Foley's Luck: Stories

by Tom Chiarella

Eleven connected stories set in Florida--two of them from The New Yorker--that trace the life of young Dan Foley from adolescence to fatherhood and through divorce. In the title story, Dan, now husband, father, and successful architect, replays the disappointments of the last few years, tracing his bad luck back to the day when, driving with his pregnant wife, he hit and killed a fox.

285 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 1992

Reviews

[Karen Cavalli · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories are gems, in particular those that give glimpses into Foley as a boy and a man. Much of the writing here is beautiful, sharp and clear, paving the way for Tom Chiarella writer at large for Esquire. Foley's younger self has an unselfconsciously original view of the world, and because he is not shy about asserting himself and voicing his views, the reader learns something about both him and how he interacts with the world. Foley is shaped by little violences common to many young lives, such as when his father and uncle pursue a vacation hobby of bottling small creatures in formaldehyde including maneuvering a bustling beehive into a sausage jar full of the preservative. As Foley examines the result he remarks to his father, "You killed a whole city." In a scene with his drunk and passed out older brother, Foley creates a different reality than what confronts him by distancing himself and watching himself and thus sets a pattern for his life. Foley buries emotions with his ability to imagine, and, fittingly, as an adult becomes an architect. Though Foley engages in life--he marries, has two children, has a job, and is a homeowner--he seems emotionally untouched, as though some part of him is preserved and suspended like the small animals and the bees in the beehive. Curiously, there is almost no element of Foley's physicality or the animal comforts of the body. Experience seems not to alter him, and his wife holds this inability to change as a grievance against him. Not even a great loss that occurs has the power to make Foley buckle under the weight of life. At the end of the book Foley is in his 60s, so chances seem slim he will ever be brought low by change or loss. I confess, I wanted that for Foley, because in the hands of a writer like Chiarella it would be rendered in precise, moving language, and I was curious about what Foley undone by grief could teach me.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Chiarella used to write the most incredible essays for ESQUIRE magazine, including one advising how to give a eulogy that is tender and wise and basically life-changing:

http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/how-...

Based on that single essay, I have reached out to read more of Chiarella's work whenever I can get it. "Foley's Luck" is a small collection of linked short stories about an often-disappointed man, from boyhood through youth through marriage and parenthood. They are vivid, engrossing narratives with elements ranging from humor to pathos to downright scariness.

[Ishmaelairvault · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful, maudlin, dragging. I didn't think it was possible to pack so much bathos and ennui into a handful of short stories.