I absolutely loved Megan Mayhew Bergman's stories in “Almost Famous Women” so I've been greatly anticipating this new collection. One of my bookish resolutions for this year was to read a short story at the very beginning of each morning. That's what I did for the past week with these eight tales and it's been one of the highlights of each day losing myself in Bergman's compelling fictional landscape. These stories focus on the lives of different female characters grappling with desire and dealing with fear. Many are caught between the burdens of the past and the uncertainty of the future because of issues to do with the changing environment, economic inequality and strained familial circumstances. It's extremely moving how Bergman shows how these characters struggle to deal with these larger issues while fulfilling their own ambitions. As a way of not feeling overwhelmed one character suggests “The trick was to believe in your choices.” The author has a wonderful ability to quickly immerse the reader in her characters' reality which meant I was immediately gripped by their dilemmas and emotionally invested in their outcomes.
Bergman builds environments in her stories with rich atmospheric descriptions from a glass-walled seafront property in California to the lazy heat and rotting fruit on a South Carolina farm. Some tales focus on quiet intermediary periods where characters contemplate big decisions which will affect the rest of their lives. Others maintain an immediate dramatic tension as in 'Peaches, 1979' where a serial killer “strangler” is in the area and the culprit might be a part of the protagonist's own family. There's biting inbuilt comedy in the story 'Heirloom' where a woman turns her inherited barren desert ranch into a business where wealthy men can work out their emotional blockages by operating heavy machinery. In 'Wife Days' a woman negotiates a degree of autonomy with her husband by declaring she will only play her role as wife on certain days of the week. However, her ritual of rejuvenation through swimming and washing her face becomes like a circular nightmare rather than a path towards physical/spiritual renewal.
The most sustained and ambitious tale in this collection is the novella 'Indigo Run' (which took me more than a morning to complete as I had to read it in between work demands throughout my day.) It's set on a Southern plantation and primarily involves the tempestuous marriage between Helena and Win and their daughter Skip. Here “The past felt uncomfortably close... as if it were being kept at bay but ready to rush in at any moment and take root again.” It's so compelling how the characters feel duty bound by expectations and the burden of history to play certain roles. However, this impedes their growth and potential for personal happiness. It feels like a metaphor for the larger country. As an extension of this novella there is the compelling final fable-like tale in this collection 'The Night Hag' which charts the life of a figure born from a fish egg who takes “the shape of a woman”. After being used and discarded by a man, she physically and mentally deteriorates until she takes on monstrous properties (both in appearance and her actions.) Aside from this intriguing flirtation with the fantastical, Bergman's stories exquisitely capture the realistic dilemmas of different individuals with great wisdom and psychologically insightful detail.
