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From her forthcoming (Press 53, September 1, 2007) collection, Three Versions of the Truth, comes this cleverly titles story, "Custer's Last One-Night Stand."  Amy Knox Brown hails from Lincoln, NE and Nebraska is where her stories are set.

This short piece envisions a young to old blonde woman finding the camp, looking for Custer, as his men drink whiskey from their tin cups.  He has her cut his hair in his tent, as it was "..., a liability, he'd found, in this heat."

I enjoyed the writing within this story:

"False lighting forked in the sky and he thought of gold veins as he sat on a box, feeling the tug and pull of the comb, the quiet slice when blades came together.  Her fingers tilted his head.  A breeze lifted the cut hair and cast it over the fields."

A sly biblical reference:

"He asked her if her name was Delilah, and she said no, it was not."

The last one-night stand does occur:

"Custer moved against her, again, again.  He thought of the repetitive slicing a pickaxe made against rock, seeking the vein."

And the fine ending once she's left his tent:

"Custer shifted and smiled in his sleep.  In the fields, strands of his hair clung to weeds.  He did not imagine Indians surrounding his troops, blood filling his eyes and throat, how his shorn hair might save him from scalping because the braves wouldn't recognize Pehin Hanska -- Long Hair Custer -- without his locks.  All he saw in his dreams was gold, those hills;  he could almost feel the horse's flanks shift between his legs as they moved toward everything that lay ahead, asking to be touched and taken."

Press 53 is offering a special deal on specially signed and inscribed copies of the ARC of this book - if you visit their site, click on the Special Message to hear Publisher Kevin Watson describe it.

"Mr. Disappear-o" by Mike Alber appears in the new issue (#11) of Quick Fiction, a great literary journal publishing stories of 500 words or less.

An interesting little story by Alber - I'm going to focus on something that I don't think one often sees in these fictions, these short short stories, and that is humor.  It frequently seems to me, when reading these types of pieces, that the author has gone in one of two routes:  a)  straight all out plot, or b) a great deal of imagery. 

The first case, when done well, has the characters being developed quickly through their actions or conversations and whatever big moment occurs, well, it occurs right away.  The second case often leaves me feeling that the author was much more concerned about language than story.  What I don't frequently see, is the inclusion of humor, as if there's just not enough time for it.

Not the case in "Mr. Disappear-o," a story, not about a person who can disappear, but about a man who swallows things (often much larger than you'd expect - a salt shaker for instance), making them disappear.  Not all of the following are laugh-out-loud funny, but I do believe they were intended to bring at least that silent nod of appreciation for the effort:

"She went around the house for hours, looking under furniture with a little pink Maglite I'd had my eye on."

"She was a gastroenterologist.  That was the attraction."

Having determined (via x-ray) that a blockage in his system was caused by a nickel and a digital watch, Mr. Disappear-o blames it on his little cousin putting things in his mouth while he sleeps.  The (different) gastroenterologist's response:  "Heavy sleeper."

Again, little things that make Alber's story stick out a bit from some of the others I've read lately.

The best way to find this fine effort would be to subscribe to Quick Fiction, and ask that they start it with issue number 11.

"Pepper Hunt" by Kate Blackwell is from her recently published debut story collection, you won't remember this (Southern Methodist University Press, 2007) - a debut published at the age of 65.  The story had been anthologized twice before being included in her own collection.

"Pepper Hunt" is a great story about the strained relationships that develop between divorced fathers and their children when there is a great deal of separation.  In this particular case, it's a father taking his daughter out to breakfast and noticing the changes since the last time he's been with her:

"He hasn't seen her in a few months and dislikes the new assertiveness in her high, childish voice, the way she told the waitress, 'I don't want my eggs runny.  I won't eat 'em if they're runny.'"

So, searching for a way to connect with her again, he tells her a story about how he and his father used to go hunting with pepper, putting heavily pepper-dosed bread out in the woods for deer and rabbits to approach.  It does grab her attention and there's a brutal honesty to the characters as he allows the story to its fruition, which includes he and his father jumping out from behind the bushes and clubbing the animals with baseball bats.

Blackwell does a real nice job of allowing the father's fear to show through, both in his words and internal thoughts.  The fear of losing his daughter completely, of seeing her become something he'd not prefer without his hand in the mix, of losing out what he had with his own father.  She shows an ability, in this effort, of being able to get the reader into the character's minds very easily.  Look for the collection!

