by the new-to-me author, Bobbie Ann Mason. I’d never heard of her before, and she deftly reeled me in to this story. Four stars for an impressive writing style that shines through the disheartening content.

[Nilguen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a beautifully written short story!! I really enjoyed reading it. Leroy resembles the male character that feels overhauled by the progression that keep on taking place in his town and his home. Norma Jean is the perfect resemblance of a woman that found therapy in activities and even more activities that opened new avenues to explore.
I like how Mason uses Shiloh as the battleground where everything started and finally ended. She perfectly closes the loop of a chapter that´s done and dusted in Leroy and Norma Jean‘s lives.

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[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

How odd that the description here says the story revolves around Leroy, who has lost his truck-driving job following an accident. Silly me — having read the story I believed it revolved around Norma Jean, Leroy's wife! And her mother!

Social realism, in Tennessee and Kentucky, with all the confusion and nastiness that ignorance allows.

[Shelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another read for my literature class. This was very depressing. There's a point towards the end where the reader (at least I did) becomes hopeful that everything will turn out alright for the two main characters. However, the ending is not promising for their future.

[Glenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shiloh is a short story that I read for my short story group here on GR. Some of the members found humor in the story. However, I did not.

Leroy and Norma Jean have been married for a while. Leroy is a cross-country truck driver who was injured in an accident and is now unable to work. Norma Jean works at a Rexall Drugstore and has an interfering mother who visits unannounced way too much.

Norma Jean has recently developed a keen interest in exercise as well as taking some adult education classes. She is broadening her horizons so to speak. Several pop culture references are made. I can only guess that these were an attempt at some levity as it is obvious that this marriage is crumbling.

The ending is ambiguous and quirky and leaves the reader to draw his or her conclusion as to the outcome. I found it rather depressing.

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

women in stem

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I confess to getting frustrated with books that require a little intelligence to figure out the ending...

[Homa Booklover ❤️ · Rating 2 out of 5]

That is not very especial story. About a couple. They'd had relationship sice they were 18, then the girl became pregnant, then they had to married. But their child died at age of four months. The man worked on rig. One day he had an accident that made him disable somehow and couldn't drive anymore. The woman who became an independent and didn't need him, left her husband for every.

[⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ mila ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆ · Rating 2 out of 5]

English 102 reading for uni

[Madeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolute genius of a story. I wrote a paper analyzing the theme of this story. I don't want to bore yall with the details though.

[Max Cannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a Derek Cianfrance film.

[Monzenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well that was a twist. The clear narrative helped immensely, and now the path from the tranquil beginning to the surprise end makes sense.

[isabella · Rating 2 out of 5]

read for american lit

(check trigger warnings always)

[Larrry G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like Leroy, I’m a little hazy on events, but it’s goes not quite a little something like this: bad, bad Leroy is thrown in the slammer for throwing his wife off of some cliffs, after she calls his bluff; while there he forms a short story book club as library custodian, and builds bird houses out of popsicle sticks, which makes him many friends with the inmates, in spite of his demeanor being meaner than a junkyard dog, as he’s always handing out these cool treats in order to collect back the sticks, even though he makes them read the week’s story first, his wife recovers and decides her next project is big rig driving, since it’s the 60’s or thereabouts and there’s one parked in the safari grass. One long and lonely night out on the road for far to long and perhaps aided by some stimulants, she time warps back to the biblical times, where Ulysses, leader of the Philistines, destroys Shiloh. Although it was his calling to do so, Ulysses is condemned to roam the desert for forty long and desolate years, with the only respite being some time being serenaded by some sirens with anachronistic electric organs, well eventually he gets back in time to break Leroy out the big house, and reinstate him as le Roy, but their wives find out about the musical score and plot to kill them with poisoned pastries, but they won’t be their patsies, nor boldenly fleeced. Well, the Misfit broke out of jail with them and since Mabel keeps wanting to go travelling in Tennessee, they have him drive her there, which they never comes back, man they are hard to find, not such a bad thing, now Leroy and Norma Jean can reconcile in peace, and move to a home in the sticks, not one made of the same. Ulysses changes his name to Odysseus, hiding out in the witless protection program, but I’m not supposed to be talking about that. The rest is history.

[Yomna Saber · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's one of those stories that leave you with mixed feelings. The juxtaposition between a husband who has become unemployed and a wife who has embarked on a journey of self-empowerment. The title and the setting of the last scene is a place that hosted the wife's parents' honeymoon and also the civil war. As the couple finally go there, they realize the real stance of their marriage and the story ends with a very ambiguous action. The story alludes to a sad past and even a sadder present for those low-class southerners, the wife's bodybuilding and taking classes in English might be seen a glimpse of hope, but the persisting grief over the dead baby demolishes it as it hangs over the narrative all the time. I am not sure how I feel about that story!

[PJ Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story depicts the slow burn of a failing relationship. The failure isn’t caused by the circumstances the main character finds himself in as much as it is caused by the lack of real direction agreed upon between him and his wife. There is also the looming tragedy of the past being hung over their marriage throughout the whole story. Another realistic story, and a commentary on how not to go about recovering what you lost.

[Koda Mueller · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very symbolic and ironic story about a couple trying to connect and fall in love with one another again after the death of their baby. A very good story that I highly recommend

[nika · Rating 3 out of 5]

my pookie (marriage) is in shambles

[Ricardo Cifuentes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una lectura fría y simbólica, un matrimonio que busca levantarse y un duelo no resuelto, excelente lectura sobre vidas duras.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those stories that has a taste. The flavor is something like the aftertaste of stale coffee and old savory pastries inside a poorly ventilated living room with couches that probably should've been tossed years ago but were kept for sentimental reasons and now carry the permanent scent of mothballs and dust. It's just,, the taste of the tired remnants of a washed-out American dream. Crumbling hopes, lifeless rooms. Great that the story is so evocative of Places and Spaces and Conditions Lacking Hope, but personally? I don't particularly want to read about that recreationally.