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Reviewed
by Nuala Ní Chonchúir
In What Gets Into Us,
Moira Crone writes in a way that is capable of making other writers
jealous: her prose is controlled without seeming overly careful; it is
innovative without being tricksy; and her dialogue is ripe with
authenticity – it is like a believable voice in the reader’s ear. Crone
has the skilled author’s command of pace in her stories; even in the
shorter pieces in this collection, she is in no hurry to tell her
story. Rather she lets events unfold in credible and crafted sentences,
drip feeding the information in a way that is both suspenseful and
satisfying. And, like any good writer, she never turns away from the
dark or sinister aspects of human nature or discourse.
The stories in What Gets Into Us
are called, by the author, "a novel in stories", and by the publisher
"a story cycle". I first heard the term "story cycle" at the
International Short Story Conference in Cork in summer 2008 and I
concluded then that it was a North American term; we use the term
"linked stories" more in Europe, it seems, for groups of stories
featuring recurring characters. Whatever the terminology, these stories
can be enjoyed individually, but they are made all the richer as a
cycle, as we see certain events from several points of view – a
child’s, a maid’s, an adult’s – as well as with the passage of
time.
The stories are set over four
decades and concern the residents of Fayton, a town in North Carolina,
where skeletons don’t so much hide in the cupboards as explode from
them. Everyone eventually knows – and wants to know – everyone else’s
business. The book’s focus is on the lives of the girls and women of a
small corner of Fayton and how their destinies are formed from each
others’ actions and choices.
The tour de force story in the
cycle, The Ice
Garden, is a long one which won the 2004 William
Faulkner/Wisdom Prize for a novella. In it, the potentially destructive
power of physical beauty is brought home by tragic events in the life
of the McKenzie family. Mrs McKenzie has been praised and pampered all
of her life for being beautiful, "a platinum swan among crows". The
result is that she is more or less useless at being anything other than
A Beauty: she hates being a mother; she cannot maintain friendships
with other women; she pines for a halcyon girlhood which, it
transpires, never existed; and she wants her husband to bow to her
every whim. Told from the point of view of the McKenzie’s eldest
daughter, Claire, this is the saddest of stories and it is also
insightful, raw and moving. Eventually Mrs McKenzie’s murderous
ill-feeling towards other women, and herself, leads to tragedy, but
also to a kind of release for her family.
No reader needs a reviewer to
summarise each of the stories in a short story collection, least of all
in this wonderful book. Let it suffice to say that if layered fiction
about groups of regularly dysfunctional families, coupled with insight
into the racial struggle in the southern states, which is all written
in gorgeous prose, sounds appealing, then this book is for you. Moira
Crone has a rare talent and she deserves as many readers as possible.
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
lives in Galway, Ireland. Her third short fiction collection, Nude,
will appear from Salt in September 2009 and will be launched at the
Frank O’Connor International Short Story Festival in Cork, Ireland, the
same month. Her poetry collection Tattoo:Tatú (Arlen House, 2007) was
shortlisted for the 2008 Strong Award. She blogs at
http://womenrulewriter.blogspot.com/
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Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Publication
Date:
2006
Paperback/Hardback? Hardback
First
collection?: No
Awards:
Moira Crone awarded 2009 Robert Penn Warren Award
for Fiction from the Southern Fellowship of Writers;
Story, The
Ice Garden, winner, 2004 William Faulkner/Wisdom novella
Prize
Author
bio: Moira
Crone is an award-winning short story writer and novelist. She lives in New Orleans. Her publications also include Dream State (stories); a novel, A Period of Confinement, and The Winnebago Mysteries and Other Stories. Her fiction has been published in numerous magazines, including The New Yorker and Ploughshares.
Read
an interview
with Moira Crone
Buy this book (used or
new) from:
The
Publisher's Website: University Press of Mississipi
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Depository
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If
you liked this book you might also like....
Anything by Flannery
O’Connor;
Richard Ford; Eudora Welty; Sherwood Anderson, Alice Munro.
What
other reviewers thought:
PopMatters
Goodreads
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