Lydia Peelle has a serious knack for writing engaging short stories. I'm usually not much of a fan of them, but every one in Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing grabbed me from the start. ( )

One of the National Book Foundations "5 Under 35"

Indisputably excellent stories. I read one or two at a time over the better part of a year. The problem with short stories is that they are harder to remember, because, as a reader, you spend less time with a story than a novel, and that's less time for the characters to get under your skin and into your brain - which Peele's characters absolutely do. I think the ones I will remember longest are the first story ("Mule Killers") and the title story.

Quotes

We watch them, and the rules that have been strung in our heads like thick cables fray and unravel in a dazzling arc of sparks. -from Sweethearts of the Rodeo, p. 57

But there's a danger to picturing a place without you in it. After a while you can start to feel like nothing at all. -from The Still Point, p. 75

It flashed past with a ringing in my ears, left me staggering with irrelevance. -p. 81

...as if he can buy his way back to a beginning. -from Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing, p. 99

We say the same things we always do, slicing back through the scar tissue in one another's heart. -p. 101

When people talk about the South being haunted, it's true. But it's not the places that are haunted, it's the people. -from This is Not a Love Story, p. 121

It exhausts me to think about it, even now. Like trying to hold a drowning man's head above water. -p. 126

"...and it takes years off my life. Years. No matter how hard you work, it's a gamble and the house always wins." -from Kidding Season, p. 151

I imagine he doesn't play music anymore for the same reason I don't do drugs anymore: you can only push up to the edge so many times before you realize the one thing on the other side is your own mortality, with no one waiting there to keep your grave clean. -from Shadow on a Weary Land, p. 165

My mind, before I ruined it, was a beautiful thing. -p. 166

Every mammal on earth, I've read, from mouse to man to mammoth, goes through roughly the same number of heartbeats in a lifetime. -p. 171 ( )

Dark at their center, these stories of exquisite longing are about seeking ways to belong to a larger world of nature and love, and finding other things instead. Deep but not self-conscious, beautiful but not precious, these stories satisfy in all the right ways. ( )

I'm going against my policy here, and reviewing a book which I did not finish. The short stories in this collection share a good many qualities, for better and for worse. They all show that Ms. Peelle can draw a scene and a character with high skill. Her language is economical and slanted at just the right pitch. This group displays the author's skills in this area.

However, her theme of extreme existential angst runs through all the stories, too. The author gives each hero (of the pieces I read) a tiny ultimate glimpse of escape, but that was quite uniform through all the stories, too. When I started the eponymous piece, and the hero was another just waiting for his life, or the world, or both, to end cataclysmically, while he is all alone and miserable, I gave up. It was too much of the same thing, over which I didn't need to dawdle. ( )

Short stories. These are all sad, human stories. There is ultimately no happiness in their lives, at least while we see them. As the character in the title story thinks: “When my husband left, he told me he hadn't been happy in years. Happy? I thought. We're supposed to be happy? I was under the impression that no one was truly happy, given the raw materials we have to work with in this life.” That is the mood of all of the people that inhabit these stories. But, I am a pessimist myself, so I enjoyed reading these. They make quick reading; you could do it in a long afternoon, on a rainy, depressing day would be best.

Here are descriptions of the stories:
“Mule Killers” – Three generations: grandfather, father, and the son who is the narrator. His grandfather bought tractors years ago and that was the end for the farm's mules, as it also was throughout the County, State, etc. Father loves one girl but gets another pregnant. Touching story.
“Phantom Pain” – Jack is a taxidermist. He is a diabetic, who recently had his foot amputated. Jeanne is his ex-wife, but is still in his life. The people in his town believe that a cougar or a panther or a mountain lion is roaming the local woods. But, Jack knows better.
“Sweethearts of the Rodeo” – Two girls spending the summer on a ranch. They see the local women come and go, to spend time with the caretaker. They have to work, but they look forward to spending time going off, riding two ponies that belong to no one.
“The Still Point” – A traveling carnival. A man travels with it and tries to sell junk, basically. He sleeps with a married woman, while her husband tends to their booth. He finds a necklace with a heart shaped locket that belongs to a teenage girl who wins the beauty pageant; inside is a picture of a baby.
“Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing” – A woman is separated from her husband, but he still visits. He is sleeping around though and spending money on himself. She meets an elderly University herpetologist on the bus and visits him and his animals. She thinks she loves him, but he knows she does not.
“This Is Not a Love Story” – A mother tells her college age daughter about when she was young and lived with a man on his houseboat. He was a drunk. But, they did have some good times, lots of parties anyway. She thought about being a photographer, but was no good at it. Her man was better.
“Kidding Season” – A teenage boy decides to travel to the gulf coast after Katrina looking for work, and ends up on a goat farm for a while, working for a solitary older woman. He nurses a weak goat kid who is rejected by its mother.
“Shadow on a Weary Land” – Three men looking for treasure buried by Frank James. The James brothers used to live there. The land is now being sold to developers. ( )