One of the greatest writers and contributors to The New Yorker and other magazines has produced an amazing collection of stories. This is an above-average premier collection of stories thanks to its psychological insights and lovely prose style. Three more stories that were not in the first edition are included in my paperback addition. ( )

I really have no idea why when going for a collection of short stories to read aloud with my wife the name Harold Brodkey popped into my head as the obvious answer. He must have been lurking somewhere in there for some time just waiting for his chance. Brodkey was well known in his day, the fifties through the eighties or so, for his short stories and as staff writer on The New Yorker. He kept the literary world waiting for decades for his debut novel, which when finally released in 1991 as an 800 page behemoth was met with all the critical enthusiasm of a wet fart and which has now disappeared from the public consciousness so comprehensively that on Goodreads it has all of 63 ratings and fewer than a dozen reviews of more than one line. Amazing.

This is his debut collection, containing the stories that launched his reputation and ultimately ill-fated career. The brilliance they contain lay in their close examination of the characters' inner states of mind, their thoughts and feelings and contradictory emotions. The collection is a story of two halves. The first four stories are of some length and concern Brodkey's youth in St. Louis and college years at Harvard. The final five stories are much shorter and are attempts at portraying a young woman and mother, I'm assuming modeled after Brodkey's older sister.

I enjoyed the first half much more than the second half, I must say. Brodkey had more to say in them and of course he had easy access to his own past mind to mine. He could describe his protagonist's state of inner feeling with crystal clarity. A 13 year old's insecurity and feeling of otherness is brilliantly portrayed in State of Grace and an account of a college age young man's spending a year cycling through France with a friend describes the peril that can arise from getting to know anyone too closely for too long with amusing aplomb in The Quarrel.

The second batch of stories he's trying to do the same with a literary stand in for his sister, whom he apparently thought of as shallow and incredibly vain. Sometimes it succeeds I think but for me he misses more often than he hits with these. I miss the feeling of authorial sympathy for his protagonist that the earlier stories have, and I think the length of these compared to the length of the earlier stories reflects that he didn't have as good a grasp on this character and was floundering a bit.

So then, Harold Brodkey, I hope this raising you to the forefront of my consciousness for this time has served to scratch whatever itch you planted at some past moment into my own mind. I'm sorry you've faded from fame so greatly, but hey, there's always the chance you'll get rediscovered, even for that novel to get reevaluated and declared an unjustly ignored classic. You never know. ( )

FINAL REVIEW

It is said that string quartet music is the highest form of art and the lowest form of entertainment. I’m reminded of this pithy observation when reading Harold Brodkey’s highly polished, finely drawn short stories. Not the bite of fantasy or sci-fi but the world of the everyday rendered clearly and with the lyricism of a classical poet, as when the teenage narrator of “First Love and Other Sorrows” says of his mother: “She did not want to see life in a grain of sand; she wanted to see it from the shores of the Riviera, wearing a white sharkskin dress.” And here is one of my favorite Harold Brodkey quotes: “Reading is an intimate act, perhaps more intimate than any other human act. I say that because of the prolonged (or intense) exposure of one mind to another.”

As a way of writing my review, I initially considered synopsizing several of these Brodkey pieces or commenting on specific scenes. However, after further reflection, both of these approaches strike me as less than adequate, almost as if I were to synopsize or provide a running commentary on a collection of classical poetry. Therefore, as a way of giving a reader unfamiliar with Harold Brodkey a sampling of what is to be found in this book, here are a few direct quotes.

From “The State of Grace,” when the narrator is a 13-year old boy: “There is a certain shade of red brick – a dark, almost melodious red, somber and riddled with blue – that is my childhood in St. Louis. Not the real childhood, but the false one that extends from the dawning of consciousness until the day that one leaves home for college. That one shade of red brick and green foliage in St. Louis in the summer (the winter is just a gray sky and a crowded school bus and the wet footprints on the brown linoleum floor at school), and that brick and a pale sky is spring. It’s also loneliness and the queer, self-pitying wonder that children whose families are having catastrophes feel.”

From “First Love and Other Tales,” when the narrator is a high-schooler: “That spring when I was sixteen, more than anything else in the world I wanted to be a success when I grew up. I did not know there was any other way of being lovable. My best friend was a boy named Preston, who already had a heavy beard. He was sky, and unfortunate in his dealings with other people, and he wanted to be a physicist. He had very little imagination, and he pitied anyone who did have it. “You and the word ‘beautiful’!” he would say disdainfully, holding his nose and imitating my voice. “Tell me – what does ‘beautiful’ mean?”
“It’s something you want,” I would say.
“You’re an aesthete,” Preston would say. “I’m a scientist. That’s the difference.”

