SHORTS is a collection of very short stories, generally told from one character’s perspective, on a wide variety of topics, from an emergency-room doctor distressed at a patient’s death to a woman dodging a religious proselytizer in a hairdressers’ shop to the thoughts of the first Mormon president. Each story has its own perspective and its own emotional tone, a slice-of-life image taken over a short period of time, perhaps a few minutes or a few days.
Some of the stories are laugh-out-loud funny, like “Patch Kit” or “The Spring War,” but most of them have a poignant, almost aching tone to them. Author J.A. Winward is quite skilled at evoking deep emotions in a few words, and many of the stories read like prose poems, even the prose equivalent of haiku. The author never makes the mistake of explaining a feeling when she can show it, and as a result, some of the stories in the collection, in particular “Moment,” “Pole,” “Large Coffee,” and “Jesus Saves,” have a deeply haunting quality that sticks with the reader. Winward knows precisely when to leave the rest of the story up to the reader’s imagination, keeping the reader engaged and leading them to contemplate what comes next, or what might have been. The stories are written from perspectives the author understands, even if she doesn’t share them, and that empathy gives the stories real presence and power.
Occasionally Winward gets tied up in her own imagery: for example, “Like a busy carpenter late for a strip-club peep show, her lips retracted like a measuring tape” is perhaps an arresting image, but a bit clumsily phrased. In general, her writing is clearer, more affecting, and more powerful in the more serious stories; some of the humorous shorts feel almost as though she’s trying a bit too hard, though in some places that actually adds to the amusement.
Short stories, like short poems, are a difficult form to get right, and Winward has succeeded brilliantly for the most part in SHORTS. These well-crafted tales give a quick but illuminating glimpse at the inside of another person’s mind at one particular moment in time.
Reviewed by Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader