As a literary form the short story has fluctuated in popularity with publishers and the reading public over the past century. These days publishers can be nervous about releasing such collections, believing that the novel is still the most profitable bet when it comes to a broad and established market. Still, writers persist in producing short stories and some readers at least continue to enjoy them as a unique and distinctive art form for they are still published, albeit in modest numbers.
There has been a notable tradition of setting a collection of short stories around a distinctive locality. James Joyce famously immortalized his hometown in the modernist classic The Dubliners (1914). More recently Rachel Cusk created Arlington Park (2006), where the opulent middle-classes languish in a English suburb of mindless shopping malls and pristine ‘mc mansions’. In Gretchen Shirm’s Having Cried Wolf, the location is the fictional NSW coastal town of Kinsale, a seemingly idyllic spot to raise a family or enjoy retirement. In such collections the continuity of place gives the stories a sense of interconnectedness; the tales aren’t singular narratives or character portraits but parts of a jigsaw that slowly build a broader socio-economic picture.
In Having Cried Wolf,the stories artfully explore the notion of ‘six degrees of separation’, with almost every character being bound by the invisible threads of community life. The collection begins and ends with the story of Alice and Grace’s relationship, a habitual friendship that initially appears more dutiful than based on any genuine affection. This becomes a familiar theme in Having Cried World, as ironically, despite the interconnectedness of the characters, what defines their stories is their prevailing sense of isolation. Husbands and wives harbour poisonous secrets, children attempt to shield their parents from their adolescent bewilderment, while others eek out lonely lives on the fringes. A sense of existential ennui hangs over Kinsale, as well as something more sinister. A series of freak accidents, all resulting in death, complicates the lives of the players and tragically determines their various fates.
Shirm has skilfully evoked a diverse cast of personalities: most of them deeply likeable despite their flaws and inability to find their way. There is something very immediate and convincing in the way the author portrays the breathless busyness of a working mother or the sexual delicacy of a youth on the verge of manhood. Alice and Grace are also complex and layered characters, despite initially appearing somewhat wooden in their polarity. With these characters come the possibility for redemption, growth and change. This is important in a collection coloured by its bleak meditations on community life and the inertia that seems to paralyse most of its individuals.
Indeed sometimes the collection, despite the competency of Shirm’s prose and the complexity of her narrative structure, feels beset by its own melancholic mood. There appeared to be too much grief and boredom in the character’s lives for readers to invest much hope in it themselves. For despite the fact that these stories have a symbiotic relationship, they are essentially discrete tales of individual hardship and personal despondency. The reader is eventually rewarded for staying with these characters, but sometimes it feels as though the collection may have benefited from a little more light and shade. Having Cried Wolf is definitely worth reading to its end and the existential meditations that come with the final chapter of Alice and Grace’s relationship are profound and subtle. Shirm’s parting message is eventually one of hope; life not only continues after the death of a loved one or the dissolution of a relationship, it can even renew itself in unexpected ways.
