“What makes for a great short story? Thrift, action, and a twist.” A friend from college, Tim McIntosh, offers a list of great shorts.
Category Archives: Fiction
Our Daily Bread, by Lauren B. Davis
Albert Erskine, 21, is “mountain,” which distinguishes him and his clan (all more or less family) from the “townies” of Gideon. They keep to themselves, and they don’t spill their secrets to anyone. Life, as Albert describes it, is a river of sewage; you have to swim through it the best you can and keep your mouth shut. He lives near the top of North Mountain, which has gorgeous views of the sunrise and sunset almost every day, but the Erskines aren’t a nature-loving, life-affirming clan. They are horrible perverts who abuse themselves and their children in every way. Albert has tried to separate himself from his uncles (who have been making moonshine for years, but are branching into methamphetamines now), his grandparents and mother, but he can’t leave. He doesn’t want to abandon the children, ages 2-15, who can only dodge and hide from the adults to survive.
Tom Evans is a father who lives in town and loves his wife dearly but wonders if she really loves him. He doesn’t understand what’s bothering his son, Bobby, but then who can understand a 15 year old? Bobby’s distant, doesn’t seem to fit in—kind of like his wife actually. Maybe an anniversary trip, a special meal on the day they returned to Gideon as a couple, will spark her interest again. And maybe after a few years, they’ll grow out of their current problems.
Snippet Two, Troll Valley
CHAPTER I THRESHING
It really was my fault. There’s no getting away from that.
It started during the threshing.
I remember I was angry till I saw the red caps. Then I was frightened. As always.
Regular people, my brother Fred had explained to me recently, laughing, do not see red Norwegian caps (luer) with long tails and tassels dancing in the grass whenever they lose their tempers. All around me the caps rushed and gamboled in my sight, like flaming fox tails among the fields. I never saw the folk who wore those caps, nor wished to. They danced, it seemed, just underground, moving through the earth like fish in water.
So I’d learned to stop and take a few deep breaths whenever I got angry. The red caps usually went away then.
“Chris! Auggie! Fred! You think those shovels were made for leaning on?” Continue reading Snippet Two, Troll Valley
Snippet One, Troll Valley
[To whet your appetite for my new novel, which I hope (but can’t promise) to have out by Christmas, here’s a snippet. I’ll post them here from time to time until the book is released. Every Friday, and possibly more if I’m feeling generous. lw]
PROLOGUE:
THE PRESENT.
Shane Anderson woke up in a room he didn’t recognize. He had no idea where he was, and no idea who was with him.
This was not unusual for him.
Never before, however, had he awakened in an attic room (he could tell by the slanted ceiling) in what was clearly a very old house, with no company but a very big Native American in a gray sweat suit, sitting in an armchair and reading a Bible.
“Where am I?” Shane asked. The bed he lay in didn’t go with the room, which had old-fashioned figured wallpaper and carved woodwork around the doors and windows. It was a modern adjustable bed, with some kind of control panel on a side rail. A hospital bed.
The Native American looked up from his reading and said, “You’re home. Or it will be your home someday. At least legally. If you don’t O. D. or break your neck.”
“The big house in Epsom? What the—ʺ
“No profanity, son. I have your mother’s instructions to wash your mouth out with soap if you speak profanities or curse. It’s one of the things in your life she’s particularly concerned about.” Continue reading Snippet One, Troll Valley
Agnes Mallory, by Andrew Klavan
‘Look,’ she said wearily from the stairs. I was leaning against the stove, studying her stupid sneakers. My arms crossed, my soul leaden with sorrow. ‘I just don’t want to approach you too fast. I know you don’t like journalists. I saw you on TV: slamming the door? That’s why I was watching…’
‘Oh, admit it: you were being mysterious and romantic.’
‘Jesus!’ One of her little sneaks gave a little stomp. ‘You sound just like my father.’
Fortunately, this arrow went directly through my heart and came out the other side, so there was no need to have it surgically removed, which can be expensive….
Back in 1985, the young author author Andrew Klavan had a novel published in England which didn’t find a home in the U.S. This novel is Agnes Mallory, which is now, thankfully, available in a Kindle edition from Mysterious Press.
The narrator of the story is Harry Bernard. Harry lives in a secluded cabin, outside the New York suburb of Westchester. He is a recluse, a broken man, a disbarred lawyer who has left his family behind.
