The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories (WEST WORD FICTION)

• Publisher:   University of Nevada Press
• Number Of Pages:   248
• Publication Date:   2009-02-28
• ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0874177634
• ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780874177633

This book presents eleven new stories that are set in and around San Francisco by an award-winning author. The stories in this collection explore those moments when the seemingly fixed coordinates of our lives abruptly give way - when mother love fractures, a faithful husband abandons his family, a conscientious middle-class life implodes, or loyalty demands an excruciating sacrifice. The characters share a fundamental predicament, the struggle to name and embrace some faith that can break their fall. In equal measure, they hunger for and resist this elusive possibility and what it demands of them. "The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories" deals with a range of circumstances and relationships, and with characters who must decide what they are willing to risk for the sake of transformation, or for the right to refuse it. The stories trace the effort to traverse the boundaries between one state and another - between conviction and self-doubt, recklessness and despair, resignation and rebellion. And each story propels the reader to imagine what will happen next, to register the unfinished and always precarious quality of every life.

This collection contains nicely structured stories of average Bay Area people, ordinary folk who either experience a cathartic life event or stand on a precipice needing to acquire the courage to make that one leap of faith. Each narrative is filled with precise prose yet retains a stylistic edge. The thematic thread provides a backbone that renders these tales both personal and universal.

Catherine Brady's had a lot of practice writing short stories, and it shines through in The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories (WEST WORD FICTION). In "Slender Little Thing," Brady modifies a poetic form, known as Pantoum, in which the second and fourth lines of the first stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next stanza. The Pantoum is a variation of the Villanelle, in which the first and third lines in a three line stanza poem are repeated as a refrain alternately throughout the poem. Here's an example of a Pantoum and an example of a Villanelle. Poets interested in form will enjoy this story because it uses a version of these forms to hammer home the heart of the story where a mother, Cerise, struggles with her lot in life as a nanny to richer parents and as a nurse assistant in a nursing home while trying to raise her daughter, Sophie, to be more than she is. "The Dazzling World" packs a punch when Judith and Cam are robbed at gunpoint in a foreign country on their way to meet Judith's sister at her archaeological dig site. Not only does this story immerse readers in a foreign nation, it also leads them on a journey of discovery, almost rediscovery for Judith. While these stories are each around 20-30 pages each, the characters are complex and on the verge or dealing with a perspective shattering event. Many of these characters are somber, and more than complacent--resigned--until an event jars them awake to look at their world through different eyes. Settings in this volume of short stories are varied; the characters share common traits, but lead different kinds of lives--two young waitresses trying to pay for college and find themselves, a horse rancher and his roommate's game of relationship chess, a mother trying to raise her daughter successfully and send her off to college, a couple whose relationship is disintegrating, and many more. Readers will enjoy the surface of these stories as well as their deeper meanings beneath the layers of protective skin. Brady's prose is captivating and thought provoking all in just a few lines, and she easily fuses poetic lines and techniques into her narratives.

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