Single-Carefree-MellowFor the Dark Souls Searching

Author: Katherine Heiny

Love. Libido. Loneliness. Fear. The meaning of want: to drive away the demons of boredom, to find passion and escape, to be wanted in return, or perhaps to just understand. Single, Carefree, Mellow presents eleven short stories by new voice Katherine Heiny about relationships and the inner complexity of connectedness in a world where our desires just don’t make sense, even to ourselves. Each story concentrates on a woman who is everything except single, carefree, and mellow. Women in long term relationships, women with commitment, woman seeking excitement, fearing their decisions, fearing impending marriages in some cases, always just wanting the one that got away: the one that can never be theirs to have. It’s a cast of selfish, often amoral characters, exploring the key to want and fulfillment, journeying through romance: is it about the excitement or the long term? Why can you never have both? In the end it’s a snapshot of mistakes made and a continual reminder that there are no answers in life, only dangerous choices. Oddly compelling, although mostly not sympathetic, each story draws us into a sordid little world that echoes too much of reality and late night confessions to be dismissed, and so we walk through the night with these women, just trying to figure it all out: who really is the one and how, and when, do you know him? Is life just an endless collection of meaningless sidelines and encounters? Is commitment simply inertia? Is love the desire for what we know does not belong to us, and can therefore never be completely had? What of friendship? What of being a mother? What of husband’s/lover’s family and friends who are perhaps more integrated into our lives than  the supposed love is? Heiny examines the darker side of relationships, especially the “last boat out of the harbor” kind and the general dissatisfaction of being human and always wanting what cannot be had – what doesn’t in effect, exist.

Each short story concentrates on a relationship which is extramarital (or a woman cheating on her boyfriend/fiancé). Typically, being an old fashioned type of gal myself, I found this type of story and characters that represent infidelity as a means to a selfish ends, not only uninteresting but devoid of empathy. These are the types of characters I tend to hate and root against, if I don’t slam the book shut on their moribund “me, me, me” schemes. I was surprised then when Single, Carefree, Mellow captured me and drew me in, perhaps not to full empathy with its wide cast, but with a certain level of understanding and a nod to the complexity of dating and marriage in a world where nothing is for sure and the pressures of being alone consume the desire to be good and altruistic. Perhaps I’ve matured or, more likely, Heiny’s non-judgmental narrative, her manner of just capturing a person “warts and all” is too entrancing to turn aside. It’s a soul stripped bear, a guiltless soul consumed by need, and who won’t look at that glorious train wreck?

The prose through each story weaves together, contemporary and open.  We aren’t given tidy endings; we aren’t necessarily even given meaning, just a slice of a moment with that aching, raw wound feel of dating and deception, that sordid desire for self only that haunts with its realism. These are bad dates, bad relationships, people caught in hopeless situations, and the crisp writing is just as spot on as it is oddly lyrical, weaving in the modern world with that old, hopeless feeling. It’s not a feel good read, not one where we walk away thinking of  the greater book, but truly the greater carelessness we express toward our fellow creatures, the inherent selfishness of obsession and self-seeking love.  It’s a breathtaking tragedy.

As is the nature of short story collections, some pieces remain with us more than others, which fade into the background. No story, however, is bad. Maya, a returning character, proved to be my personal favorite character because of her bizarre love affair situations and the very darkness of her world. The most unsympathetic and confused, she is the most close to us and the most questioning, and through her we question our knowledge of the world, marriage, and children. Can a happy couple be manufactured and stay together through what is never revealed? Appearing in Single, Carefree, Mellow, Maya first looks forward to the death of the dog she shares with long-term boyfriend, Rhodes, seeing this as her chance to break away and explore the freedom of singleness. Only, death shows just how life isn’t clear cut and the very darkness of Maya is putrid, yet oddly compelling. Her questions are real, although her manner of approaching them is cold. In Dark Matter, Maya returns, engaged to Rhodes and having an illicit affair with her boss – trying to decide between the two, revealing the alikeness of men through her percept of come facts – those pre-love making conversational baubles that are detached and yet, ultimately, unique for all that. The story is eerie and contemplates how we can never truly understand who we are much less who we want in our lives. In Grendel’s Mother, Maya appears one last time and through her desultory eyes we watch marriage and childbirth, the final saga of that fake love game.

Other stories dwell on friendship, user-ship, children, affairs, etc. building on the theme what is love, what are relationships, how does the seen and perceived differ from the actuality of the moment, and what is it, really that we all want? Elusive, bittersweet, poignant, and ultimately haunting Single, Carefree, Mellow is dedicated to dark souls still searching, groping around in the twilight of all that is not understood and all that is so badly desired. Recommended.

  • Frances Carden
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Frances Carden
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