BRAWLER: STORIES (2026)
By Lauren Groff
Penguin Random House, 248 pages (Large Print version)
★★★
Lauren Graff is one of my favorite novelists and has a devoted following. Brawler has garnered rave reviews and several of the stories are stunners. Of the nine stories in the collection, though, there are a few that underwhelmed me, including the collection’s title tale. Its protagonist, Sara, is an individual with two personalities, the tough (aka/brawler) athlete and the shy kid aware of being an outcast because of her poverty, sick mother, and unkempt appearance. In my view, how this shaped the rest of her life warranted more than 12 pages and few sentences at the end.
On the other hand, her theme of “the ceaseless battle between human’s dark and light angels” “To Sunland” nails it. Goff explores 17-year-old Joanie’s dilemma after her mother dies and leaves her mentally challenged brother Buddy in her care. Joannie has a scholarship to a college in Maine and can’t wait to get out of Florida. As it happens, a lot of Floridians try to get what they can out of Joanie before she goes, her mother’s things, a cheap feel, a captive audience for evangelizing, her money…. Can she leave Buddy at a facility and get on with her life? It’s a taut tale about need versus guilt.
“Birdie” comes at this from a different angle. Five old friends gather two decades later when Birdie lies dying. More accurately, four were friends; Nicole never considered herself part of anyone’s in-crowd. Nic can’t help but think of the decisions she and the other four made or were made for them. Reunions are often a terrible idea, especially under unhappy circumstances. More terrible still is to play a game of the “worst thing” one has ever done with people you no longer know and were unsure of back in the proverbial day. Everyone shares, though a lot is inferred, left unsaid, or akin to fictions made up for Sunday confession. Nic feels very guilty about something, but she’s only truthful with Birdie in private. Is there a greater grace than to confess for real and find out that the person you thought you had wronged never gave the incident a second thought?
Another excellent story is “What’s the Time Mr. Wolf? It’s the longest story in the book and takes us inside a well-to-do banking family. How many stories about the wealthy involve the black sheep of the family, the member who is “as dumb as… newts,” happy to exploit his privilege, drinks too much, or just drifts and assumes everything will work out? That’s Chip; he’s all of those things. After four years of failing at banking his family packs him up and involuntarily sends him to a remote part of New Hampshire to dry out. There he meets Pearl Spang, an old conquest who acts as if she never met him before. She’s out of his class and probably has no recollection of him. Chip will discover some hidden resolve, but this one has a bleak ending.
The above are emblematic of how Groff deals with human foibles. In essence they are like the old cartoons in which an angel sits on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Groff understands that short stories need their protagonists to clash with antagonists, either in the flesh or in the form of intangibles such as ambition, revenge, and temptation.
Goff is quite skillful at turning phrases and writing poignant sentences. These shine through even when the narratives fail to resonate. Her last chapter, “Annunciation” deals with real poverty and a variant that comes when someone with resources simply stops caring and drifts into perceived poverty. One such woman, Griselda, told stories that were true but were thought to be fanciful. Art factors into “Annunciation” and our antagonist muses over precious works of art: “There are a thousand Madonnas here, with a thousand different faces. Each Madonna wears the face of a particular mortal woman whom the artist loved. Each woman is one in whom the animal was briefly overcome by the god that lived within her.” In “Birdie” Nic describes her flight home: “She rose into the flight, that gorgeous liminal moment that’s a respite between lives; and descended again into the grind of the quotidian.”
Words such as these sing to me long after the stories fade.
Rob Weir
BRAWLER: STORIES (2026)
By Lauren Groff
Penguin Random House, 248 pages (Large Print version)
★★★
Lauren Graff is one of my favorite novelists and has a devoted following. Brawler has garnered rave reviews and several of the stories are stunners. Of the nine stories in the collection, though, there are a few that underwhelmed me, including the collection’s title tale. Its protagonist, Sara, is an individual with two personalities, the tough (aka/brawler) athlete and the shy kid aware of being an outcast because of her poverty, sick mother, and unkempt appearance. In my view, how this shaped the rest of her life warranted more than 12 pages and few sentences at the end.
On the other hand, her theme of “the ceaseless battle between human’s dark and light angels” “To Sunland” nails it. Goff explores 17-year-old Joanie’s dilemma after her mother dies and leaves her mentally challenged brother Buddy in her care. Joannie has a scholarship to a college in Maine and can’t wait to get out of Florida. As it happens, a lot of Floridians try to get what they can out of Joanie before she goes, her mother’s things, a cheap feel, a captive audience for evangelizing, her money…. Can she leave Buddy at a facility and get on with her life? It’s a taut tale about need versus guilt.
“Birdie” comes at this from a different angle. Five old friends gather two decades later when Birdie lies dying. More accurately, four were friends; Nicole never considered herself part of anyone’s in-crowd. Nic can’t help but think of the decisions she and the other four made or were made for them. Reunions are often a terrible idea, especially under unhappy circumstances. More terrible still is to play a game of the “worst thing” one has ever done with people you no longer know and were unsure of back in the proverbial day. Everyone shares, though a lot is inferred, left unsaid, or akin to fictions made up for Sunday confession. Nic feels very guilty about something, but she’s only truthful with Birdie in private. Is there a greater grace than to confess for real and find out that the person you thought you had wronged never gave the incident a second thought?
Another excellent story is “What’s the Time Mr. Wolf? It’s the longest story in the book and takes us inside a well-to-do banking family. How many stories about the wealthy involve the black sheep of the family, the member who is “as dumb as… newts,” happy to exploit his privilege, drinks too much, or just drifts and assumes everything will work out? That’s Chip; he’s all of those things. After four years of failing at banking his family packs him up and involuntarily sends him to a remote part of New Hampshire to dry out. There he meets Pearl Spang, an old conquest who acts as if she never met him before. She’s out of his class and probably has no recollection of him. Chip will discover some hidden resolve, but this one has a bleak ending.
The above are emblematic of how Groff deals with human foibles. In essence they are like the old cartoons in which an angel sits on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Groff understands that short stories need their protagonists to clash with antagonists, either in the flesh or in the form of intangibles such as ambition, revenge, and temptation.
Goff is quite skillful at turning phrases and writing poignant sentences. These shine through even when the narratives fail to resonate. Her last chapter, “Annunciation” deals with real poverty and a variant that comes when someone with resources simply stops caring and drifts into perceived poverty. One such woman, Griselda, told stories that were true but were thought to be fanciful. Art factors into “Annunciation” and our antagonist muses over precious works of art: “There are a thousand Madonnas here, with a thousand different faces. Each Madonna wears the face of a particular mortal woman whom the artist loved. Each woman is one in whom the animal was briefly overcome by the god that lived within her.” In “Birdie” Nic describes her flight home: “She rose into the flight, that gorgeous liminal moment that’s a respite between lives; and descended again into the grind of the quotidian.”
Words such as these sing to me long after the stories fade.
Rob Weir
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