A key part of a becoming a literary connoisseur is not only branching out to genres outside of your comfort zone, but also experimenting with different story forms outside of the traditional novel.
One of my personal favorites is a collection of short stories that I explored last week called “American Housewife: Stories” by Helen Ellis.
This collection contained 12 stories ranging from only a page in length to 20 to 30 pages long.
The very short stories — and I use that word loosely in these cases — could more accurately be called witty lists of rules and guidelines for the American housewife to follow.
My personal favorite, “Take it from Cats,” was essentially a page-long metaphor between the life of a cat and a housewife.
I found myself actually laughing out loud during the first story, “What I do All Day,” at the extremely relatable line, “I cry because I don’t have the upper-arm strength to flat iron my hair.”
The eight longer stories were hit or miss — some accomplished their goal of being funny or creepy, some were just plain incoherent and hard to follow.
Most of the stories in “American Housewife” had an ambiguous main character — I often read an entire selection without knowing who was being addressed.
I think the author’s intention was to put the reader in the shoes of a character in the story, but that’s a slippery slope.
In some stories it worked, in some it totally missed the mark.
“Hello! Welcome to the Book Club” was one in which it did not work. It was kind of like watching a TV show where the main character is just talking to themselves the entire time and not the other actors.
This was a selection that had the potential for a really creepy, sinister ending leaving the reader with an unsettling feeling in their stomach, but unfortunately it was just too hard to follow.
One of my favorite stories, “The Fitter,” followed the wife of a man born with the innate ability to size women’s bras.
Yes, you read that right, and yes, it was as weird to read as it sounds.
But the story went deeper than lingerie and showed the unlikely bond between two women in a small town going through their own middle-age struggles.
“American Housewife” is nothing life-altering and it certainly is not an advertisement for the housewife lifestyle, but it’s something I would definitely pick up again to read through my favorite selections.
Be prepared for anything from murderous, New York-native homemakers, to struggling writers competing on dumpster diving reality shows. It’s not always pretty and not always easy to follow, but “American Housewife” is certainly always unexpected.
rarosens@indiana.edu @rachrosenstock