From “The Quarrel,” when the narrator is a freshman at college: “I came to Harvard from St. Louis in the fall of 1948. I had a scholarship and a widowed mother and a reputation for being a good, hardworking boy. What my scholarship didn’t cover, I earned working Wednesday nights and Saturdays, and I strenuously avoided using any of my mother’s small but adequate income. During the summer between my freshman and sophomore years, my grandmother died and willed me five thousand dollars. I quit my part-time job and bought a gray flannel suit and a pair of white buck shoes, and I got on the editorial board of the college literary magazine. I met Duncan Leggert at the first editorial meeting I attended. He had been an editor for a full year, and this particular night he was infuriated by a story, which everyone wanted to print, about an unhappy, sensitive child. “Why shouldn’t that child be unhappy?” Duncan shouted. “He’s a bore.” The story was accepted, and Duncan stalked out of the meeting.”

Such subtlety and attention to the nuances of language in creating character, setting, atmosphere and tension. If you enjoy poetry as well as prose, Harold Brodkey may become one of your very favorite short story writers.

Harold Brodkey, age 28, in 1958, the year “First Love and Other Sorrows” was first published.
( )

FINAL REVIEW

It is said that string quartet music is the highest form of art and the lowest form of entertainment. I’m reminded of this pithy observation when reading Harold Brodkey’s highly polished, finely drawn short stories. Not the bite of fantasy or sci-fi but the world of the everyday rendered clearly and with the lyricism of a classical poet, as when the teenage narrator of “First Love and Other Sorrows” says of his mother: “She did not want to see life in a grain of sand; she wanted to see it from the shores of the Riviera, wearing a white sharkskin dress.” And here is one of my favorite Harold Brodkey quotes: “Reading is an intimate act, perhaps more intimate than any other human act. I say that because of the prolonged (or intense) exposure of one mind to another.”

As a way of writing my review, I initially considered synopsizing several of these Brodkey pieces or commenting on specific scenes. However, after further reflection, both of these approaches strike me as less than adequate, almost as if I were to synopsize or provide a running commentary on a collection of classical poetry. Therefore, as a way of giving a reader unfamiliar with Harold Brodkey a sampling of what is to be found in this book, here are a few direct quotes.

From “The State of Grace,” when the narrator is a 13-year old boy: “There is a certain shade of red brick – a dark, almost melodious red, somber and riddled with blue – that is my childhood in St. Louis. Not the real childhood, but the false one that extends from the dawning of consciousness until the day that one leaves home for college. That one shade of red brick and green foliage in St. Louis in the summer (the winter is just a gray sky and a crowded school bus and the wet footprints on the brown linoleum floor at school), and that brick and a pale sky is spring. It’s also loneliness and the queer, self-pitying wonder that children whose families are having catastrophes feel.”

From “First Love and Other Tales,” when the narrator is a high-schooler: “That spring when I was sixteen, more than anything else in the world I wanted to be a success when I grew up. I did not know there was any other way of being lovable. My best friend was a boy named Preston, who already had a heavy beard. He was sky, and unfortunate in his dealings with other people, and he wanted to be a physicist. He had very little imagination, and he pitied anyone who did have it. “You and the word ‘beautiful’!” he would say disdainfully, holding his nose and imitating my voice. “Tell me – what does ‘beautiful’ mean?”
“It’s something you want,” I would say.
“You’re an aesthete,” Preston would say. “I’m a scientist. That’s the difference.”

From “The Quarrel,” when the narrator is a freshman at college: “I came to Harvard from St. Louis in the fall of 1948. I had a scholarship and a widowed mother and a reputation for being a good, hardworking boy. What my scholarship didn’t cover, I earned working Wednesday nights and Saturdays, and I strenuously avoided using any of my mother’s small but adequate income. During the summer between my freshman and sophomore years, my grandmother died and willed me five thousand dollars. I quit my part-time job and bought a gray flannel suit and a pair of white buck shoes, and I got on the editorial board of the college literary magazine. I met Duncan Leggert at the first editorial meeting I attended. He had been an editor for a full year, and this particular night he was infuriated by a story, which everyone wanted to print, about an unhappy, sensitive child. “Why shouldn’t that child be unhappy?” Duncan shouted. “He’s a bore.” The story was accepted, and Duncan stalked out of the meeting.”

Such subtlety and attention to the nuances of language in creating character, setting, atmosphere and tension. If you enjoy poetry as well as prose, Harold Brodkey may become one of your very favorite short story writers.

Harold Brodkey, age 28, in 1958, the year “First Love and Other Sorrows” was first published.
( )

Quiet and understated, these stories have the feel of personal anecdotes related over late-night coffees, and the title of the collection does indeed set the tone for each of the inclusions. Exploring the sorrows of love, in multiple guises, Brodkey's stories come together in something like a quilting of remembrances, and read beautifully. That said, the last stories in the collection are connected by a central character, and even as short as they are, some of the immediacy present in earlier stories just doesn't come across. Still, for lovers of quiet and realistically written stories, these are a pleasant escape for an afternoon. ( )