I really had the best intentions to do all of my Short Story September reviews in September… but anyway, here I am in October (planning November reading) and thinking I ought to draw a line under last month. So, Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry by Christine Sneed…

There are ten stories in the collection (Sneed’s debut. I bought this book after reading her first novel, Little Known Facts, which I enjoyed). The themes focus on love and what people choose to do for love.

For the most part, I was underwhelmed by the stories. They lacked punch. That’s fine if the writing is great, but in the case of Portraits, the writing was not quite there. There were glimpses of what Sneed wanted to achieve but it didn’t come to fruition, giving the sense that she was trying things out (which is fine) and still finding her style (also fine).

The best story, You’re So Different, told of a woman – famous in the film industry – returning to the small town where she grew up for her high school reunion. Many of her classmates had remained in the town and her attendance at the reunion causes a ripple of anticipation.

It is midway through the evening when the most extravagant embarrassment occurs, one that she knows is expected to please her, though it seems only the most desperate flattery. The reunion organizers, three women named Patty, Susan and Birdy, the first of whom is vastly pregnant and tipsy, unveil the night’s surprise tribute – a series of clips excerpted from Margaret’s five films and arranged to a melodramatic effect…

Margaret leaves the hall and is intercepted in the car park by a man whom she recognises as ‘…someone she once admired for his trombone playing and long, muscular legs.‘ She ends up agreeing to lunch with the trombone player (and his wife, Birdy, of the organising trio), where they desperately try to impress her. It’s excruciating. Margaret recalls Birdy as having been ‘aggressive in every sport’, but –

…now she is heavier, her body padded at each curve, her earlier aggression having given way to an ambiguous fatigue or disenchantment, possibly at having spent so many years trying to please her parents and then a husband, trying to be exceptional at things that turned out to not matter so much.

Margaret reflects on how there are so many ways that you might be unknowingly part of someone’s life, and that resonated for me. There are some people that I talk about or think fondly of, realising that they may not remember me at all! We never know what is meaningful for someone else.

Two other stories showed promise – By the Way, about a woman meeting with her much younger lover, and Interview with the Second Wife, where a journalist interviews the widow of a famous artist. Both were good ideas but not quite realised in a way that made for something memorable.

Sneed has written a couple more novels and has since published another short story collection (which gets solid reviews on Goodreads). Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry was my sixth collection as part of Short Story September, hosted by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers.

2/5

His students and colleagues and other writers he knew in the area were constantly in and out of our house during the school year. he liked to say that he wanted to be the local Gertrude Stein, but with gin martinis instead of pot brownies.