A Way to Be Happy

“Character, plot, voice, words—Adderson has command of all elements of a story. She should be read.”

Caroline Adderson’s stories are delicious: they zip and bubble, observe, and a number are touched with tenderness. Starting with the first one, “All Our Auld Acquaintances Are Gone” is about a couple of addicts who crash New Year Eve parties to steal credit cards, nice clothes, and cash, hoping as addicts they fit in just enough not to get caught.

The story moves with lines like: “He switched to his animal mode then, eyes focused on some point in the distance, though he wasn’t seeing anything. He was listening to the beeping . . .” and “A blunt, bitter stab against the back of her throat—just a hint of what was coming. All of this was pointless. No way she could do it. Maybe Cory could. He hadn’t been around that long. Also, something was waiting for him on the other side, in that other life where she wasn’t welcome.” The way Adderson draws this woman Taryn throughout the story, the reader roots for her, hopes she gets away with whatever she’s trying to pull off. And that is the way all the characters in this collection are put together.

There are eight stories in his collection and six of them hit it out of the ballpark, there’s a single, and maybe a flyball out at the warning track. One of the most entertaining stories is “Yolki-Palki,” meaning “tree sticks” in Russian. It is also a Russian expression that expresses surprise, dismay, or pleasure, depending. It is a nicely paced tale about a Russian hitman with a lung ailment in the U.S. on a job. The ending leaves the reader wondering whether he died, is killed, or simply went to sleep. That’s a good thing. And the story contains some great lines. “His mother specialized in withholding desperately sought information. Also in shoveling out the unasked for shit of her opinions.” And, “His left testicle glued itself to his inner thigh. He shook it off his leg.”

Another compelling attribute of this collection is the grasp the author has on different types of characters. From the addicts in the first story, the hitman, to a child in “Started Early, Took My Dog.” The child portrayal is not surprising given Adderson’s reputation as a children’s book author. Still, Drew is a well characterized special child with a rescue dog named Jesus with his literalness being something one thinks of as typical of special kids.

“‘Did you see that man by the fence?’

‘There wasn’t a man’

‘No?’

‘There were X chromosomes and Y chromosomes.’”

The other rewarding aspect of this story is the plot. All the elements are present from the beginning, but the reader does not see until the introduction of a minor character at the end how the story will resolve itself. In fact, it doesn’t. And that’s its delight.

“Homing” is a tender tale of a recently separated woman who relocates to a small northern town to a house that “looked as rudimentary as a child’s drawing, a square with a door in the middle, a window on either side. For a roof, a triangle,” where she receives a life changing visitation—a flock of pigeons, followed by the former owner of the flock. This allows the introduction of yet another element into the story (no spoilers) that adds dimension to the woman and former owner.  Still more, it is a story about how the woman forms a community in the town. All done very naturally.

Character, plot, voice, words—Adderson has command of all elements of a story. She should be read.