Danielle Lazarin

First, a disclosure: I am not a short-story fan. I want total immersion when I read, and the brief reading-time of most short stories doesn't allow that. Even so, I understand they are different in nature from novels -- where a novel might have an arc that reaches from sunrise to sunset in the characters' lives, the short story may be but the ephemeral flash of a falling star. Or, in the case of this collection, the sudden pop of a flashbulb. It may capture the instant, but it doesn't do much to illuminate.

"Back Talk" is a collection of short, short-shorts, and vignettes, mostly about 20-something women who don't know what the want, except that it's not what they have. After a few of them, Constant Reader is mostly just annoyed.

Yeah, okay, you and your sister used to hide in the big old house you lived in, and then she grew up and went to Africa. You met a guy in the park and really liked him but he went back to Chicago and his old girlfriend. A young woman spending a year studying in Paris has non-sexual affairs with a number of young men.

So what?

Because the entries are so short, there's really no room for characters to grow or even to learn something about themselves that might eventually lead to growth, or change, or resolution.

Let's just say they weren't my cup of tea and let it go at that.… (plus d'informations)

3.5 a collection of stories about women and girls in transition: on the cusp of adulthood, or between tween and teen, or at the end of or beginning of a relationship, or on the verge of a family sea change, or on the edge of independence. The epigraph: "It was different for a girl" by Susan Minot sets the author's intent. In between is not a comfortable place to be and Lazarin shows this - nothing is sugar-coated and some of the situations are prickly to read, choices not always being made with the best intentions or forethought, but to quote a cover blurb: a "poignant take on life and loving and loneliness."… (plus d'informations)

Even the best of short story collections are uneven. I used to find this odd—how could a writer who wrote such a fabulous story follow it with such a crap story? I realize now that it makes sense. I mean, after all, if you look at any author's complete body of works, you'll find great works and ho-hum works. No writer is one-hundred percent consistent. The difference is in presentation. We think of a collection of short stories as a complete work. A novelist's whole career is not held under the same scrutiny.

Danielle Lazarin's Back Talk is no different. There are stories I really enjoyed. And stories I could've done without. The difference was the grouping of these stories. Normally, a collection starts with one or two good stories and follows it with a dud, then another good story and several duds. Depending on the total number of stories in the collection and the ratio of good stories, all this may vary, of course, but often the middle contains several lackluster stories that lead into a final one or two good stories.

So when I started reading Back Talk and found that the first several stories barely held my attention, I assumed the whole collection was not for me. Midway, the stories really started to improve however. In fact, story after story was quite wonderful. At this point, I questioned whether it was me: perhaps some preconceived notion I had about the collection, or some blockage in my personal life. I decided that, when finished, I'd go back and read one of the first few stories that I found to be far from special.

On a second reading, the story I selected was slightly more enjoyable, but I still didn't love it. So maybe this collection is oddly uneven, but it does contain several wonderful stories. The best of these stories really get into the minds of their protagonists. They're quiet stories about everyday events, but they're full of heart. In these character-driven stories, I think it ultimately comes down to connection. I was pulled into the mind of some of these characters, not into the minds of others. Readers of character-centric short fiction should give Back Talk a try.… (plus d'informations)