The story "Alluvial Deposits" by Percival Everett originally appeared in the literary journal, Story, back in the Winter 1998 issue.

The fact that the protagonist of Everett's work, Robert Hawkes, is Black and in Dotson, UT, where nobody else is, might lead one to believe that the story is about racial relations.  I don't believe this is the case - and think I've read enough of Everett's work to know when he is commenting on race and when he's not doing so.  The story "Alluvial Deposits" is about how people deal with each other in various situations.  Beyond the way that everybody deals with Hawkes - there are the situations of a guy and his deaf girlfriend in a fight; there's how the deputy and sherrif deal with a woman who has taken a shot at Robert Hawkes; there's the various interactions between Hawkes and the different waitresses at the local diner, and so on.

Each case is handled differently, and usually pretty subtle differences at that.  Which is how life is and how Everett writes.  Don't ever expect huge metaphors or symbolism in one of his stories or novels.  His writing is very literal and frequently covers a great deal of topics (this one includes hydrology, radar, consistency amongst motels, and other ideas).  He is always interesting, and different from his last work.  For me, one of the top five or six writers producing work - look for book 19 this fall from Graywolf Press.

"House of Anything You Wish" by Wang Ping is included in her story collection, The Last Communist Virgin (Coffee House Press, 2007). 

It's an interesting and very well written story about Chinese immigrants moving to New York City and how various things affected the relationship of this couple - the difference in time of when they immigrated, where they live, the worries of the wife that the husband is a gangster, and other factors.

Ping's writing is exceptional in how she developed the characters, especially the protagonist (husband), without a bit of telling (to use some MFA verbiage).  Through his actions, his statements to others and his wife, and his thoughts, the reader becomes well aware of the type of person he is.  While the wife character isn't nearly as present in the story, Ping does just as well in developing her. 

Add to this an interesting plot, backstory and wondering about the future and you can see why the folks at Coff House Press are excited about this collection.

The Brooklyn Rail publishes literary fiction and about one year ago included the story "Diggers" by Susan Daitch, and it's a very good one.

Told in six sections, it's the story of a construction site and during the knocking down and clearing out of an old building, discovering first a much older building beneath - one determined to be part of the Underground Railroad - and second, a dead body, from much more recent times.  The sections come from various individuals - the man who unearthed the dead body, an archaeologist (brought in thinking the body was much older), the dead man himself, an amateur photographer who frequented such crime sites under the guise that he worked as a freelancer, another ghost - this one the daughter of the owner of the original building being torn down, and then back to McQuilty - the backhoe operator.

Daitch does a wonderful job of moving from voice to voice, yet propelling the story forward in a simple manner.  Not to say each section doesn't have its own tone, because they certainly do.  The little pieces of additional matter really help make the story come alive - the fact that the building underneath the ground at the location is an Underground Railroad stop.  This brings out schoolchildren on field trips to the construction site (bringing up my favorite line - as the schoolchildren are walking around with hard hats on - "They looked like walking mushrooms.").  And these details continue to pile up, fleshing out the story nicely.

The way the pieces fit together, the characters come and go and come again so well, and the story moves so seamlessly, it only makes me look forward to digging around myself and finding more of Daitch's writing to enjoy.

"Landscapes," from Danielle Dutton's debut effort, Attempts At a Life (Tarpaulin Sky, 2007), is told in four short sections.  Per the acknowledgements page, at least some of the material comes from two Katherine Mansfield stories.  Personally, I'm not up on my Mansfield to the point that I know what material that was (though I might take a guess that the line " ..., other than that there are indeed marsupials even in this part of the city." is one of them).

For her epigraph to the collection, Dutton uses a phrase from Gertrude Stein that includes " ... it is necessary to be at once talking and listening, ..." and it seems that there is a solid reason for this - her own writing bears this suggestion, or at least believing this to be the case helped this particular reader understand it a bit more than prior to having read this quote.

The first section of the story may be the most straightforward and that which describes the title best.  Dutton writes of various landscapes - a field with trees and pond; a city skyline; abandoned mills; and beaches.

The second section has a woman named Joni recalling her brother passing her rolls some time ago and then not being present the next day, nor the day after that, nor, well, you get the idea.  Her concern is that nobody seems to even remember a time when he was present.

The third section involves an individual (whom I assumed was a woman) finding a penny on the top step approaching her home and wondering for days who might have gotten that close to her doorway.

