Happiness

I’m finally getting around to reading The Best American Short Stories 2007, which I posted about earlier.

Two things of note:

1. Stephen King, who picked the final 20 stories, wrote the introduction that made me want the book in the first place. Re-reading it, I see that he used a semicolon on the first page!

Stephen King is not a pretentious writer, and this introduction isn’t a pretentious introduction. Clearly, the man has read my many posts on semicolons and has agreed to join the cause. Thanks, Stephen!

2. The first story I read (rather than skimmed) in the book is: “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” by Karen Russell. I loved it.

The story is literally about a halfway house for girls who were raised by wolves, and who speak the wolf language and have the pack mentality. I kept waiting for it to get stupid, or mawkish, but it never did.

Ok, there were one or two imaginative bits that didn’t make sense to me, but other than those, I had fun reading it. Which is the point.

And, hey, if you’re interested in thinking about things, this story does have room for that as well. It’s not a stretch to claim that this is a story about loss of place, how you can never go home, how you can miss something you don’t really want, and how moving ahead often means leaving behind, and also how you can have regrets for things you’ve done while still understanding why you did them.

Or, it can just be a fun story about girls who gnaw on their shoes and pee on everything to mark their territory.

So yay for short stories and yay for semicolons and yay for Karen Russell and Stephen King. And a happy good morning to you, too.