Marian Crotty

The folks at the University of Iowa Press have just published another winner in Marian Crotty's debut short story collection, WHAT COUNTS AS LOVE. It is far and away the best thing they've put out by a new writer since Robert Oldshue's NOVEMBER STORM last year.

Many of these stories seem especially topical in the present era of the #metoo movement. Here are some of the most wrenching, visceral, gut-punching looks at love - or "What Counts as Love," in all its forms - that I have ever read. Consider twenty year-old Karleen, in the title story, battered viciously by her Christian youth minister husband -

"The fact that her eyesight was probably damaged forever or that she had a jagged half-moon scar on her ribs was not just proof of JT's cruelty, but also a testament to Karleen's guilt - a memory of what the two of them had counted as love."

Yes, even though she has left JT, has a court order against him coming near her, she still feels that what she endured at his hands was at least partly her fault.

Or there is twelve year-old Sally, who is constantly in trouble, filled with an overwhelming sense of worthlessness and barely suppressed rage, and en route to a far away reform school in Utah. After all this, she feels that losing her virginity to a sixteen year-old grease monkey is only, as the story's title suggests, "The Next Thing that Happens."

And then we have eleven year-olds Dina and Emily, who spy on an older girl having sex with her boyfriends in "Crazy for You." Or young-marrieds Rebecca and Nathan, who struggle mightily to recover from the SIDS death of their infant daughter in the story, "A New Life." Or fifty-something divorced Evelyn, still trying to save her adult daughter whose drug addiction of more than twenty years has ruined both their lives ("Kindness").

In another story, "The House Always Wins," we meet Ethan, new to the exclusive Gibson Day School near the Chesapeake Bay, where - and I had to smile at this - "he had recently taken a job as a 'visiting poet,' which had turned out to mean 'low-paid teacher.'" There he becomes sexually obsessed with a lesbian chemistry teacher. There is an even darker side to this story, which includes a sinister construction firm which builds supposedly indestructible 'Forever Homes.

There are ten stories here, and they are - every one of them - as nearly perfect as they can be. I loved this book, and will look forward to the author's next. Bravo, Ms Crotty. My very highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (lisätietoja)

Readers in need of insight into the lives of young women today - challenges, fears, aspirations, consternations, could do no better than take up What Counts as Love. Marian Crotty has been awarded the 2017 John Simmons Short Fiction Award for these nine haunting stories, which testifies to their power and their topical nature.

The protagonists here, mostly young women, struggle to cope with the duress they encounter trying to navigate and negotiate their way. They, the stories, remind us of the lasciviousness, callousness, abuse, or plain indifference the world heaps in their path. The author depicts these struggles in an honest yet plaintive way; this leads to a certain sameness in tone and diction. However, after completing this collection, I became impressed rather with the variety and fairness on display. Ms. Crotty spares no one, not the young woman with the eating disorder, nor the violent teen about to be banished to the desert, nor the poor heroine addict on the verge of death. We trespass on these private moments, some of which hold despair, and some what passes for hope, or at least attaining of a plateau of freedom.

The girls and women here emerge with clear character: hope, motivation, delusion, misguided desire, naked aggression. They’re crystal clear. The male characters, even when they lead a story, are less clearly drawn, but that doesn’t matter here. This collection succeeds very well because of the author’s unblinking honesty and very subtle sympathy in the face of the horrifying 21st Century. Congratulations on the award, it’s well deserved.… (lisätietoja)