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In a recent issue of Saturday Night, book reviewer/journalist Frank Moher wrote a commentary claiming that "short-story collections are clogging our bookshelves and choking our literature"1 and that we must simply stop writing them. But when they are as good as the recent offerings by Robert Strandquist and Karen Smythe, one can't help but disagree.

Strandquist's The Inanimate World is well named - it is a collection of stories surrounding events, notions, reactions that take place within the realm of the emotional, the intellectual, even the unconscious. And Strandquist is masterful at capturing the fierce momentum of this supposedly inactive place. Themes of substance abuse, broken relationships, frail families and the miracle of birth abound here, with Strandquist oddly capable of writing convincingly from the female perspective.

The first story, from which the collection takes its title, deals with a narrator who drinks far too much - and his souring relationship with girlfriend Lucille. As the story opens, they are in and out of parties, often inebriated, and often crossing paths with one Susan Henry, a friend of Lucille's who has our narrator under a strange spell. Though he never actually talks to her, he is completely infatuated with the person he thinks she should be.

But the story is actually much more complicated than this. Lucille becomes pregnant and there is a war over whether she should keep the child. One abortion was enough for Lucille; she wants this child, whether our narrator does or not. A miscarriage speeds this relationship to its end and the narrator finally seeks help for his drinking problem. At a party sometime later, when he only drinks juice, he runs into Susan Henry, has an innocuous conversation with her and discovers that Lucille has since married and had two sets of twins. The narrator's life has a kind of ridiculous immaturity about it, strategically concocted by Strandquist to get to the serious issues beneath.

Strandquist is skilled in this strategy, couching the more weighty of his themes in what seem to be meaningless, inane events, but which are, in fact, often catalysts for a deeper understanding of life and hope for the future. This is particularly true of four stories in the collection, which can be read as stand-alone texts, but which are completely integral: "Collecting Shadows," "The Car," "Clean Room" and "Turn Me On, Dead Man." It takes some time to make the connection between them, but once it's made, the stories are the more powerful for it.

The first of these, "Collecting Shadows," is a Naked Lunch-like tale of Doug's past and present - from his childhood obsession with bombs and explosives to his adulthood obsession with train tracks and suicide. The story's disjointed style actually enhances the fact that Doug is emotionally unstable and lends credence to the disturbing environment of the institution in which he resides. In "The Car," we become better acquainted with Doug's father, Stan, who appeared briefly in "Collecting Shadows" as a crotchety old man, mortally afflicted with Parkinson's disease, who has rarely had a kind word for Doug. In this story, Stan decides to leave the care of the residence, despite his doctor's advice, buy a '79 Oldsmobile and drive it to the Rockies enroute to visiting his sons. He knows his Parkinson's will render him incapable within only a short time, but he presses on, needing this taste of freedom, all the while feeling his dead wife's encouragement.

In "Clean Room," we meet Kathy, wife of Stan and mother of Doug. She has just gotten a management position at a bank - a bank which endures four hold-ups during her tenure there. In her reflections, we gather that Stan is a serious alcoholic and that, despite his love for her, he competes with her for the affection of their three sons. We learn that Doug can't hold a job, that Larry and Don are pursuing musical careers with the encouragement and support of their mother - and we discover along with Kathy that she is suffering from Lupus and that her life will be cut short.

In "Turn Me On, Dead Man," the boys participate in some kind of musical audition and their performance disappoints their mother. Suddenly Kathy appears not so much as encouraging and supportive, but as a mother who lives through her sons and pushes them beyond their own desires. In fact, it is in this story that we best understand Doug's choice to simply not cope with reality. His mother tells him that "all he needs is to want it bad enough," and he realizes that he doesn't want anything badly enough. The boys eventually give up on their musical careers, move away and begin adult life. For Doug, the scene turns again to the institution, where we see his instability highlighted.

These stories, despite their almost depressing intensity, are brilliant - in themselves and in their connection to one another. Slowly, revealing only bits at a time, Strandquist allows the pieces of the puzzle to come together - and before you even realize it, these characters have taken on not just a one-dimensional existence, but a multi-dimensional one. And the layered problems of family life are more justly explored because of the varying perspectives.

While these stories steal the focus for this reviewer, the others in Strandquist's collection are not without merit. Terry's realization that real family ties can exist without blood relations in "Real Family," Mara's release from her prison of freedom through the discovery that she's pregnant in "Frank's Friends" and the odd dependence between the widow of a murdered taxi driver and his boss in "Thrill Kill" all provide the reader with a heightened awareness of what Strandquist terms the inanimate world - a place where meaningful things happen to those who wish to find meaning.

Karen Smythe's Stubborn Bones fits comfortably alongside Strandquist's collection because they share some common themes - emotions are at the forefront, and while the subtleties of these emotions are sometimes slippery, they are often crucial to the story's underlying meaning. The collection is aptly named - one of the stories is indeed called "Stubborn Bones," and more than half of them deal with death. And Smythe is skilled at showing not only the emptiness death causes, but also the way in which it bridges gaps and forces us to take stock of ourselves and our lives.

