By the Wayside Stories Anne Leigh Parrish 9780998087238 Books
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Marvelous. Honest. Generous. From the first story to the last, "By the Wayside" catches your attention and demands that you give into its every whirl. Each character unfolds with a precision that will have you wondering how Parrish managed to create such real-to-the-bones people within a world that captivates you with ease."By the Wayside" was a finalist for the International Book Awards's short story category.
By the Wayside Stories Anne Leigh Parrish 9780998087238 Books
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Tags : By the Wayside: Stories [Anne Leigh Parrish] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Marvelous. Honest. Generous. From the first story to the last, By the Wayside catches your attention and demands that you give into its every whirl. Each character unfolds with a precision that will have you wondering how Parrish managed to create such real-to-the-bones people within a world that captivates you with ease. By the Wayside was a finalist for the International Book Awards's short story category.,Anne Leigh Parrish,By the Wayside: Stories,Unsolicited Press,0998087238,FICTION Short Stories (single author),Fiction Short Stories
By the Wayside Stories Anne Leigh Parrish 9780998087238 Books Reviews
Anne Leigh Parrish offers an excellent volume of short stories spanning some twenty years of her prolific career as an acclaimed author.
My personal favorite was The Professor. In The Professor, a woman awaits the outcome of an adoption. As she frets, she sees a man from her childhood, taking her back to a long-ago place and time.
“He gazes at the twilight sky, a view that doesn’t inspire you much because of the neighbor’s ramshackle house and the overgrown bushes around its front walkway. You realize that your eye is drawn to the world’s flaws, not its glory, so you begin examining this trait, wondering how it affects you and your chances for future happiness in life. Professor DeLille turns and looks up at you. His eyes are moist, red-rimmed. A sick man’s eyes, you think, someone broken apart from the inside out. He puts his glass on the unpainted wood floor and takes your hand. The shock of it nearly takes your breath away. His palm is callused and rough, damp with sweat. It’s an ugly sensation, and the pit of your stomach lurches.â€
Ms. Parrish captures both beauty and ugliness. Her descriptive writing style draws the reader into the story, teasing all of the senses through the written word.
I received a free copy for review.
The first few works in the collection are beautifully written, diverse in style and shows how well the author has perfected her unique voice. The rest of the stories read the same, follow the same vein, and consist of similar protagonists that face life’s difficult questions. I found the repetition to be bothersome; not horrible, not a deal breaker, just something I noticed. Some of them worked with the author’s writing style, some of them left far too many unanswered questions.
The realistic, down-to-earth characters are where this author clearly shines. They revolve around and move her stories along, perfectly flawed and human, confusing in their actions as much as they think they are justified. Many of these characters share similarities with each other, all of them seem to be cut from the same mold that this author is very comfortable with working with- again, it works in some places, and sometimes collections just happen to be those places. If you read the stories in stints, not back to back as I did, I’m sure the similarities would be less noticeable and the collection would be all the more enjoyable.
This is a decent collection; some flaws here and there, but nothing that any avid reader wouldn’t enjoy. Parrish has a real talent for realistic characters and a solidified voice, one that some published big name authors still have trouble finding. If you like short story collections and realistic fiction, I would definitely recommend not passing this one up.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for writing a review. I was not obligated to give a positive review, and all thoughts are my own.
A few years back I read a collection of linked stories, Our Love Could Light The World, by Anne Leigh Parrish. The stories were about a family with five children, set in the Finger Lakes region of New York state. Since I grew up in a family with five children in that region, I had to read it.
I loved the book, and it reminded me of Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning linked story collection, Olive Kitteridge, but I enjoyed Parrish's book even more.
Parrish is back with a more traditional collection of stories, By the Wayside. Instead of linked stories with the same characters appearing in the stories, these stories have similiar themes. Many of the stories have appeared in other publications as well.
The eighteen stories in By The Wayside deal mainly with young women facing a crossroads in life. These sassy women are dealing with dead parents, mental illness, sibling animosity, disappointment, marriage, and unrequited love. Many of these women are lonely, and some have adult responsibility beyond their young years.
In the first story, An Angel Within, Leet is a twenty year-old woman whose parents are gone. She is responsible for her two younger sisters, a sixteen year-old obsessed with nail polish, and a thirteen year-old whose obsession with beautiful clothes and handbags sometimes led to shoplifting.
Leet believes that an angel lives inside her; it is the only way she can get through her days at her lousy job as a grocery bagger in a town that requires a two-bus communte, only to return home to deal with her sisters.
The second story, How She Was Found, is one of the strongest. Fiona is on an archeological dig with her male professor and three male fellow students who treat her with disdain until she makes a significant find. I particularly liked Fiona's spunk. (Lou Grant would not like it- Mary Tyler Moore Show shout-out.)
Short stories require that the author get right to the point with her words, there is no room for flowerly descriptions. Parrish excels in that, using indelible phrases and sentences that set the mood and character in the reader's mind, like these
In the terrific Where Love Lies, she writes "Dana figured nothing had been her fault. Bruce figured everything had been his fault." You learn a lot about that married couple in one sentence.
When Anna and her newlywed husband Paul move to the dusty town of Huron, South Dakota in 1920 in An Act of Concealment, Paul "thought the place he looked at nothing like home, His heart sank a bit. Anne's didn't. To her, home was an idea, not a place." I absolutely loved that passage, and again we know who these people are immediately.
When Anna says to another man that she believes marriage causes a kind of blindness, he tells her that "marriage alters one's vision... I mean that he doesn't see you well enough and (that) you see him too clearly."
Another story I loved was The Lillian Girl, about a teen who run aways from her disinterested parents and finds a woman looking for her daughter. It's the last story, and a fitting end to the this wonderful collection.
I found that I enjoyed the stories that were longer, the stories that were but a few stories that seemed to end too abruptly for me. I recommend By the Wayside for those looking for a good short story collection, written beautifully. It's a perfect one-day read, but one that you'll contemplate much longer.
My appreciation for Parrish's prose and talent for creating and developing complex characters began when I read What is Found, What is Lost several years ago.
For lovers of the short story form, By the Wayside offers the same. "Artichokes" is particularly satisfying as she allows the reader to reach for the subtext.
This collection has a strong theme with threads of female insecurity, strength, loss, and gain, but not all stories have happy endings. Many leave the protagonist having taken action that puts her on a different path, but the future and outcome is still unknown. Readers looking to art for an escape from reality may be disappointed while readers who appreciate when art reflects life and who look to art to help them articulate latent feelings and meaning will be pleased.
Books have been described as being windows, mirrors, or doors. This one is a mirror.
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