When life meddles with your reading

There is little to write about my reading in May because I read very little. Only a handful of short stories as part of my grand but futile effort to read thirty-one stories during the month. I read less than half and I also didn't make it through any of the unfinished novels. I'm also behind my other challenge to read the ‘first novels’ of various authors.

To be frank, April and May were trying months starting with a month-long home renovation followed by an unexpected health scare in the family and, more recently, my loss of job. Then my laptop crashed beyond repair but my children surprised me with a brand new one. They said they were going to the theatre to watch Avengers: Age of Ultron, a film they’d both seen. My wife and I didn't suspect a thing. They came back in less than an hour with an HP tucked under their arms. What can I say!

I'm relieved the health crisis has passed and all is well. The family is what comes first, nothing else matters. I can always find another job. No one stays jobless for very long. 

I don’t want this to be a sob story any more than it already is, so I’ll tell you about the short stories I read last month. Most of the stories came from Masters of Noir: Volume One which I picked up from Amazon. It's a fine collection of hardboiled stories.

Out of the nine stories in this anthology, I read ‘Carrera's Woman’ by Richard Marsten (Ed McBain) and ‘Look Death in the Eye’ by Lawrence Block in April, hence they don’t count.

The other seven were…

Identity Unknown by Jonathan Craig

The Girl behind the Hedge by Mickey Spillane

Butcher by Richard S. Prather

On a Sunday Afternoon by Gil Brewer

Frame by Frank Kane

Double by Bruno Fischer

As I lie dead by Fletcher Flora

Besides these, I also read three stories from The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, namely ‘Up in Michigan,’ ‘Black Ass at the Cross Roads,’ and ‘The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio.’ I also read and reviewed The Spider by Hanns Heinz Ewers.

I liked nearly every one of the eleven short stories. They were full of twists and turns. But two stories—‘On a Sunday Afternoon’ by Gil Brewer and ‘Up in Michigan’ by Ernest Hemingway—stood out for their sexual undercurrent.

In Brewer’s story, housewife Julia is trapped in an unhappy marriage. On a day picnic with her husband Dell and their little daughter, Julia is raped by a gang of unruly boys. Her husband is beaten up and tied to a tree. When the boys leave, Julia tells Dell, “I said, I'm glad you didn't do anything, Dell. Because I liked it, Dell. I liked every minute of it. Every God damned minute of it!”

In Hemingway’s story, Liz Coates is crazy about Jim Gilmore, a blacksmith described as short and dark with big moustaches and big hands. He doesn't seem to notice her much. Until one night when he reveals that he has, in fact, been noticing her. During a walk on the dock by the bay, Jim forces himself on Liz. She wants him too but not quite that way. “A cold mist was coming up through the woods from the bay.”

Both the stories were suggestive and they kind of left me squirming. I have never read anything like this by Ernest Hemingway though I have read his hardboiled stories like The Killers. Mild as it was it took me by surprise.

I think I'm going to stop putting a number to my reading though I know I’ll be back next month, hopefully, with better figures than in recent months.