Tags
A Common Person, fiction, Missouri, R. M. Kinder, short stories, Sullivan Prize, University of Notre Dame Press
I ordered this new collection of short stories from the University of Notre Dame Press as soon as I saw the announcement, and for a couple of reasons. It was the second book in a row from a Missouri author to win the press’s Sullivan Prize, so I felt a little regional pride. And the previous year’s prizewinner, John Mort’s Down Along the Piney, was such a pleasure that I had developed some trust in the editors’ judgment.
That trust was justified. R. M. Kinder’s A Common Person and Other Stories is a rich and rewarding book. The seventeen stories in its 200 pages have a unified, guiding sensibility to them, but each is distinctive in its own way, and some challenge our notion of what counts as a “story.” It’s a satisfying collection, with stories to re-read and find multiple rewards from.
Kinder’s strength is her handling of point of view, the flowing, sometimes-random way our thoughts move from one idea to the next. The characters in her stories think in the kind of associational bursts of connection we’re all familiar with, from specific observation to vast abstraction, from hope to despair in the flick of an insight, and then back to hope again. Their feelings and responses are true and precisely portrayed.
There’s a proliferation of animals in these stories, too, mostly dogs but some others as well. I don’t know anything about Kinder’s personal habits, but certainly the stories suggest that for this author, the way a person interacts with animals is an indicator of essential character. The dogs have lives and personalities in the stories that are as carefully drawn as the humans, sometimes.
Sometimes the point of view will float from character to character within a story, the sort of thing we warn our beginning students against but a beautiful tool in the hands of a pro. The effect is that of a drifting consciousness, above but not detached from the thoughts of the individual characters, allowing us to glimpse multiple trains of thought and emotion even as the story progresses along a single line of action. This technique gives some of the stories a dreamlike quality, not that actual dreams are happening (although they sometimes do) but because we move from mind to mind with such swiftness and ease. And sometimes the collective consciousness of the community speaks through the voice of narrator.
If you’re a lover of the short story, this collection is worth tracking down and putting on your shelf.
stevewiegenstein 
I am very grateful to you for this lovely review of my book, and especially for the clear description of my andling the collective view. I recently read of your work–I believe it was in Missouri Life and in John Mort’s blog. Somewhere. High praise, I recall. I anxious to read Scattered Lights. Hope to meet you!
Please ignore the typos. I was excited.
Thanks! I tried to post the review to Amazon but apparently I haven’t bought enough stuff on Amazon to qualify to post reviews. That happened to me a year or so ago with another book, and I guess I’m still not buying enough stuff from them! I put it on Goodreads instead, and will try to do the same on Barnes & Noble. Your book is one that people really should discover!
What an amazing review of RM Kinder’s book. Wiegenstein not only draws me in to immediately get KInder’s book, but to also read Wiegenstein’s works. His sensitivity is such a gift to writer’s.
You’re right, Judith. Thanks for expressing it.