The Great Short-Story Collection Purge, Part 11

Werewolves in Their Youth: Stories (1999) - Michael Chabon

I bought this collection from a Salvation Army store about a year ago, just a few months after I'd finished Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union, one of my favorite reads from 2007. Of course this collection sat on the shelf for an entire year before I picked it up a couple of days ago as part of The Great Short-Story Collection Purge, which, as John correctly points out, hasn't purged quite as many books as I (or Cindy) would like.

But I digress.

The collection opens with the title story which shows a boy named Paul creating an ant empire in a ravine at the edge of a schoolyard during recess. Paul is content to stay there while fifth-grade bully Timothy Stokes terrorizes his classmates. Timothy is on thin ice, just one incident away from being placed on a "little bus of unknown boys" to be taken to a "special" school. The adults in the story believe that Paul can actually help control Timothy's behavior. It matters not to any of the adults that Paul despises Timothy.

Of course there's far more going on here than an excitable fifth-grader and a sheepish, overweight loner. The problems in the adult world soon make themselves known to us and Paul. I enjoyed "Werewolves in Their Youth," but didn't really think about again until this post. Hmmm.....

"In the Black Mill" is a creepy little story of a student archaeologist working on a dig in a small Pennsylvania mill town. He discovers that many of the locals have lost an assortment of body parts while working in the mill and decides to investigate. "In the Black Mill" seems something of an homage to the early days of magazines like Weird Tales and as such, works well. But Chabon is such a gifted writer (It would take me months to construct sentences he probably puts down without a second thought.), reading him is sometimes frustrating. He writes beautiful sentences, gorgeous sentences, but I found his immense vocabulary getting in the way. Perhaps it's my lack of an immense vocabulary getting in the way.

Although both of these are satisfying stories, I doubt if I'll revisit them, leading me to wonder if Chabon's best work is in the long form. Or maybe I'm just a chowder-head.

The Verdict = Finish it, then pass it on.

Next: Fancies and Goodnights - John Collier