Why I Don’t Write and Other Stories
Author: Susan Minot
Knopf, 156 pages, $25.
Hazy, hot, and humid. Yes, that‘s the condition of the weather these days. But it could also describe Susan Minot’s newest book, “Why I Don’t Write and Other Stories.” At only 156 pages and nine stories, the author writes about human conditions in a way few people can.
From the first story, “Polepole,” readers know they are in the presence of a brilliant writer, one who is not afraid to take chances with punctuation. Some of her dialog has quotation marks, some are absent on purpose. She also takes chances with her story lines. If you like stream-of-consciousness style, you will like this book.
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In the story called “Cafe Mort,” a most bizarre bar/restaurant, she comes up with a smorgasbord of characters. There is Manny who thinks the tonic tastes funny. “Then laugh,” says Rita. There’s a 98-year-old judge, and as the night evolves an emaciated 70s-something woman in a nightgown walks into the bar holding an IV pole, accompanied by a paramedic on either side.
“Boston Common at Twilight” couldn’t be more different. She builds a mysterious, frightening tale with the main character’s life in danger. A female stranger lures Ned into a subway and into her apartment. Ned is in a huge predicament. Will he get out alive? Wish she’d write a book of scary short stories like this one.
“While It Lasts” is the age-old story about a friendship between two women that deteriorates when one falls in love and no longer has time for the other. And there is a wedding, Green Glass, where a couple chats about the kind of talk that goes on among attendees. The story called The Torch is heartbreaking.
Minot is the author of seven other books, some being award-winners including “Monkeys,” and the best-selling “Evening,” a hugely successful movie. She hasn’t written a book of short stories in 30 years.
She likes to say, “I write and I paint, as opposed to saying ‘I am a writer or I am a painter.’” As a child she loved to paint, a talent that continues today. She says her books are guided by an image which is at the heart of all her stories.
The geography she explores in her writing goes from Africa to New York City to Boston. But it is not the geography that makes this book a treat: it’s the people.
Mims Cushing lives in Ponte Vedra Beach and has written three books.