In "Stubborn Bones," Marta stumbles through her grief over her father's death by taking up with his best friend. When the narrator, a close friend of Marta's, travels 32 hours by train to attend the funeral to be subjected to this odd union, it makes her think deeply about relationships - her own and others - and what they really mean. She tells the story as though she is speaking to her ex-husband and realizes that although he is not dead, his absence is somehow more palpable in the face of Marta's new-found love. This story resonates because we feel both the awkwardness between these two old friends and the inappropriate nature of Marta's affair with Jerome.

While death does not directly affect the protagonist in "The Tooth Fairy and Other Inventions," it puts the emphasis on her complete lack of compassion. Out of the blue, she receives an invitation to lunch from Andrea, the daughter of Ingelore, an old friend and neighbour of her mother's. Ingelore has died, and Andrea, haunted by the memory of this mother she hardly knew, wants to find out more about her. The narrator, who senses Andrea's troubled state, tells her the minimum, and chooses not to offer her any more support in this time of need. And although she feels guilty for not giving more, she sets her conscience aside by justifying her actions: "But I am my mother's daughter, and all I said was, 'Take care of yourself, Andrea.' Then I checked my watch and walked away." Smythe captures this failure so vividly that we are incensed, the failings of humanity leaving us raw.

Smythe's writing shows a real tightness in "Feliz Navidad," in which the main character has remarried the doctor who saved her from a suicide attempt. They are honeymooning in Mexico, and the protagonist is fragile, carefully following the lead of her subtly controlling husband. Without revealing any violent tendencies in the husband's behaviour, Smythe conveys a tension that is heavy, almost violent. A simple, snappy response seems to suggest uncharted territory, better avoided: "'You know I don't like heights,' he said, annoyed at her for making him say it. His tone made her nervous, because his mood could shift so easily, and it pulled her along with it when it went in the wrong direction." There is a disturbing uneasiness throughout this story that is heightened by the notion that the main character needs to be controlled and that the husband needs to control - and that somehow balance is therefore achieved.

In "Madeleine," the depiction of motherhood through Gloria is shocking. Here, Smythe once again shows us a side of human nature we would rather not see. Gloria abandoned her son Stevie and husband Peter when Stevie was six. When Stevie was just a baby, she screamed "I hate you!" over his wailing form, deriving deep satisfaction from the words. There are shifts in time to Gloria's early days as a mother, to her walking out, to her present life as a party-goer - youthful behaviour for her years. Throughout, we become acquainted with Madeleine, the family dog - Peter's dog, ironically loyal to Gloria. Madeleine's death brings Gloria and Peter together; he calls to tell her and although she feels a sudden tenderness for him, his anger is still at the surface. Harsh words out, they no longer have anything to say to one another but they are unable to hang up. Smythe, through a cleverly subtle metaphor, is able to show that they were never and have never really been ready to let each other go.

The best writing in the collection is found in the final selection, "Strange Relations," a novella spanning almost 60 pages. Over three chapters, Clara explores her relationship with her mother and her grandmothers. Her grandmothers have both died and in some senses, her relationship with her mother has died too. In "Stone Haven," Clara remembers a visit to her paternal grandparents' farm when she was 12. Grim and Daisy, as she called them, offered her magic and just as quickly shattered it, one after the other. Grim's kindness and sensitivity was oddly contrasted with Daisy's quick temper, and Clara was deeply marked by both. After her grandfather's death, she carries on a relationship with Daisy, mostly through letters, and is never able to get past her harshness. She dies, conflicts unresolved for Clara, but peace perhaps found for Daisy.

In "Visiting Hours," Clara's mother goes into a detox centre for her alcohol problem. Clara had known about it for years but had been sworn to secrecy. Her mother was consciously "killing herself slowly because she didn't have the guts to do anything drastic." While this story seems to be written about Clara and her mother, it also offers insight into her relationship with her father. Clara and then husband Pierce spend time with her father and his fears about her occasional glass of wine surface: "Watch it Clara, it might be in your genes, for crying out loud." But what is more powerful yet is the fact that both women are unable to move past this moment in their relationship, even after Clara's mother is long rehabilitated. The mother tries to talk through events - the memory of a lunch with her daughter - to bridge a gap that has become a great divide.

Clara's most successful relationship is with her maternal grandmother, Besta, depicted in "Telling Besta," a story about Clara not telling her why she went to live in a residence rather than with Clara's parents. Besta's optimism - especially where Clara is concerned - transcends the harsh realities of life. The most moving moment in the story is a vivid scene of Clara bathing her aging grandmother - and Besta is not embarrassed by her sagging breasts, her rounded shoulders, her fleshy belly, her wrinkled skin. There is a tenderness in this trust that gives their relationship life beyond the page. And while Besta's death pains Clara, she inherits the glow of her grandmother's optimism.

There is a maturity taking place in Smythe's writing as we read these stories. The style gets taut and full of symbolism, Smythe's words reverberating in their simplicity. In this collection, she tackles both the folly and the goodness in human nature - and she does it so powerfully that hope for a better world does not seem absurd or misplaced.

Frank Moher is indeed wrong. These collections by Strandquist and Smythe are not clutter. They are welcome additions to any bookshelf.

  Notes

1. Moher, Frank. "End of Story." Saturday Night, 15 Sept. 2001: 18-19.