Chamblee54

PG is fixin’ to finish a book of short stories by TC Boyle, “If the river was whiskey”. The book is a collection of 16 stories by what someone called “the most versatile writer in America”. It is like eavesdropping on 16 different conversations in a bar…one is discussing the restaurant business and dealing with persnickety critics, while another tells the tale of a wall street slickie who sold his soul to the devil.
New Yorker magazine sometimes has what they call a fiction issue, with short stories by trendy writers. In one of these was an effort by T. Coraghessan Boyle. The picture beside the story showed a man with facial hair,earrings, and other facial decorations that might be interpreted as fey. (For what it is worth, Boyle is married with three children. “Whiskey”, published in 1989, is dedicated to the three younguns.)
Boyle has soldiered on. He is now known as TC (T is for Tom, and Coraghessan is his mother’s maiden name). This is an american story. TCB was born and raised in upstate New York, fond of heroin as a young man, only to detox. He learns how to write, moves to California, and does well.
“Whiskey” is great fun, and well worth the effort of carrying back from the Chamblee library. The versatility is tough to underestimate. The first story is about the restaurant critic from hell, which is followed by a girl who makes her boyfriends wear full body condoms. A PR agent tries to remake the image of a pre 911 arab, segues into a lady selling home alarm systems to alarmed mortgage owners, so that a freshly minted widow can mourn her husband by turning on every faucet and spigot in the house and leave them running. Mind you these are short stories, with none of the time commitment of a novel. You finish one vision, and are afraid to consider what might be in the next installment.
A comment at Amazon said that some of the stories seem like throwaways. A story called “The Little Chill” is an obvious satire on a movie with a similar title. (Full disclosure…PG never saw the movie.) If you are just looking for distraction on a train ride, there are no bad stories. Even if the english majors write snarky things, the rest of us can enjoy them.
Whatever is going on behind the eyes of Mr. Boyle has not killed him. Sad to say, the opposite seems to be the case with David Foster Wallace. A feature on the New Yorker website tells his tale.
As with Boyle, PG was introduced to Mr. Wallace through a magazine article. It was about tennis, which, to PG, is like watching paint dry. Mr. Wallace wrote a ten page article about tennis, and made it fun to read. Too bad he couldn’t apply the same magic to his own life.
Pictures for this feature are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.