Five Stories You Must Read - H.C. Gildfind
‘You're Ugly Too’ by Lorrie Moore
I love this story, and every other written by Lorrie Moore! She is the queen of tragicomedy. Her fictional voices are full of life, warmth, humour and incredibly astute insights. Her stories are hilarious, touching and true. This story includes a confrontation between a jaded man and a jaded woman: each of them are fraught with all the hurt, anger and insecurity of middle-aged disappointment. They have an exchange which, I think, sums up Moore's world view. One character says, "Live and learn." The other replies, "Live and get dumb." Indeed!
‘So Much Water So Close To Home’ by Raymond Carver.
This story deserves its fame! It is very unsettling and is about a group of middle aged men who go fishing in a remote spot. They find a dead naked girl in the river and, instead of going home to report it, secure her to the riverbank and continue to fish. The story is really about the 'fallout' that results from this hideous choice, in both the local town and in one of the character's marriages. This is a story about the complex murk that lies around, and between, men and women. I can also recommend the great movie based upon this story, shot in Australia, called "Jindabyne." Read and watch them together - fascinating!
‘Sonny's Blues’ by James Baldwin.
I knew nothing of Baldwin till I stumbled across this touching story. Baldwin has this incredibly assured writing style that immediately transports you into his realist narratives. He has a tender and observant eye, and a profoundly compassionate attitude to all of his characters. This story is about two brothers living in Harlem, one who's a 'successful' teacher and the other who, though he is struggling desperately with drugs, can nevertheless find solace and self-expression in music. This story lead me to read Baldwin's novel, Another Country: brilliant!
‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
This is an amazing, haunting gothic story that draws the reader into the claustrophobic horror of living in a society (and a marriage) that would rather pathologise women than respect them: its female protagonist has been imprisoned in her home, having been given the 'rest cure' for her 'hysteria.' This story will really make your skin crawl, in the best possible way. Very chilling, very insightful and, unfortunately, still very pertinent. Perkins was a prolific and fascinating feminist writer who also wrote the important book: Women and Economics – A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution (1898).
‘Caterpillar Men’ by Max Taylor.
This story represents a true attempt by a writer to empathise with utterly different people from an utterly different time and place. In this surreal, touching and disturbing story, Taylor has attempted to imagine the experiences of Korean comfort women. I came across this story is in the anthology The Kid on the Karaoke stage (Fremantle Press, 2011) and it has stayed with me since.
Helen Gildfind lives in Melbourne and has published fiction, essays, and book reviews in Australia, overseas and online. She was awarded an Australia Council Grant to complete a collection of short stories, The Worry Front, which was published in 2018 by Margaret River Press. Gildfind also won an APA to complete a PhD at the University of Melbourne, which was awarded in 2012. In 2020, Gildfind won the Miami University Press international novella competition: the publication of Born Sleeping is upcoming.
