Some books, especially under 200 pages like this one, I can read in a few hours. This one, though, I couldn’t. I had to stop after each story and savor the color, atmosphere, characters, history, and interplay of quiet, deep emotions that each story evoked in me. There are 24 well-written, some award-winning stories. But there is a 25th story – that of the author herself, for she is a verbal artist obliquely sharing so much of her soul through her craft.
I wouldn’t call all of these 24 selections “short stories” in the traditional sense. Some are vignettes and character portrayals in San Joaquin and Salinas Valley, California. These are the haunts of another great writer who grips my imagination, John Steinbeck. So, too, Anne Schroeder goes deeper than the obvious and uses her senses--what she sees, hears, smells, feels--and ADDS to all that her love of these people and land. NOTHING is verboten to her, FOR IT IS ALL LIFE. And thus to me breathing her world into my inner spirit.
What time span and locations do her stories cover? In American history from the mid-1800s and the Cholame Vally to the present. But there are a few that go back much further, as far as the author’s imagination goes. So I like the variety of time and place, places where I’ve lived or visited, and a place where only one’s imagination can visit.
These are not “tight” stories with predictable endings. But often they have an "ah-ha" ending that says, “That’s how it would’ve happened.” When I read the first story, THE TORCH SINGER, I had enough to last my emotions for several days. Here were folks, like me, who “learned to sing from their pain.” Next, CASE OF THE MEDDLING MAILMAN is a love story of words and desires that unite the young and the old. THE GIFT OF RED POTTERY captures me with the rich tapestry of “life and love and possibility” of folks we wouldn’t ordinarily think much about.
The author’s characters don’t achieve great goals or realize philosophical lessons. A Mexican refugee sums it up as “where nothing seemed to be out of balance with the world, except me.” And, “… a poor man was no more than what he did for a living.” For me another memorable story is of a Japanese businessman visiting Shandon, the place near which James Dean got killed in a car accident. This is story for the world with its pathos and universal unity.
The author is a true observer of life, outside and deep inside of herself. I love this motto of hers: “…folks digested their memories. It wasn’t for me to judge.” If this was a regular print book and not a Kindle E-book, I’m sure I’d wear it out in a couple of years with the many times I’m going to read it!
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