The Whore's Child and Other Stories. By Richard Russo. Chatto, 225 pp. £10.99 sterlingIt's already been said so often, that it seems unnecessary to repeat, yet here we go again; US writers not only dominate the short story form, they apparently view it as their natural home.
Throughout the 20th century, particularly during the closing 30 years or so, when publishers reckoned short stories were far harder to sell than novels, the US writers, headed by a powerful group of Southern artists ably supported by others from throughout the country, remained loyal to the territory.
A New Yorker magazine fiction editor, William Maxwell, himself a master storyteller, was influential in shaping the New Yorker careers of John Cheever and John Updike. But another generation emerged with Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff and Richard Ford. It took another fine writer, Russell Banks, a bit longer to win wider recognition. But also hard at work and writing big novels with strong, believable characters was Richard Russo.
For so long, too long, not exactly a household literary name, Russo, winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for fiction with his fifth novel, Empire Falls, set largely in a Maine diner, was regarded by his fellow writers as very good. The only problem was that somehow the reading public outside the US hadn't noticed. He has also suffered from being wrongly compared with the bestselling but vastly inferior John Irving.
Even a fan as committed to Russo's work as Annie Proulx - a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist at her best in the short story - had not been all that effective at spreading the word internationally. It is surprising, when you consider that his début, Mohawk, was published as long ago as 1986. It did well in the US and was followed within two years by The Risk Pool, also set in the imaginary New York State town of Mohawk.
Considering the critical success of his third novel, Nobody's Fool (1993) - later a movie starring Paul Newman - Russo's relatively low profile continued to irk his admirers. He is a domestic realist writing long, vibrant narratives, recreating small-town and family life - and invariably heading for 500 pages in length. As recently as last year, on the publication of Empire Falls (the Pulitzer is always awarded a year in arrears), Russo still seemed caught, at least in Europe, in the "best kept secret" category. I remember writing that perhaps if it was pointed out that here was a US writer who stood somewhere between Anne Tyler at her darkest and Russell Banks, with an occasional hint of Richard Ford at his least bleak, perhaps the milder Russo would become as widely read as he deserves to be.
It is also worth mentioning that Russo has always been published in the UK by Chatto, as has Anne Tyler. In an era when writers change publishers with the frequency of football players switching clubs, both Tyler and Russo have remained with the same firm.
Well, the above has proved a longer than usual introduction to a strong collection of seven stories from Russo, who is here at times far closer in tone to Ford than previously.
In the story 'Joy Ride', the narrator, John, recalls the time his mother - then young, unhappy and determined to save her life - ran away from her hardware store-owning husband. The narrator, then 12 and becoming dangerously wild, describes their flight, leaving Maine for a target on a map, California. They never get that far and, although there are some comic moments (such as Mom explaining "We're in the West now. There's no such thing as grammar"), events take a sinister turn.
The triumph of the story is in the characterisation of the mother, an unhappy still young woman beginning to panic. After she experiences further humiliation, it is time to realise there is no escape. Although Russo is not a didactic writer, he understands the way lives fall apart: "The worst truths are contained in our many silences."
John, the narrator, reaches that understanding much as a Ford narrator would. "All of this was long ago. More than twenty years now, and as I think back on our joy ride that spring, it seems far more remarkable than it did at the time, and what followed was more remarkable still. My father did not come for us, as I'd imagined he would. He couldn't afford to close the hardware store for that long, and it was cheaper for us to sell the Ford and fly back. He met us at the airport proclaiming it was the most wonderful thing in the world that we were back . . . And that was that."
That said, the voice remains his own and, throughout, Russo demonstrates the art of writing dialogue that convinces as conversation. The title story is as funny as it is profound: "Sister Ursula belonged to an all but extinct order of Belgian nuns who conducted what little spiritual business remained to them in a decrepit old house purchased by the diocese seemingly because it was unlikely to outlast them." The old nun signs up for a creative writing course and becomes an unexpected centre of class discussions.
As with all the stories, the narrative has Russo's light but always realistic touch. In 'Poison', one vaguely successful writer assesses the life, times, angry new wife and physical appearance of a fellow writer, whom he has known all his life. "What struck me is what always strikes me when I see Gene again after a long time. He has a head like a mastiff. It's huge, even compared to the rest of his bear-like body. His graying, close-cropped hair emphasizes that prodigious skull", a head, the narrator believes to be full of "injury and rage".
Not a lot happens in several of the stories; there may just be one incident, or a particular revelation or discovery, or a sensation of memory. The final narrative is a beautifully balanced recreation of a young boy's daily life during the period when his warring parents separate. The boy remains mild, surprised by all around him. Meanwhile, his parents - most colourfully, his angry bartender father - and his family battle. Russo, the writer of long, living, multi-plotted novels here confirms that he is equally skilled at shorter fiction that engagingly and shrewdly achieves through subtle humour exactly what it sets out to do.
Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times
