Reading Sherrie Flick’s new collection of short fiction, Thank Your Lucky Stars (Autumn House, 2018), is a kind of literary feast, with its gathering of characters, all hungering for love and connection and a desire to better nourish both their physical and emotional selves. A compilation of fifty stories ranging in form from micro to more traditional-length, the collection is rhythmically satisfying to read, with the short and the long interspersed throughout. But what makes this collection most special is the relationship that exists between food, place, and the desires of the individual. In the opening story, “How I Left Ned,” our unnamed narrator finds herself haggling for corn with roadside vendors she is certain are not farmers (they have “gold chains and razor stubble, perms” and look like “Big black poodles, dressed like Italian men”), surreally transplanted to the Great Plains. She starts out asking for only a few ears, but in the course of the bargaining, finds herself agreeing to buy more and more, the corn itself revealed as a symbol for the imbalance that exists in her relationship with her husband, Ned. She is a woman who wants corn—and friends and community and so much more—while her lover is a man who is satisfied with a life of constraint. “I thought about Ned spooning exactly one level teaspoon of nonfat sour cream onto his microwaved baked potato every Wednesday night as a special treat,” she explains. “I thought about Ned tying his condom into a little knot when he was done, pulling a Kleenex from beside the bed—dabbing himself and pecking me on the cheek.” In the end, she drives away with the corn salesmen, these passionate men in Italian loafers, as she revels in the possibilities that await her.
Many of the stories take place in the Great Plains, where both the vastness and richness of the land is reflected in the personalities of the characters. In “Open and Shut,” a story that takes liberties with the flow of time and memory, the main character, Sarah, reflects on the differences in the romantic relationship she had in San Francisco and the one she enters into after moving to Nebraska. There is a depth to her romance with her Nebraska-native lover, John, his earthiness a quality she both finds intensely attractive, but also fears. This push and pull of romantic love is explored again in another story, “Expectations,” in which a young wife accepts an invitation to have a meal with the father of her estranged husband and, in so doing, admits that so much of the marital difficulties she is experiencing come down to simple, unrealized expectations. The bourbon-soaked lunch that she shares with her father-in-law explores the literal and figurative differences in appetite that set off friction within romantic relationships, an area Flick explores with gusto and finesse.
Though most of the stories in TYLS delve into the conflicts within romantic love affairs, one story takes a sharp departure and offers a view into the challenges and heartaches of parenting. In “Silence, Pushing,” Jane and Charley are parents to Elizabeth, a teen who, on the surface, appears to demonstrate a typical level of rebellion and angst, both of which seem to be ameliorated by the gift of a puppy. But the relief Jane and Charley feel is short-lived and Elizabeth’s deep-dive into drug abuse and her erratic behavior is punctuated by a sudden and horrifying act of violence against the dog. It is in this particular story that we see Flick’s gift for subtlety and a talent for guiding her reader along an uncomfortable edge as they witness both the joy and profound sorrow that defines her characters’ lives. Flick is a master of creating big scenes in small, often quiet spaces and allowing her characters a full range of motion to demonstrate their passions, their fears, their desperate need to find community. Thank Your Lucky Stars is a delightful book of short fiction, one that provokes personal reflection and offers a satisfying reading experience.
Sherrie Flick is the author of the novel Reconsidering Happiness (University of Nebraska Press), the flash fiction chapbook I Call This Flirting (Flume Press), and two short story collections with Autumn House Press: Whiskey, Etc. (2016) and Thank Your Lucky Stars (September 2018). Her nonfiction has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Creative Nonfiction, Pittsburgh Quarterly, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Angela Mitchell lives in St. Louis, Missouri. Her debut story collection, Unnatural Habitats & Other Stories (WTAW Press), will be released in October 2018.
