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A review by maedo
Alone With You by Marisa Silver
2.0
For the most part, I thought that the stories in this collection lacked in both focus and resolution, with Silver's simple language and focus on ordinary domestic characters in unextraordinary circumstances contributing to this meandering feeling.
But! The last two stories, "In the New World" and the title story, "Alone With You," were fantastic. Both are similar in motif, in part about a parent observing his or her teenage or young adult son's awakening to the opposite sex. Where Silver takes each of the stories from there is vastly different, though both stories have a tightness of focus (without being obvious) that made them satisfying.
"Alone With You" especially was unforgettable. In this story, a mother is on vacation in Morocco with her husband, her reserved 20 year old son and his ebullient girlfriend. Silver is at her best writing about this girl, who has the "magnetic property of the self-involved" and "carries [the son:] away in her squall, his heart tossed this way and that." The mother also observes the way that her similarly reserved husband reacts to this girl, everyone drawn to her liveliness. If you find yourself becoming discouraged by the rest of the collection as I did for similar reasons, I'd advise sticking it through to the end.
But! The last two stories, "In the New World" and the title story, "Alone With You," were fantastic. Both are similar in motif, in part about a parent observing his or her teenage or young adult son's awakening to the opposite sex. Where Silver takes each of the stories from there is vastly different, though both stories have a tightness of focus (without being obvious) that made them satisfying.
"Alone With You" especially was unforgettable. In this story, a mother is on vacation in Morocco with her husband, her reserved 20 year old son and his ebullient girlfriend. Silver is at her best writing about this girl, who has the "magnetic property of the self-involved" and "carries [the son:] away in her squall, his heart tossed this way and that." The mother also observes the way that her similarly reserved husband reacts to this girl, everyone drawn to her liveliness. If you find yourself becoming discouraged by the rest of the collection as I did for similar reasons, I'd advise sticking it through to the end.