Winter has arrived in RVA, a bit early, and keeping warm with a good read is a indulgence to enjoy. With holidays to celebrate and possible travel destinations to explore there may not be time to carve out a space for reading. These short novels, or novellas, can be finished in one sitting. The authors are masters of their craft with the ability to set the scene, build the characters, and engage the reader with a well-crafted story in the space of a relatively few pages. Looking back on the year and anticipating the one to come, let these characters remind us of the brief moments of joy that may be found in the midst of loss, of the ability to find the positive amidst the chaos, and the evidence of the good in humanity even when the world seems to say otherwise.
“200 Pages, more or less” is a monthly blog post uncovering the many shorter reads available in the collection of the Richmond Public Library. Some are older, some recent, mostly fiction and some are translated from the original. I invite you to choose a short novel that may find a place in your busy schedule.
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson. (2002; 116p.)
“My ear for the diction and rhythms of poetry was trained by—in chronological order—Dr. Seuss, Dylan Thomas, Walt Whitman, the guitar solos of Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, and T.S. Eliot. Other influences come and go, but those I admire the most and those I admired the earliest (I still admire them) have something to say in every line I write.” Denis Johnson was never an author who basked in the glow of his writing success. The protagonist in Train Dreams , Grainier, is also a singular loner, haunted by the ghost of a co-worker, falsely accused and punished on a barren logging site. Grainier’s relative happiness is short lived on his return from another bare-bones work assignment. This novella is as sparse as its setting and moves from precise moments to expanses of time in that mythical “west” in America, on the cusp of the twentieth century. Adapted into a recent film available to stream on Netflix.
Recitatif by Toni Morrison. (1983; 2022, 40p.)
Two girls, eight years old, in a shelter for orphans, although they are not orphans. Each mother reappears. Morrison’s only published short story is a conundrum without a simple solution. Twyla and Roberta share a room for four months yet their connection spans a lifetime. Readers try to unpack the girls’ shared experience in black and white. Morrison does not make it that simple. Read it to uncover your own ideas of race and the language cues we tell ourselves define a culture. Then question those beliefs. The 2022 edition opens with a powerful introduction by Zadie Smith.
Foster by Claire Keegan. (2022; 88p.)
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. (2021; 116p.)
Claire Keegan is a master of the short form. These two titles are examples of her best. Her spare writing style wastes not a word or phrase. In a few pages she is able to bring the reader into the story, almost as an interloper or voyeur just on the edge of the scene. Her writing illustrates the variety of Irish life and introduces us to characters outside the stereotype. In Foster we meet a young girl who spends the summer with an aunt and uncle she doesn’t know while her mother delivers another baby into an already bursting household. Her relatives’ story has not been shared and yet they embrace her as their own until the time comes to return home for the start of school. In their dialogue only the necessary words are spoken and each contains a world of meaning. As her uncle sagely states on a magical evening in late summer: “‘You don’t ever have to say anything…Always remember that as a thing you need never do. Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.'” Available as an eBook and eAudiobook through Libby and Hoopla.
Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022. With little fanfare Keegan introduces the Magdalen laundries whose last location was closed in 1996. Many of the records were destroyed and the estimates of young women sent to one of these sites is between ten thousand and thirty thousand. Bill Furlong is a coal merchant and family man, a father of five daughters. Himself a foster child of sorts, raised by a local couple, he is quick to acknowledge his blessings. When he encounters a young girl, cold and dirty, locked in the coal house at the convent he begins to question what others choose to ignore. In the days leading up to Christmas, with its rituals and celebrations, he must decide between the safe choice and the one he feels is right. “Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?” Keegan co-wrote an excellent screen adaption in 2024. Available to stream on various platforms.