The fourth section is a very quick one:

"Josephine was silent for a moment.  Then she replies shortly, "I've forgotten too."

     "Oh, dear me!  I'm sorry to hear that," said the literary gentleman in a shocked tone."

I enjoyed the story, and the rest of those in her collection - once I found the acknowledgements page and read how many of the stories had utilized bits from various sources, many of which I never would have known about had I not read the acknowledgements page, it brought the whole Brad Vice scenario back to mind, and the idea of intertextuality.  It's an interesting topic when discussed and not simply in an accusatory manner.

The new issue of Quick Fiction his the mailbox yesterday and one of my favorites, Michael Czyzniejewski, has a story in it.  As Quick Fiction only publishes stories that are 500 words or less, it is incumbent on the author to hit the door running.  And MC does just that:

"Baby monkeys, scientists discovered, are evolving much faster.  I read this in a magazine at my proctologist's the day after my son is born.  The monkeys, chimps in particular, are doing things at one month their parents did at three, and at a year, they out-think every ape in their group.  By 2100, they might not only reinvent the wheel but, if their vocal chords evolve too, hold actual conversations.

I ask my doctor what he thinks, his index and middle fingers in my ass."

Not only is it an interesting enough beginning to make me want to continue reading, it truly does set the story up.  As briefly mentioned, the narrator and his wife have just seen their son born.  This evolutionary aspect of chimpanzees comes heavily into play throughout the rest of this brief story, along with this fact of the birth of their son. 

All that plus circumcision?  And you're not online ordering Quick Fiction now?

"Food of the Gods" by judy b. can be found in her collection, Stories for Airports (Onze Productions, 2005).  The story fits well in the collection (at least of those stories I've read so far) as it is a brief snippet of a day, and the interactions of two people, Austin and josie (who he met nearly two years earlier, and had moved in with him a month before the story).

This story actually seems a good companion piece to the Mozina story I looked at on the 12th.  The couple are involved in a conversation, that leans towards an argument and then reactions that are looked at.  Where the Mozina story took a fantastic look at general statements one might hear about males vs. females in regards to relationship issues, judy b.'s story looks at how this specific couple works their way out of this issue.  The ending, a bit of a surprise, works very well with the characters she develops so well in just a few short pages.

The new issue of Ninth Letter has a story from one of my favorite authors, Kellie Wells.  The story, "Threnody," is a only a couple of pages long (though Ninth Letter has such a large format that this probably would be about four to six pages long in a book), but it packs quite a wallop.

To those who have not read Wells before, this story is pretty typical in that, if you have a similar vocabulary to my own, you'll find youself peeking at a dictionary every so often.  I'm not ashamed to admit that words such as threnody, hermeneutically, and malodorous had me, at the very least, verifying that I knew what they meant.

The other point one should expect when sitting down with a story by Wells is a bit of depth to the thinking behind the ideas.  In this case, she's writing exactly what the title suggests - a lament for the dead.  Each paragraph of this story refers to various aspects of the dead - prophets, murderers, innocents, intellectuals, and monkeys.  Then God shows up and has some thoughts that are truly cause for lament:

"Day in, day out, is there no end, He wonders, to My irrelevance (which is, He thinks, the same as being the Be-All and End-All, Alpha and Omega, Long and Short of It, that is to say:  Null and Void)?"

It's an interesting look at the idea of God, as well as what may happen to us when we pass.  The combination of language, and ideas, is what makes Wells a go-to writer for me as a reader.

"The First Book of the Chronicles of the Cola Wars" by J.M. Tyree is a short fiction to be found in the new issue of American Short Fiction.

I'm going back and forth between whether the idea is just a unique idea, or a great idea.  The story is written in very biblical style, about, as the title states, the cola wars:

     "And Coke begat New Coke (of whom came Coca-Cola Classic), and Pepsi begat Slice."

It's certainly an interesting piece, and probably works due to the succinct nature of the short fiction, as opposed to lengthier short story.  It digs into the actual cola wars between Coke and PepsiCo, as well as the sheepish flocking of people from one brand to another. 

Tyree was able to write the whole piece in this biblical language and structure, which is a bit impressive, able to sneak in words or phrases such as "Philistines," "ark of the covenant," and "bounteous."

In the title story from his debut collection, The Women Were Leaving the Men (Wayne State University Press, 2007), Andy Mozina shows a great ability to write about people, their relationships, and the little conversations behind the scenes of their lives.

