Favorite Short Stories of 2009

Last year, I started presenting my favorites according to length, because I wanted to be able to recognize stories in anthologies. Good work should not go unnoticed. Just like last year, two of my favorites in short stories - for me, that's anything less than 15k - come from anthologies that otherwise wouldn't have gotten the recognition.

4th Runner Up

Painting from Life by Anne Brooke

For someone who reads as much as I do, finding a strong, original voice can make my whole week. Anne Brooke paints as effectively as her unnamed narrator, though words are her medium. In doing so, she created an indelible rendering of a complex relationship that lifts the brief telling to a masterful level.

3rd Runner Up
Angel's Tears by Bryn Colvin

At the heart of this haunting story is a sad sack of a Plain Joe that completely captured my heart. Charley is the reason this story succeeds as well as it does, turning what could have been a maudlin pity party into a tale about hope and love that transcends spirit and flesh.

2nd Runner Up
Henry and Jim by J.M. Snyder

You know it was a good year for short stories when my 2nd runner up title scored a 10 for entertainment. This is one of those stories that prove how masterful Snyder can sometimes be, a bittersweet love story that relates a romance we should all be so lucky to have.

1st Runner Up
Shock Radio by Gabriel Daemon

The common thread running through most of my favorite short stories of this past year is that they are not your traditional romance. This one, especially, is as far as you can get away from that. Daemon grabbed me by the throat with the opening story in this anthology and shook me until I was so rattled I could barely think straight. It's bold and brash, just like its main character, and manages to creep me out just thinking about it in the height of the cheeriest season of the year.

And my favorite short story of 2009 is...

South by Dalyn A. Miller

Though this anthology was one of the better collections - as a whole - that I read this past year, the best one in it by far was "South" by Dalyn A. Miller. The story of two men on the verge of separating, it skillfully weaves backstory and forward momentum in wrenching, realistic ways that put so many other stories to shame. I rooted for this couple with everything I had, and promptly went back to re-read it when I finished it the first time. I find it a little ironic that, like my favorite last year, it was released by a publisher I've had difficulty reading more often than not. But talent shines, no matter where it's published.

Painting from Life by Anne Brooke

TITLE: Painting from Life
AUTHOR: Anne Brooke
PUBLISHER: Eternal Press
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 5k)
GENRE: Mainstream drama
COST: $2.50

During a trip to try and reconnect with his wife, a painter discovers a new muse, in the guise of an elderly man on the beach…

More emotions are evoked in this short, haunting story than many longer works I’ve read in recent months. It gets classified as a love story, or a GLBT piece in many places I’ve seen it discussed, but I’m reluctant to so easily define it. The relationship between the painter and Peter, the elderly man, isn’t nearly that cut and dry.

The narrator, a young man who remains unnamed as the story is told in first person, presents at the top of the story as desperate to save his three-year marriage. There are a lot of brewing emotions just packed within that relationship. His wife is the primary earner, and resents her husband’s lack of contributions. She’s jealous of the time and energy he devotes to his art. She’s hungry for contact, and the list goes on. There’s certainly nothing easy about it, and then, when he spies Peter on the beach and his muse is infused as it hasn’t been in years, the situation only gets worse.

But just as his relationship with his wife isn’t simple, neither is his relationship with Peter. It grows from a simple agreement of a single sitting to something far more complex. Nothing sexual ever occurs, but the narrator finds energy and passion in his work with Peter as he never has before. Peter, in turn, cannot bring himself to characterize their relationship as anything familial (when asked if he trusts the narrator, Peter responds with, “Like a son…No, better than a son.”). The give and take between the two satisfies needs in both of them. There is some dark subtext, however, suggesting that the narrator (as artist) is draining away Peter’s life (as muse), but in all honesty, it didn’t overshadow the relationship as I read it. It felt far more symbiotic to me, as Peter is already elderly when they meet. Each is hungry for what the other offers. Peter's health might be failing as the narrator continues to work, but the paintings will give him an immortality he wouldn't have otherwise had if they'd never met in the first place.

The complexity of the relationships is served amazingly well by the lyrical, edgy prose. It offers just the right amount of clear, original detail to paint a picture with words, without getting excessive or too artsy, and intrigues me into pursuing more of the author’s work. Strong, original voices are like gold. This one pays off.

Readability	10/10 – Clean, lyrically edgy prose
Characterization	8/10 – Strong, vivid personalities
Plot	7/10 – Some ambiguity allows the reader to extrapolate exactly what he/she needs from it
Entertainment value	8/10 – Haunting
World building	9/10 – The detail of the seaside crackles
TOTAL:	42/50