He wants nothing to do with the young woman who follows him home one evening, in the rain. Klavan introduces her in such a way that the reader isn’t sure at first whether she’s real or a ghost. And that’s appropriate, since this is a kind of a ghost story—but the ghosts are the memories we carry with us and the dreams we’ve buried in the cellar. Continue reading Agnes Mallory, by Andrew Klavan
When the Devil Whistles, by Rick Acker
I’ve been pleased, especially since I got my Kindle, to discover some writers who are lifting the Christian fiction genre to a higher level. When the Devil Whistles qualifies for that kind of praise.
Rick Acker’s novel centers on a young woman, Allie Whitman, who leads a sort of secret life, taking temporary jobs at corporations that do business with the government, nosing out fraud, and then filing lawsuits against them through a company of her own called Devil to Pay. She works closely with her lawyer, Connor Norman, who does the litigation while she stays anonymous. Each of them is attracted to the other, but any romance would spoil their profitable business.
Then Allie is caught out by an employer, a deep-sea salvage company. Instead of just firing her, they blackmail her into investigating another company, a business rival. Continue reading When the Devil Whistles, by Rick Acker
Under the pseudonym of Keith Peterson
Phil has already mentioned this in prospect, but Andrew Klavan’s early novels, written under the name Keith Peterson, are now in print again from Mysterious Press.
I especially recommend the John Wells novels, the first of which is The Trapdoor.
I do not recommend The Animal Hour.
Breaking the Contract
Nathaniel Lee has a good, 100-word story on dealing with the devil (or a likeness thereof). Congratulations to him for his new collection of stories called Splinters of Silver and Glass.
The Unquiet Bones, by Mel Starr
If you’re mourning the end of Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael novels, you could do a lot worse than giving a try to Mel Starr’s series of medieval mysteries featuring Hugh de Singleton, Surgeon. Especially if you’re a Christian.
The Unquiet Bones begins with the discovery (in a castle waste pit) of a human skeleton. Hugh de Singleton is called by the Baron, Lord Gilbert, to examine the bones and determine if they belong to one of two castle visitors who disappeared a few months before, a nobleman and his squire. Hugh soon realizes that these bones belong to a young woman. And nobody in the neighborhood is missing a young woman.
Hugh, narrating his own story, explains that he is the younger, landless son of a minor nobleman, and studied to be a surgeon at Oxford and Paris (his Oxford mentor, John Wyclif, appears in a couple scenes). His fortunes in his profession were unremarkable until he sewed up a wound for Lord Gilbert, who was impressed enough to invite him to move to his own castle to serve his household and tenants. Hugh is all the more eager to do this as he has fallen in love with Lord Gilbert’s sister, Lady Joan, though he has no illusions about the possibility of marriage to someone so far above his station.
As the inquiry widens, Lord Gilbert appoints Hugh his bailiff, with authority to investigate crimes. Hugh systematically canvasses near and distant villages. He identifies one man as the murderer and then, troubled by doubts, uncovers evidence to clear him, which sends him back to square one. But he perseveres, and the mystery is revealed in the end. At times of doubt and puzzlement he resorts to prayer, which does not fail him.
There’s little suspense in this book, and the violence generally happens offstage. This will be a plus for those who read mysteries for the puzzles more than the action. The material is handled in a way that’s suitable for any reader old enough to follow the story.
I enjoyed the 14th Century setting, and the fruits of Mr. Starr’s research (he is a professional historian). I would have liked a little more dramatic tension, and the prose sometimes slipped into neologisms which spoiled the spell somewhat (he refers to a comfortable bed as “a special experience for me” at one point).
But all things taken together I enjoyed the book greatly, and plan to read more of the Hugh de Singleton mysteries.
Interview with a Plagiarist
Author Jeremy Duns has a lengthy analysis of the plagiarism in Assassin of Secrets and posts an interview with the author in the comments section. The disgraced author, Quentin Rowan, begins with his initial motivation:
When I was 19 a poem I wrote in high school was chosen for The Best American Poetry 1996. Up until that time I was an indifferent writer, a dabbler really, at the best of times. I was in college and like everyone trying to figure out what I wanted to do with myself. (Mostly I just wanted to play Rock music.) I took this anthology business as a sign that I was meant to be a famous writer. However, unlike any normal person who works at something a long time and eventually gets good, I decided I had to be good then and there. Because I was already supposed to be the Best.