In the story, women leave their men.  Doesn't matter if the men are successful or not, or if they're paying attention to the women or not.  It doesn't really matter what's going on - the women are not getting what they need.  Not that they really know exactly what they need.  The men are all completely disappointed at first.  And they generally have no clue as to why the women have left.

I really can't remember the last time I've read a story that had me nodding my head as much, agreeing that, yep, that's how it is - those are comments I've heard from women and men that I know, etc.  As the story moves forward and the men become closer to content with the decisions and the women become less content, though still "know in their heart" they've done the right thing, Mozina continues to nail feelings and conversations perfectly.

"Byblis" by Rebecca Kanner is in the latest issue of The Kenyon Review, and it is just incredible. 

It is told in multiple first person sections (think As I Lay Dying - sorry for the Faulkner comparison), including some that are multiple person first person, which are handled very well, and just differently enough to be discernable from the individual first person sections.

The story itself is of brother and sister, Charlie and Sylvia, whose love for each other goes a little beyond all-encompassing if that's possible.  And Kanner does not shy away from the fact that this love dips into a physical nature as well. 

Kanner captures each of the characters speaking to the reader with a unique voice, and these voices are begging to be heard.  There is a wanting within their voices to be heard that is extremely strong, truly making the story one I couldn't set down.  Kanner also includes slight bits of symbolism, and in a subtle enough manner so as not to detract from the main story itself. 

Very good news - Kanner has another story appearing in the forthcoming Cincinnati Review and is working on a novel with the characters from "Byblis."  It's not clear from the contributor notes if this novel will be in this same format, or if it just includes Charlie, Sylvia, and the others.  It doesn't matter to me, I'll be looking for it.

"The Flame" is one of the ten linked stories in Tess Uriza Holthe's The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes (Crown, 2007).  It begins:

"Serena Barr chooses the precise moment to escape, as husband and mother-in-law proceed downstairs to breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton.  There are so few windows of opportunities in a day;  one must take them when one can."  I love this opening - this reminder that we need some alone time each day, and just how hard it is to arrange at times.

The full story is well-written, giving the reader what may be characters a bit more on the fringe than in other stories.  The collection is about Chazz, an heir to a great fortune.  This particular story has Serena, looking for information about a woman named Claudette, the wife of Chazz (who at this time in the collection is dead, having been hit by a taxi).  It turns out that Claudette is the flame of the title, the former lover of Serena husband, Laurent.  A woman he still talks about.  A woman Serena's mother-in-law still misses.  A woman who left Laurent for Chazz and his great fortune.

The character of Serena is really developed very well throughout "The Flame," giving the reader an excellent understanding of her strange actions (she gets a pass to an open house - one well beyond her means - hoping to find out it is indeed Chazz's former house, so she can learn more about Claudette).

The new issue of Ninth Letter is out (more on this later) and it includes a new short story by author Chris Abani!

The title, "Three Letters, One Song and a Refrain," gives up, in a very simple manner, the format of the story.  What I don't believe any title could have done, was prepared me for the power of this piece.  The first letter is addressed, "Dear Mama," and starts with the following line:

"This is a kind of letter, though I am writing most of it in my heart, for you, for me, for a time when I can speak it.  This torn and bloodied sheet should be enough, but words bring clarity."

Abani is a fine writer, one who doesn't need to come out and state the word rape to get his point across.  The story takes place in a land where genocidal war is taking place.  The rapes, the readers finds out, are a strong possibility every time a women is offered a job and gets on the back of a motorcycle, or in a vehicle.

The other two letters are titled "Dear Boy," and "Dear Rapist," and look again at this aspect of rape, as well as that of families being torn apart, the young being recruited for war, and all is mashed together nicely, along with a song and a refrain.  It was a story I wasn't anxious to see end.  Run out and find a copy of Ninth Letter V. 4. N. 1. Spring/Summer 2007.

Dorene O'Brien's debut story collection, Voices of the Lost and Found will be coming out from Wayne State University Press in July.  It's part of the Press' Made in Michigan Writers Series and based on the few stories I've had a chance to read is both a) quite good and b) aptly titled.

"Riding the Hubcap" is told by a young man who happens to be riding shotgun to a similarly aged, yet slightly more disturbed, man.  When the story opens up, they are a few days and four states from where they started their trip, in Michigan.  O'Brien does a really nice job of capturing the strained relationship the two men have, which invites some credability to the last couple of pages.

