Fox 8: A Story by George Saunders

Kindle Single 99c

Hi! I crawled away from 2013 and 2014 without ever having read anything by George Saunders! Crazy, right? (I own Pastoralia, but it's sitting on my shelf until I work my way towards reading it. So, eventually!) So how did I stumble upon this short story? Sometimes Amazon knows me better than I know myself. I'm not sure what in my buying history tipped them off that I might like this, but much like the time it randomly started suggesting full-sized rubber mermaid tails, Amazon just gets me.
Fox 8 is marketed as an Amazon Single, which essentially means it's a short story Saunders chose to leave out of his collection books, and make a little spending money on the side with. It's written as letter by a fox who learns English, or "Yuman," by listening to bed time stories from outside a window. The spelling and grammar is atrocious, as expected from a fox with no formal education, and hilariously reminiscent of Pro Birds Rights, maybe a little LOL Cat. It might give some readers a headache, but I thought it was completely charming.
Fox 8, as our little "fox lee" friend is known among peers, lives in a den that is being torn apart when Yumans begin construction of a mall. We watch as the community of foxes starve and struggle against the change. Fox 8, the resident day-dreamer, has an idea to retrieve food for his friends from the mall's food court, but his plan ends badly - very badly. Basically, Fox 8 learns that "Yumans" aren't so "cul" afterall, and he goes on a journey that takes him to a new den.

I love short stories because they are so efficient. What I mean is, they can get so much done in so little time - introduce us to interesting characters and scenarios, and leave us without spoiling the magic. But short stories tend to be... really dark and edgy; Post-modern, or in my words "trying too hard." (Miranda July, take note.) But Fox 8 was such a friendly and happy short story! Very optimistic, even when it had a chance to be bitter, possibly slam it over our heads how much humans suck a couple of times. So Fox 8 learns to be less trusting, but it doesn't make him caustic. Life goes on, there's still good left in the world. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised since the story is ever so slightly childish - if you're one of those horrible people who think stories about animals should be left for children. If so, you might be a pompous ass. But if you have a heart, you should read this little story.

The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis

Kindle

This is a short story by Karen Russel I'd previously over-looked while waiting for her next big release, which is easy to do - especially if you aren't much into ebooks the way I am most of the time. However, after closer inspection, you can also find this story and others in her newest collection of short stories Vampires in the Lemon Grove.
Karen Russel; while she has no relevant public social media pages - no blogs, no Twitter, no Facebook - at least, none that I've found (and I've checked). Basically, if you want news about any of her new releases you should hope for an interview on NPR's "Fresh Air." It's interesting because despite that - she makes a lot of her smaller works available online. So she has embraced the internet to her own advantage - and I can't blame her for wanting to have some privacy and staying off the grid. In fact, that's not very surprising of her, really. (What would I do with her Twitter handle if I had it anyway?)

One of the lovely things about Karen Russel is that her stories are hard to classify. Well, I think that's lovely, I love genre benders. I'm going to call this Young Adult Horror, but is it truly Horror and YA? It was probably never intended to be either, but it does feature realistically young adults - low income teenaged trouble makers - and a horrifying and surreal situation - finding a scarecrow version of a boy they loved to bully tied to a tree. It's pretty unsettling, but not outright terrifying. You do get a sympathetic view of a bully's perspective (if you've ever been bullied you might not want that); but there's that psychological retribution that drives the story. See why I love short stories? Unlike novels (which are largely plot driven) short stories are mostly character driven. Nothing has to actively happen, but the author gets to paint studies of these characters which, in a novel, would get swallowed away by the performance. With short stories, I can't really decide if what happens is really such an important part. In "The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis," we have this bully that is clearly eaten up with guilt.  Not only did he beat up this poor kid - a really pathetic slob (we all had one of these kids at our schools - kids that, even if you were really nice, you still openly despised. Woe be it unto that poor joke) He also, out of pure vindictiveness, took away Eric Mutis' one happiness. So, because he feels guilty, does that really make him such a terrible person after all? That's your decision to make after reading it.