#224 | ‘Reasons to Live’—Why What Isn’t There Is Just as Important as What Is

episode SUMMARY:

Douglas Vigliotti explores the powerful short story collection “Reasons to Live” by Amy Hempel, highlighting her masterful use of minimalism as a shining example of what is possible by using “less” to magnify human emotion and complexity. Her lean yet evocative prose will challenge readers to uncover a deeper meaning within her stories, emphasizing what isn’t there over what is, and leaving readers to ponder what they would do when what keeps them safe and comfortable vanishes before their eyes.

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Welcome back to “Books for Men”, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So this week I have a work of fiction to share with you. It is a short story collection titled “Reasons to Live” by Amy Hempel. It is a generous 144 pages, that's what it's listed as, but I think it's considerably shorter than that. It originally was published in 1985, but the addition that I have is from 1995. But before I share any more about the book, the author, what I really enjoy about it, and why I think you should read it, I did want to remind you that I have a new book that is out and it is titled “Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story”. And as of this recording, we're about six days into the release of that book and everything is going pretty well.

(01:06)

I'd say it's a #1 bestseller in all of its Amazon categories, fiction writing, reference writing, and writing skill reference, which is pretty cool. So I'm really, really excited. It means people are buying the book, which is exciting. I don't look at the numbers. I tend to stay away from that because to me, that's not the reason why I wrote it. Nonetheless, I like seeing it perform at least initially well in the marketplace. Thank you to everybody who has purchased the book and more importantly, left a review. Those are really, really important. So if you have read the book and you have enjoyed it, I want to encourage you to go and leave a review. There are never enough reviews on a book. And of course, if you haven't read the book and you want to find out more about it, then I would suggest going back to the feed in November where I did a four-part series that detailed or gave an overview, I should say, of all the principles that are featured in the book.

(02:08)

Also, you could always visit AristotleforNovelists.com on that website. There's not only more information about the book, but there is a 10 question-assessment that I designed to go along with the book that you can download for free to help you determine if you have a working story based on Aristotelian principles in the link for that will be in the show notes. And of course, I cannot forget my very gracious hosts, people who had me as a guest on their podcast to discuss “Aristotle for Novelists”. Three new episodes have come out since the last recording, and those were on Kevin Johns, “The Writing Coach Podcast”, and Kelton Reids, “The Writer Files”. I'm actually going to be doing a part two on that podcast. We had so much fun in part one and then “The Indy Author Podcast” with Matty Dalrymple. And Matty, if you are listening to this, I apologize if I am butchering your last name.

(03:08)

I've never had to say it out loud before, but the links for all of those will be in the show notes as well. It might be a more fun way for you to learn more about Aristotle for novelists. Alright, so that was a bit longer than normal for a preamble, but I guess the time calls for it, considering I have a new book out and it's not every day that that occurs. So thank you for hanging in there with me. Now let me turn to the work at hand, “Reasons to Live” by Amy Hempel. So who is the author? She is a writer of short fiction primarily. She's a creative writing teacher at the University of Texas - Austin. She's in a pretty heralded lineage. So she was a student of Gordon Lich, who was the editor of both Raymond Carver and Tom Spanbauer, who funnily enough was the teacher of another person that I featured on this podcast in Chuck Palahniuk and “Fight Club” was the book that I had shared and Spanbauer was his teacher.

(04:12)

But as the story goes with Hempel, Lish thought so highly of her short stories that he championed her first collection to be published. The book that I am sharing with you today, and Hempel is an interesting example of someone who made their name writing short stories and then sort of just stayed in that lane for her entire writing career, not something that you see too often. Usually, writers of fiction will publish a novel at some point. Not to say you have to obviously as this is a great example of that, but it's just rare that someone stays in the short fiction genre for an entire career. Okay, so, “Reasons to Live”, it's a collection of short stories as I've just mentioned, 15 of them to be exact. Some are as short as a page and others are several pages. And yes, probably there are some that are better, and I'm using air quotes there when I use that because it's so objective.