She also does a real nice job of keeping the story moving forward - either via action, or the thinking going on in the narrator's head.  There isn't a slow moment in the story, as it involves teen angst, a rape, mundane working conditions, leering, robbery, murder, police chases, and more.  Beyond that though, everything just feels right - the action, the dialogue, the specific actions of each character.  I fully intended on strictly reading this one story to do a post and move on, and found myself reading three other stories from the collection before shutting the book.  Look for it.

Benjamin Percy.  A name you've read here once or twice before.  There's a reason folks, go pre-order his forthcoming story collection, Refresh, Refresh, now.

This time around however, it's a new story in Redivider (a great journal you'll read about more here later today!).

Percy is one of the better writers around today when writing about the landscape, the surroundings of his characters.  All this post will do is show you this by including a small excerpt.  Remember though, go buy Redivider and pre-order the collection!

     "This is March, and in Bend, Oregon, that means winter has six more weeks.  The snow continues to fall and the snowdrifts continue to pile higher against the windward sides of homes.  Windows remain sealed shut with frost so that the world outside appears always foggy, as if seen through a cataract.  Icicles the size and shape of spines dangle from gutters.  Blue jays and magpies flit from garbage can to garbage can, searching for something to scavenge, while emaciated deer stand, wobbling, on their spindly legs to seek out the seed from bird feeders, to peel the bark from low-hanging branches.  The air is so thin and dry it makes nosebleeds common, so much so that it isn't at all unusual to see someone -- in the grocery store, on the sidewalk -- with blood all over their chest and a Kleenex shoved up their nose like a candlewick, a wet red heat burning through it.  And the sky, the permanent cloud cover, bears down with a gray weight, like a low-slanting ceiling that makes John duck his head for fear of bumping against it, giving him a permanent slump-shouldering posture."

Ann Harleman is the author of two short story collections, Happiness, which won an Iowa Short Fiction Award, and Thoreau's Laundry (SMU Press, 2007) from which the story "Sharks" appears.  She's also published a novel with SMU Press, Bitter Lake.  "Sharks" originally was published in The Boston Review.

There is a cover flap description of Harleman's writing:  "Despite their often dire circumstances, Harleman's characters manage to find moments of light and grace."  It is a fitting description for the story "Sharks."

The story is told from the point of view of a mother.  She has lost custody of her daughter, assumedly due to the fact that she left her husband for another woman (while not stated, it is the only implied reason she would have lost the battle).  The short period that the story occurs during involves the mother picking up her daughter for her weekend visit.  While there is a bit of dialogue and interaction between the two, the bulk of the story plays out in the narrator's head.

That isn't to say that Harleman completely "violates" the whole show don't tell line so often heard in creative writing classes.  She utilizes the bits and pieces of dialogue or interaction between the characters to spin towards the mother's internal thinking.  It is this thinking that allows the reader into the depth of the story - the fact that she left John, her husband, for a woman named Susan; the fact that she only gets to see Anna, the daughter, on weekends; and just how much pain she's in over the fact that she's missing out on so much of her daughter's life. 

The method that Harleman has chosen to utilize - going from bits of action to large sections of internilzation - works very well in this particular story.

Kim Chinquee has two short fictions in the new issue of Redivider.  "Giving Most of it Away" is a fine example of what one can do with very little space - in this case, less than a full page. 

In a mere five paragraphs, Chinquee creates a character, creates a little bit of mystery, and then explains, with a look to the character's past, how the mystery might really have an affect on the character.  Again, all of that, and done so very solidly, in five paragraphs, with the last one being simply a single sentence.

Chinquee has become a master at this sort of thing - having the ability to really put together a complete story in such a small amount of words.  And it's not due to some extreme minimalism in terms of her sentences - for example:

     "My mother sent me out for it, although I didn't know why since she had a garden full of more than we could eat and she ended up giving most of it away.  But there I was in my bare feet with a metal pail that I used mostly for feeding calves the formula I would mix with water later in the evening."

Be it online or print journals, if you see the name Chinquee in the table of contents, take a side trip to that page or two.

From his third short story collection, Why Dogs Chase Cars (Algonquin, 2004), George Singleton once again frequents the city of Forty-Five, South Carolina.  Which is, of course, a great thing!

The stories, with Mendal Dawes, at the helm, are everything one expects from a Singleton story - a bit of drama, some real small southern town stereotypical descriptions, and quite a bit of humor.  The story "Unemployment" is no different.

