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Reviewed
by Moira Crone
Charles Lambert can keep a secret—so, I will keep one of his. The title
story of this varied, rich collection is such a marvel of narrative
discipline it would be a sin to give away its final surprise. Winner of
the O. Henry Award in 2007, the story exhibits a master’s touch, and
blends fairy tale and realism. Isak Dinesen’s classics come to mind.
It’s a mail order bride story about affection that meets obstacles on
the earthly plain. Another love song in the collection, Something Rich and Strange,
also concerns a deep attraction in conflict with fate — an unconsummated relationship
between two men during World War II. The breadth and generosity of
vision in those two tales made them my favorites. But it was
hard to chose, for there are many wonders here.
On the surface, Lambert writes
several kinds of stories. In addition to the ballads set in the past
described above, he gives us allegories where setting is minimal ( The Growing, the Number Worm),
as well are contemporary tales about bad actors pushing the
boundaries—sexual, legal, academic, bureaucratic— in Italy where
Lambert himself lives and works as an teacher and translator, and also
in Great Britain. ( In this category are Little Potato, Little Pea,
Nipples, Damages, Moving the Needle Towards the Thread, Toad.)
There are stories about difficult middle class families in the U.K. in
the sixties, told from a child’s point of view (Beacons, All Gone.)
Works set in several eras and locales explore gay themes.
The pieces vary greatly in style
and subject, but they all share a constant: Lambert’s impressive
command of point of view. He almost always tells two tales at once. The
overt rendition of events is slowly undermined by a covert reality, an
under-story. Keeping his secrets as long as he can, he usually ends
with a quiet flourish. He stops at that moment when the last element
comes completely out of hiding, just before the true depth or potential
is glimpsed.
This technique appears in every
type of work he writes. In the stark, haunting, historical Soap, a family
maid’s ignorance and innocence are stripped away by increments so that
we see the horror she’s been supporting her whole life. In a moment at
the end of the fable, Growing,
a young girl’s understanding of the masked people her father has
brought her to meet is challenged. In the end of the realistic Beacons, we realize
that the painful, arresting opening scene where an injured mother begs
her children’s help does not introduce a tale of their mother’s
healing, as it seems at first. Actually, we are reading a graver
testimony altogether.
The gripping Moving the Needle Towards the
Thread, begins with a young woman’s dispassionate report
of the aftermath of a murder she’s just committed, and her reasons. As
the story comes to a close, her self-justifying tone begins to
collapse, however. The title story is by no means what it appears to be
— we aren’t aware of the true import
of events until the last few pages.
Of course the surprising ending is
an old staple in short fiction—where would stories be without ironies
of expectation? The craft is in the execution. In every one of the
pieces mentioned above, the delivery never feels like a trick. The
ultimate moments are always earned.
Lambert is so good we want to like all his characters as much as we do
his lovers, but Janice in Little
Potato, Little Pea, and others in that story, seem to
deserve better than their final fates. Though it was clear he meant
them as caricatures, they were so perfect and so strange, I wanted to
like them more. A picaresque, Little
Potato exhibits Lambert’s gift for humor, and is a
standout in the collection. His analysis of Italian university politics
is charming, funny, and damning.
Though his strongest theme is love
that transcends, all of his tales carry us to new levels –sometimes
heights, sometimes depths--- as they uncover secrets that have been
lying in wait throughout, just outside our original, usually
conventional, conceptions. Lambert’s steady genius is his technique. As
his stories close, you can almost hear a magician’s, “voila.”
Read one of the stories
from this collection in the Richmond Review.
Author of a novel and three collections, Moira
Crone most recent book is What Gets Into
Us. Her works have appeared in a dozen anthologies and in The New
Yorker, Mademoiselle, Image, TriQuarterly, and others. The 2009
recipient of the Robert Penn Warren Award from the Southern Fellowship
of Writers, as well as numerous fellowships and prizes, she lives in
New Orleans, and teaches writing at Louisiana State University in Baton
Rouge.She can be reached at moiracrone@aol.com
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Publisher: Salt Publishing
Publication
Date:
Oct 2008
Paperback/Hardback? Hardback
First
collection?: Yes
Awards:
Title story, Scent of
Cinnamon, Winner, 2007 O.
Henry Award
Author
bio: Charles
Lambert
was born in England in 1953, studied at Cambridge, and works as a
translator and teacher in Italy. He has published one recent novel,
from Picador, Little
Monsters. 2007. Scent
of Cinnamon is his first short story collection.
Read
an interview
with Charles Lambert
Buy this book (used or
new) from:
The
Publisher's Website: Salt
Author's
recommendation: Book Depository
AbeBooks
Amazon
Powell's
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forget your local booksellers and independent book shops! Visit IndieBound.org to find an independent bookstore near
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If
you liked this book you might also like....
Valerie Martin "The Unfinished Novel
and other Stories"
What
other reviewers thought:
Miami Post
Gay Recluse
Scott Pack
Goodreads
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