This Day in History

by Anthony Varallo

On the verge of maturity--where parents are distant or absent, friendships are often more accidental than deliberate, and restless angst is common--Anthony Varallo's adolescent protagonists dissect the world, and their place in it, with keen perception. This Day in History deftly collects their moments of discovery. “There's a feeling I get whenever I enter an unfamiliar house, as if a secret inventory has been handed to me, and I am made to understand that the sofa cushions are stained underneath, the coffee table nursing one gimp leg, the books along the bookcase stolen from summer rental, and the dining room table used only for Christmas and taxes,” the narrator confesses in the first of Varallo's twelve stories. Here, a birthday party for an unpopular classmate reveals an adult world both familiar and utterly strange. In subsequent stories a young girl longs to be a part of her best friend's family, only to discover the family is less than ideal; two sisters recall the childhood houses they grew up--and apart--in, places inseparable from each woman's notion of the other; and a mother and son set off on a bold and hopeless errand, their suburban neighborhood momentarily transformed into a stage. As these children stand on the brink of adulthood, unsure how to move forward, striving to make sense of the world around them, they often discover that the distance between themselves and others is no nearly so great as first imagined. Funny, sad, and hopeful, Varallo's stories make a gentle argument for connection and community and, in doing so, seek to extend our sympathy toward the world.

180 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

About the author

Anthony Varallo is the author What Did You Do Today?, winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, forthcoming from the University of North Texas Press in Fall 2023. He is also the author of a novel, The Lines, as well as four previous short story collections: This Day in History, winner of the John Simmons Short Fiction Award; Out Loud, winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize; Think of Me and I'll Know (TriQuarterly Books); and Everyone Was There, winner of the Elixir Press Fiction Award.

Currently he is professor of English at the College of Charleston, where he teaches in the MFA program in Creative Writing.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.5* of five

I read this fifteen years ago and was entranced. Its focus is on the utterly incomprehensible world of adulthood and the unfathomable world of childhood bouncing off each other.

Author Varallo was able to make that evergreen topic into a fully involving topic by means of his selections—not one narrator, not one angle, but multiple lenses at different heights viewing a strangely similar target without the perspective to make sense of it.

High quality stuff. Heartily recommended.

[John Luiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunningly good collection of stories that will make you laugh out loud one moment and break your heart the next. Eleven of the 12 stories are told through the eyes of children, generally preteens or early teens. In the first half of the collection, they're boys coping with bullies, aloof brothers, or distant or absent fathers. The second half of the collection gives ways to girls, dealing with the key relationships in their lives - a sister, a friend with an imagined "perfect" family, or an ornery grandmother who won't speak to the girl's wild mother.

As is this case with most literary fiction, plot takes a back seat to character, and in some of these stories, there's very little plot even by short story standards - just a series of impressions of key moments in characters' lives. But the emotional impact of those gradually accruing impressions pack such a wallop that you're left feeling far more dazzled than you could be by any standard plot arc. Some of these stories were so moving, I immediately re-read them just to fully appreciate their emotional weight. These are stories that I will turn back to again and again. I was particularly blown away by "The Miles Between Harriet Tubman and Harriet Truman," which focuses on a young boy who's the child of divorced parents and who tricks his father into spending more time with him by giving the wrong directions about where he should be returned to his mother after his brief visits with his dad.

The writing here is masterful. Every story offers at least one gem of a metaphor. Consider this one from "Sometimes I'm Becky Macomber" explaining why the young female narrator likes to consider the good even in things that should be bad: "even the blackest, dimmest asphalt can reveal washes of purple and veins of green in certain light."

What's amazing about these stories is how much meaning is floating just below the surface. Many writers turn to Charles Baxter's "The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot" to learn how to write that way, but this collection could be considered the model for how to not smack readers in the face with the "themes" of a story and instead let all the emotional resonance of a piece simmer beneath the characters' overt words and actions. The stories in the collection are:

1. The Eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg (15 pp) - Two eighth-grade boys hang out with an older girl in their last time together before one of them moves because his older brother commits suicide. While reading the Great Gatsby for a class, the narrator ends up feeling like he, his friend, and the girl are in a Nick/Gatsby/Daisy-like triangle.

2. The Pines (18 pp) - A lonely 11-year-old becomes the unlikely friend of an older bully who is obsessed with feeding pine to a pine-cone eating catfish at a local lake.

3. A Tiny Raft (15 pp) - A soon-to-be dad who can't ever live in the moment, but always observes everyone around him in a detached way, gets carried away when he's asked by a neighbor to play ping pong with him and his daughter.

4. Pool Season (12 pp) - An adult narrator remembers the summer when he was 11 and he hung out at the neighborhood pool and when his primary relationship was with his cynical and detached 16-year-old brother.

5. Sunday Wash - (14 pp) A young boy who has lost his father tries to get used to the new man who's moved in with his mother, while also trying to understand why the things he says and feels are always the opposite of what people expect of him.

6. The Miles Between Harriet Tubman and Harry Truman (13 pp) - A story you'll want to read over and over. It's brilliant and heart-wrenching and possesses a clever, unique structure - episodic car rides as the young son of divorced parents gets dropped off by his rarely seen father at highway rest stops for the transfer back to his mother. The boy goes to great lengths to make a show to his father that he's making the best of it (hopelessly & secretively wishing his father might notice the effort it takes), as he tries to understand why his father abandoned him and his mother to start a new family. By story's end, the poor boy must face an even deeper abandonment. (The title refers to the boy's attempts to pretend his mother gets the names of the rest stops where he should be dropped off wrong so he can spend a few more minutes with his father before he abandons him once again. There are a few surprise elements in the story - and they unfold deeper and deeper with each subsequent read.)

7. The Houses Left Behind (16 pp) - The bonds between two sisters over the course of a lifetime are examined through the framework of all the living spaces they occupied through their lives.

8. A Dictionary of Saints (15 pp) - A young boy at a Catholic school gets to know the least popular kid at and is invited to an odd birthday party at the boy's house that is mainly filled with his sarcastic and teasing adult relatives.

9. The Knot (14 pp) - A notoriously crazy mom gets shunned by her neighbors, as she takes her son from house to house as she searches for someone to tie her son's tie. She's dressed the boy in a suit to prepare him for his birthday dinner with her ex-husband. The boy already knows his father has cancelled on him, but he doesn't have the heart to tell his mother. A heart-wrenching "child forced to parent the parent" story.

10. Be True to Your School (13 pp) - Through e-mails send by a high school girl to her best friend who's moved away, we learn how a young girl is coping through the trials and tribulations of her daily life without her best friend by her side. One part of the story, in which a sarcastic student teases a nerdy teacher who's baffled over how to use a set of multi-colored chalks his wife gave him, is laugh out loud funny.

11. Sometimes I'm Becky Macomber (10 pp) - A young girl who often sleeps over a best friend's house harbors the fantasy that her best friend has the perfect family - a fantasy she clings to even when the evidence starts to suggest it might not be the case.

12. This Day in History (10 pp) - A young girl spends a weekend visit alone with her grandmother because her mother and the grandmother don't speak. But as the girl gets to know her firm, but more than a little quirky grandmother better, their tentative bond puts a small crack in the wall her mother and grandmother have placed between them.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection isn’t tied together with characters dipping their toes into each other’s stories, but they are so closely tied in feel, digging down to the lonely places of childhood, the unsureness of adulthood, and the rare moments when children and adults connect.

[Valerie Doherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short stories- Terrific characters and "joyful to read" prose.

[Brian Bruno · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good assortment of coming of age short stories.