Literary Short Stories with a Gut Punch
By: Michelle Brafman
Miscarriage, infertility, desire, loss, women’s issues, and the poignancy of deep pain pervade We Named Them All, two short stories concentrating on a young Jewish couple. The first story, “Sylvia’s Spoon” delves into the premature loss of an unborn child through the mother’s prospective while also touching on women’s relationships, issues of jealousy, and the longing for what others seem to so easily have. The narrative is modern, yet ancient with the fluidity of pain. Most disturbing is the moment where we see Hannah’s miscarried baby, floating in the toilet water; she finally has the ability to give loss a mental image, and our hearts rend when she dips her aunt’s stolen spoon into the water to retrieve the physicality of shattered dreams. Her anger, love, humor – the sheer humanity of her raw voice resonates with readers, even those of us who don’t have the same burning maternal dream.
The second story, “Shhhh,” picks up with Hannah, pregnant again and despairing of how it will end. This time we see the world through the eyes of Hannah’s unborn fifth baby and Hannah’s husband, showing that not only the mother suffers, but the entire family does in unique ways.
The voices are so shattering, so visceral; the agony seeps from the pages and while both the stories are dark, they are oddly uplifting, darkly ironical, and evocative of the human condition. There is compassion, anger, envy, loss; there is a gentleness in the description of grief that makes the readers’ hearts expand, feeling sympathy for all the situations and details behind the blurred eyes we see in traffic or on the way to the office. What islands of pain do we all carry, and how can a mother survive, a marriage continue, after the loss of so many unborn hopes?
A Kindle bargain, I ran across this collection, which comes with a reader’s guide for group introspection and discussion, while browsing the e-reader section. I read both stories back-to-back several days ago and the voice lingers with me, the conversational writing that feels like living in the characters’ minds instead of watching events unfold from the outside. Evocative women’s fiction that paints a portrait not only of family life, but the ultimate condition of unrequited longing and grief, We Named Them All is a brief flash into a dark world that will continue to haunt. Highly recommended.
- Frances Carden
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