Re: a new "New Yorker" story NOT by JDS

I subscribe to New Yorker and was surprised when I first read this post
-- I didn't recall seeing the story. Just last night my wife was
digging for a missing book and pulled out a copy of New Yorker magazine
that I hadn't seen before. I flipped through it, and there was the
story. So I read it.

Good read. The most gratifying thing about the story is that the New
Yorker would publish a story like this. It was almost...sentimental.
 It certainly represents male fantasy about the family within the
context of the inevitable mid life crisis. The story's characters and
content border on cliché but manage to stay this side of it. The ending
was pretty reminiscent of _Field of Dreams_ -- If Pill bakes it, they
will come -- and is pretty close to this film/book thematically as well.

I'd say one flaw was that it wasn't clear how Pill's (the youngest
daughter) food served as an emotional analog to anything in the father's
life. I may just need more time with the story. Apart from any
specific connection, the "filling" that the father needed was
communicated to him, of course, through his children. In other words,
everything he needed emotionally was right there with his family; he
just needed to see it. There's a subcontext of openness to others as
well...through his children his father learned to engage others
meaningfully.

Obvious lesson. As a father of four, though, I know we can't hear it
enough. Nice way to teach it.

Jim

Tim O'Connor wrote:

>An astute subscriber and reader on this list mentioned to me
>privately, and I concurred, that the story in the current New
>Yorker, called "Wes Amerigo's Giant Fear," by David Schickler,
>is one of the finer stories to make its way around in quite some
>time.
>
>If you are somewhere where you cannot buy the magazine, you can
>get the story on the magazine's web site -- but hey, it would be
>nice to show a little support and buy the thing for the couple
>of bucks it costs, if you can spare the change.
>
>Schickler is the author of a collection called KISSING IN
>MANHATTAN, which is (yes, I'll go out on that limb) one of the
>finest collections of stories I've seen published in the last
>five or ten years. I mean, I can't even NAME another collection
>that moved me as much in my lifetime. (Regrettably, I cannot
>claim to have been around when Hemingway published a
>collection.) I've managed to read KISSING three times, and
>loved it every time.
>
>If you're looking for a writer who can adopt some mantle or
>another of greatness, David Schickler is it, in my small
>opinion. Read KISSING IN MANHATTAN. Read "Wes Amerigo's Giant
>Fear." He's the real deal.
>
>And yes, this message is blissfully free of Salinger content,
>except that if the old man continues to get the magazine, I can
>only hope he would agree.
>
>--tim
>
>

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Received on Fri Apr 25 17:41:52 2003