Hue and Cry by James Allen McPherson (October 2017)
McPherson’s
collection was among the best I read in 2017. Two of his works, ‘Gold
Coast’ and the title story, are often cited as being examples of great
short fiction (1). In addition to this pair, I thought ‘On Trains’ and
‘All The Lonely People’ were very enjoyable. My favorite story was ‘A
Solo Song’.
I noted a number of the insights made
throughout these stories. One of McPherson’s narrators points out the
importance of learning how to handle ‘stupidity in the intelligent’
while another defines people who are bad with money as those who ‘buy
what they should have for free’.
The most
thought-provoking idea seemed to come straight from the author, though.
For McPherson, as people become emotionally empty they find it harder
and harder to spend time in places important to others. It also becomes challenging for them to participate in activities that mean nothing to them, especially if
those activities are important to other people.
Footnotes / who is this, this...Updike? He doesn't even have a blog!
1. How many of the century’s stories did John Updike read? Or write, for that matter?
‘Gold
Coast’ was selected by John Updike for The Best American Short Stories of
the Century. It’s a nice honor, I suppose, one better to win than not,
but I do wonder what separated the last story that made Updike’s list
from the next one he would have included.
