Tim Gautreaux Isn't Famous, But He Should Be

Short story writer extraordinaire, Tim Gautreaux

It's easy to exaggerate when talking about a favorite writer. Back in 2008, I wrote: "Tim Gautreaux, in my not so humble opinion, is perhaps our greatest living short story writer."

A lot can change in five years. I've read many more stories since then.

But I still think Tim Gautreaux is America's greatest living short story writer. I still believe that his stories, which often address moral questions, are as close to perfection as it gets, devoid of navel-gazing and the meandering non-plots favored by some of his peers. More importantly, to me anyway, they are stories that  linger in the mind as well as the heart. (Think Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" and Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge.)

If you don't believe me, trust the editors of the prestigious Best American Short Stories anthology, who selected five of his stories for inclusion between 1992 and 2000, including my favorite, "Welding with Children." In that story, the title story in his collection of the same name, a welder whose daughters keep dropping off his grandchildren so that they can go out carousing is torn between resentment towards his daughters, whom he admits he didn’t always do right by when they were young, and his desire to better the lives of his grandchildren, who desperately need a responsible adult in their lives. Here's the opening:

“Tuesday was about typical. My four daughters, not a one of them married, you understand, brought over the kids, one each, and explained to my wife how much fun she was going to have looking after them again. But Tuesday was her day to go out to the casino, so guess who got to tend the four babies? My oldest daughter also brought over a bed rail that the end broke off of. She wanted me to weld it. Now, what the hell you can do in a bed that'll cause the end of a iron rail to break off is beyond me, but she can't afford another one on her burger-flipping salary, she said, so I got to fix it with four little kids hanging on my coveralls."

Did I neglect to mention that Gautreaux's stories are also laugh-out loud funny? Other stories in Welding with Children feature a priest with a drinking problem who is conned into returning a stolen car; an 85-year-old woman who attempts to foil a thief called "Big Blade" with her chicken stew; and a minister who attends a writing conference where he discovers he does indeed have talent only to . . . well, let's just say that the ending is a surprise and the story a cautionary tale about vocation that lingers in the heart and mind.

Because I'm a book geek, I dream not of a favorite sports team winning its season but of the day Tim Gautreaux wins the Nobel Prize in Literature. In the meantime, I'll be hosting a discussion of the book Welding with Children. You can sign up for the discussion at the 3rd floor Readers' Services desk. To read the rest of the story "Welding with Children," first published in The Atlantic Monthly, click here.

The Night Circus

I recently finished reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It was one of those books I had put off time and time again, having been disappointed in the last book taking place in a circus that I read. But I read an excerpt and finally picked it up. I am so glad that I did. This book appealed to a part of me I hadn’t seen in a while—an aesthetically driven, unapologetic romantic.

If I were to use my English-major powers and pick apart this book, I’m sure I would find a lot of flaws. If you are looking for something deeply serious and literary, this may not be the book for you. Some complaints I’ve heard: The characters, while interesting and (in my opinion) by no means one-dimensional, are not the deepest you’ll meet and the plot moves so slowly you can barely tell it’s alive. The love story could be seen as typical Bella-and-Edward, love-at-first-sight, I-don’t-even-care-what-your-personality-is-like-because-I’ve-seen-you-and-I-love-you fare (I personally think it’s more complicated than that, but that’s up to the reader). But none of that really bothered me— like so many characters, I was lost in the magic of the circus.

Morgenstern’s strength lies in her ability to weave this fantasy world of the night circus together, and that’s just what I was looking for. The book is gorgeously atmospheric and practically begs to be filmed (Tim Burton, I am looking at you). The time period is one of my personal favorites, the turn of the 20th century, and is the perfect setting for a story rife with mysticism and other-worldliness. Morgenstern breaks up the book with small chapters written in 2nd person perspective, literally putting you, the reader, right in the story. It’s an unusual device, but it works beautifully. This is a book to be read when all is quiet and you can absorb the flavor that Morgenstern has so carefully brewed for you.

Incidentally, we will be holding a discussion on this book on the first Thursday night in October—the perfect time of year for such a dark and mysterious, magical book. So join us then and let us know what you thought of it! It is also available as an ebook, Kindle format included.

Questions in the Shadows

Awards Season will wrap up this coming weekend with the spectacle and ceremony of the grandaddy of them all, the Oscars. I mention them because a few of the nominated films have provided incredible food for thought lately.

Out of all the major Oscars contenders making the rounds, three have managed to lodge together in my head as almost a single entity: Argo, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty. While completely different in many aspects, the one major thread running through all of these is the spotlight on the United States government and the hurdles overcome, many times from within the government itself, to accomplish tasks of prodigious proportions. More to the point, all three were a narrative focusing on how the actions of individuals can impact the outcome of the system, thus altering national policy and even impacting foreign policy.

The two films of this group depicting the CIA, Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, form a syzygy with completely different tones and outcomes. While both offer a sobering view of the image of Americans abroad, Argo was a bit more comfortable to watch while Zero Dark Thirty was a film that needed to be seen but not necessarily enjoyed. While Argo maintained some character exploration and left the viewer with a bit of warmth in their heart, Zero Dark Thirty almost used the hunt for Osama Bin Laden itself as a main character to bleakly accentuate the question, "Where do we go from here?" I will long remember its final scene, and as far as endings go, it is one of my all-time favorites.

As for Lincoln, Spielberg delivers the genius and vision of Abraham Lincoln, no matter the slight massaging of actual history that was used to tell the story. The film was an incredible portrayal of the ultimate power of the American presidency combined with its most humbling limitations. At once an exegesis of Lincoln's personal life as well as an analysis of the workings of mid-19th century politics, Lincoln cast a microscopic view of a pivotal point in our nation's history.

In this sense, Argo, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty all combine to provide the United States of America a long look at itself in the mirror. The questions of "how did we get here?", "who are we today?", "what is ahead of us?", and "how we are perceived by the rest of the world?" all may be in the background as the Oscars wash around us this week. But as awards season flows away, as the lights turn off and the red carpets are put away, these reflections will linger, if not loom. Hopefully we, both as a people and as individuals, can confront these ideas: digest them, be encouraged by our successes, acknowledge our failures, and help create a better world to live in.