Mendal is remembering a story from Valentine's Day when he was in second grade.  As the reader might expect going into the story, all does not go well.  With this story, Singleton presents a good look at how things are remembered, even poking a bit of fun at the idea of memory, especially that from early childhood, with the last bit of the story:

     "Years later I would say that she blew a kiss, mouthed 'Thank you,' and waved to me in a manner that meant for me to get away and keep going."

That 'Years later I would say' aspect of that ending forces the reader to go back and question everything they've just read - were the disastrous things (the teacher making cookies and putting Happy V.D. on them for instance) really that bad?  Did the names of that many children actually end in the letters "uck?"

With that one little sentence, Singleton forced me to reconsider what I had originally found to be a humorous little story.  I like it when a writer can do that, and do so without some little trick.

SHORT STORY MONTH

This story was originally published in Fortean Bureau, and as this has recently been included in Alan DeNiro's Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead.  As this is the current Litblog Co-op Read This! selection, my post on it can be found over here.

Continue visiting the LBC this week for more looks at individual stories by other LBC members, as well as guest blogging from DeNiro and an interview from myself and a podcast from Carolyn "Pinky" Kellogg.

SHORT STORY MONTH

Originally published in Chelsea, "Our Spring Catalogue" by Jack Pendarvis then found it's way into the annual Pushcart Prize volume and eventually into his debut story collection, The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure.

"Our Spring Catalogue" is what most book lovers would think it might be - a story from a publicist about the spring catalogue being promoted.  The catalogue contains eight titles and as the publicist writes of them, there is more and more burnout being allowed through.  The types of things you'd imagine some lower level publicists might actually feel if they're working at a publisher because it's a job, and not out of their love of the work that particular publisher puts out.

For example:

"It kind of tapers off at the end, like she ran out of ideas."  And that's the first entry.  Others that brought laughter from me included:

"If you look at the guy's picture on the dust jacket, you'll see that he made up the part about having sex."

"Who cares?"

"But then he finds out you can't run away from your problems.  Big fucking deal."

"Kirkus Reviews is going to eat this shit up."

If it's nothing else, this story is damn entertaining.  However, I don't think it's nothing else - I think Pendarvis has something to say about the industry within which he has chosen to make a living, and that some of it is good, and some of it is a little negative.

SHORT STORY MONTH

A bit of flash here today, from the fine online journal, Elimae.  This time around it's Aaron Burch's "Overcast."

"What did I just say, she asks.
I'd been busying myself recreating the above cloudscapes on my arm. I rotate it toward her and show, point. But it looks backwards. Backwards and upside down, all wrong. Jumbled and mangled.
That looks jumbled and mangled, she says.
I was trying. The replication, I say.
You speak in too many ellipses, she says.
What do you mean? I pause too much?
No, she says. No. That's not what I said."

In a mere seven sentences, I believe Aaron has done a tremendous job in capturing the miscommunication that many relationships see on such a regular basis.  I admittedly go back and forth on the subject of flash fiction - I prefer longer stories, but at times wonder if that's not just out of the selfish belief that if I'm enjoying a flash piece, I would enjoy it if it were long that much longer.  However, a piece like this makes me realize there's a place for this type of work.  I'll still go down swinging at the fences behind which reside longer stories, but will continue to enjoy work like this while I search for the longer ones I enjoy so much.

SHORT STORY MONTH

In her debut story collection, Russian Lover and Other Stories (YETI/Verse Chorus Press, 2007), Jana (pronounced as if the J were a Y and the word rhymed with Donna) Martin includes the story "Tremor", which was originally published in the journal Turnstile.

"Tremor" is a fairly short piece, told from the point of view of a young girl, and covers a visit to her home from her mother's parents.  Martin has shows a great skill in developing her characters through little details about them.  The bits about how the grandmother in the story dresses, pieces about how her son, the narrator's father, developed as a photographer.

The story itself is an interesting piece, as the father keeps taking pictures of his in-laws in which the grandmother appears blurry.  They keep changing film and cameras, and it seems that the reader must be being given more information than the characters as we know for certain seemingly early on in the piece that something must be wrong with the old woman.  The characters don't seem to piece this together until the very end, which is part of the fun of the story for the reader - trying to determine when the story wil catch up with them.

Look for this collection - Martin is a writer to watch for.