The Kind I Like to Read
Ken Foster's stark short stories.
By Katherine Guckenberger
The Kind I'm Likely to Get, by Ken Foster,
William Morrow, Quill, 1999, 198 pages, $12.00
Much has been made of Ken Foster's claim, in his introduction to The
KGB Bar Reader, that "the best writers reveal something about themselves
that a smarter person would choose to hide." His first collection
of short stories, The Kind I'm Likely to Get, proves Foster, who earned
a master's degree in education in 1989 from Bouvé College, right:
his book contains fourteen nakedly honest stories, and had he held back
even just a little, these stories would lack the individuality and verve
that distinguish them from the countless other stories published in magazines,
collections, and anthologies this summer.
In 1994, while pursuing a master's in fine arts at Columbia University,
Foster began coordinating literary readings at the KGB Bar, so named because
the lower Manhattan tavern once housed a group that supposedly fronted
for the Communist Party. After four years and countless readings, Foster
chose twenty-eight stories to include in The KGB Bar Reader, which was
published last year. Remarkably, many of the stories Foster picked are
written by this decade's most successful and influential writers, including
the recipient of this year's Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Michael Cunningham.
Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that Foster's own stories are as
unusual and memorable as they are. He writes stories that are close to
his heart, and he creates characters who fall short of "normal,"
the way most of us do. When a character who once worked the night shift
at Kinko's finds himself scraping by on unemployment, for example, he's
as real as Foster himself (in fact, Foster worked at Kinko's in Portland,
Oregon, and wound up living off unemployment checks and accident insurance
for a time in New Orleans). Convincing a reader that such a character is
viable is the easy part, however; convincing a reader that he is also somehow
appealing and intriguing is yet another matter.
It's not just Foster's perspective from beyond the pale that marks these
stories as unique. Foster plays with form, too. In fact, some of the "stories"
in The Kind I'm Likely to Get aren't likely to be considered stories at
all, in the most traditional sense of the word. Many of them are sketches
and are intentionally oblique, and some simply sate a reader's curiosity
about what it would be like to be in the situations Foster describes. These
stories will have you asking, Have I been there? Would I want to be there?
And, finally, Good Lord, what would I do if I were there?
Four of the most traditional, and insightful, stories in The Kind I'm
Likely to Get revolve around a recently separated couple, John and Mary.
But unlike characters who crop up in different novels by a single author-when
a reader is forced to wonder if that character has already experienced
certain events we've read about in other books-the stories in this collection
follow a clear beginning, middle, and end pattern.
In the first John and Mary story, "Indelible," which Foster
included in The KGB Bar Reader, John laments the couple's breakup while
testing the colorfastness of a silk-screened design. This first story proves
that John and Mary probably shouldn't have been together in the first place,
and that Mary had been disinterested at best. In the second story, told
from Mary's point of view, she returns to New York after publishing a scathing
account of her relationship with John in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
When she runs into John, he pops her in the nose, and she's rushed to the
hospital. In the third story, Mary apologizes to John for everything. Curiously,
he never apologizes to her. We're left to marvel at the heartache and damage
we cause one another, even when we know we're not meant to be together.
The last John and Mary story is about a crush Mary develops on another
man, Kevin, an ex-heroin addict who is still addicted to needles. He takes
Mary to an acupuncture clinic called the Harm Reduction Center. Mary agrees
to go, because it's free and because the idea scares her. "It gave
her a buzz the kind of which she hadn't had a while, and she could tell
herself it was her curiosity about the place that brought her there, rather
than her curiosity about Kevin." This is a key bit of information:
Mary is not ready to jump back into a relationship with two feet. In fact,
she barely dips a toe. At the end, she can't tell what will happen, or
even what she hopes will happen. "Will he move closer to her? She
wonders now, as she sits filling salt and pepper shakers in the darkened
corner of the restaurant where they work. Or will he move farther away?"
Of the remaining stories in the collection, which involve a variety
of characters, from children to male prostitutes, the most successful entries
attempt to address larger themes: desolation, fear of failure, the power
of self-reflection. On the whole, however, Foster chooses to focus on characters
who are neither coming nor going, people who've been dealt an uneven hand
and approach life with very little hope or conviction.
The narrator of "Remainders," a divorcée who takes
a job in a bookstore café and befriends a much younger coworker,
realizes she's become "the kind of person who tells lies, who lies
to herself, casually wondering how many steps exist between this and losing
myself completely." At the very least, such a realization is hopeful:
people this self-aware usually pick up the pieces and move on. Other Foster
characters aren't even that lucky. The narrator of the title story, for
example, the ex-Kinko's worker living off unemployment, wanders New Orleans
aimlessly, bumping into acquaintances but never developing lasting friendships.
When a young woman asks him how he managed to get so many Mardi Gras beads,
he responds with what amounts to his life philosophy: "I decided I'd
never get anything if I tried, so I just caught the things that everyone
else missed."
Depressing? Maybe. There is nothing uplifting about these stories, but
as true representations of the way people really are and the way life usually
goes, Foster's stories are masterful.
Katherine Guckenberger is a staff editor of the Atlantic Monthly
and the fiction editor of Atlantic Unbound, the Atlantic's on-line journal.
Inventing Made Easy
By Tom and Roger Bellavance Quiet Corner Press, 1999
Tom Bellavance, E'88, and his brother, Roger, self-published this how-to
guide, advertised as a comprehensive guide for creating, patenting, and
marketing inventions successfully. Drawing from their own experience as
inventors, the Bellavances offer tips on unlocking the creativity necessary
to devise innovative products and then explain the ins and outs of obtaining
a patent. But the book goes into greatest detail on "the true challenge"
for inventors: profiting from their creations. The authors describe how
to set up a small business to market and sell a new product. Quiet Corner
Press (800-917-6689) is located in Moosup, Connecticut.
Remade in America: Transplanting and Transforming Japanese
Management Systems
Edited by Jeffrey K. Liker, W. Mark Fruin, and Paul S. Adler
Oxford University Press, 1999
This latest study in the Japan Business and Economics Series uses case
studies and large-scale surveys to explain how the best Japanese management
systems have been successfully transferred and adapted to the United States,
at plants owned by both Japanese and American companies. Liker, who received
a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from N.U. in 1976, is now
an associate professor of engineering at the University of Michigan, where
he co-directs the Japan Management Program.
Frame by Frame: A Visual Guide to College Success
By Sharyn Lowenstein and Peaco Todd
Prentice-Hall, 1999
Frame by Frame uses cartoons and a cast of characters to present students
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rather than an academic text, Frame by Frame is accompanied by an instructor's
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