Bruce Meyer (1) (1957–)

The focus of Bruce Meyer’s provocative collection, A Feast of Brief Hopes, is the diverse paths that human lives follow and the apparently random forces that shape those lives and make us who we are. For the most part, Meyer zeroes in on lives already lived, devoting the bulk of his narratives to memory and reflection on what has been, or, in some cases, what could have been. The first story, “Long Shot,” introduces the theme. A distinguished alumnus has been invited back to the college where he graduated to deliver a lecture. The conversation over lunch dwells on the biology of conception and the overwhelming odds against pregnancies making it to full term. After lunch the narrator is given a tour of the anatomy lab where he is shown a human cadaver. But the narrator, a poet, commits a breach of protocol: recognizing the dead man whose body is on display, he names him and shares a fond memory with his guide. For this transgression he is banished from the lab—one must never personify “a specimen” by considering the life lived. Elsewhere in the volume we meet people dealing with the stresses of life through reminiscence, and others consumed by envy or filled with regret because they abandoned the dreams of their youth. “The Day I Was Born” addresses the book’s prevalent theme in overt fashion. When the narrator’s background check, which he undertakes in order to teach writing to children, is delayed, he learns the reason: another man born at the same time on the same day at the same hospital has an extensive criminal record and the police have to verify he is who he claims. Fascinated by the confluence of their origins and the divergent paths their lives have followed, the narrator seeks the man out and visits him in prison. And in “Chance,” told in the style of a fairy tale, the narrator describes the huge role that accident played in bringing his parents together, but then enumerates a series of coincidences discovered years later that seem to imply that the two were, in fact, destined to share their lives. Bruce Meyer, veteran writer, author or editor of some 60 volumes of verse, fiction and non-fiction, displays skill and restraint in the straightforward, confident approach he takes to his fiction. The writing is not flashy, the stories themselves—often moving but just as frequently exhibiting a deft comic flair—are not structurally complex. The author never seems to consciously reach for profundity. Yet, upon reaching the end of the book, the reader is left with a dazzling sense of having traveled great distances and witnessed many meaningful things. A Feast of Brief Hopes may be a small, unpretentious volume, easily overlooked amidst a torrent of new titles, but it’s worth seeking out. Its rewards are many.… (altro)