(05:17)

But there are some that are better than others, but that's just the nature of any collection I would say, because you have things to compare to. And since they're all distinctly their own stories, you may prefer one versus the other. But overall to me, it's just an extremely powerful collection. Each story represents a different unnamed protagonist, which to me is something to focus on because it gives them a feeling that the story could be about anybody as opposed to one person, even though it is about an individual. These individuals usually are dealing with an inevitable loss of comfort in their life, or as many have depicted it, the loss of a safety net in one's life. This takes the form of many things like fear, fire failure, grief, and loss of loved ones, and the characters are just super complex and insanely human I would say.

(06:20)

And of course, that humanity stems from their imperfections and their flaws, which Hempel does a great job showing you in a very concise way, like all strong short fiction. What isn't there is usually as important as what is. It's the angle that she comes at the subjects from that makes this really interesting. This to me is often a defining characteristic of a lot of writers considering that I'll use the biblical quote right now. There's nothing new under the sun. It's the sensibility and the angle at which someone comes at a subject matter that actually makes it interesting. And this is where in my opinion, she really excels. And for me personally, it's less about the themes that I shared just moments ago and more about being a great exemplar of what's possible with less so minimalism. And even if that isn't your thing, I think that there is a lot to be learned from what can actually be accomplished with such little, and this is very similar to someone who I mentioned much earlier in this episode, Raymond Carver.

(07:37)

And this leads me to take away number one, or maybe I already started to share a little bit about that, is it's a great example of minimalism as a prose style, which requires nuance and subtlety and so much courage. And why does it require courage? Because trying to depict complex emotions with direct lean sentences is super hard. The tendency is to hammer home the point and not just let it hang there. And it's really a built-in paradox, because it’s specificity but in broad strokes, this is what makes it so hard to attain, but so unique and so memorable when done well. But like I said, it is an acquired taste and it's not something that seems to be in vogue. But since I am such a big advocate for minimalism, I try to seek it out. I think that this probably has to do with reading stuff like this short story collection or Raymond Carver or Ernest Hemingway or even Elmore Leonard, someone who I shared in a crime-sense in an episode a year ago.

(08:49)

There's a leanness that's there style-wise for all of these authors. But as I just said moments ago, none is a greater exemplar of minimalism than this short story collection. So much so that you may even have to read the story two or three times before you can truly ascertain the point of the story because it leaves so much out. Good minimalism can really challenge the reader in that way, even if the prose is precise and exact like Hempel is. So the next thing that I wanted to share with you and just point out more or less is this is another example of an episodic. Obviously, it's not narrative based. This is something that I talked about quite a bit in last week's episode. And so I thought that complimented well, even though last week was nonfiction, and this is fiction, it's just something that I thought was worth pointing out because it's something that I do talk about in Aristotle for novelists.

(09:52)

And lastly, just to round off this episode, in an effort to keep it tidy, like the work that I am sharing with you today, I did want to just share a couple of quotes from the book that I really like. And the first one comes from the story “Tonight is a Favor to Holly”. Hempel writes, “When she sees him, Holly says, it's like the sunsets at the beach—once the sun drops, the sand chills quickly. And then it's like a lot of times that we're good 10 minutes ago and don't count now.” And another I like comes from the story, “Nashville Gone to Ashes”, and she writes, “I had my own bed. I slept in it alone except for those times when we needed—not sex—but sex was how we got there.” And actually I'll share one more with you just because I have it written down in front of me.

(10:47)

It's from the same story and it's very, very short. But I really like it. And it says, “We give what we can—that's as far as the heart can go.” Now I know the quotes are sparse to a degree, but I think if you meditate on them, you'll see how deep they actually run and that's what makes Hempel’s voice and prose so interesting. As I said earlier, it's the angle at which she comes at these subjects that is truly unique. So that's all I've got for today's episode. I want to thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. And of course, I want to remind you that my new book, ‘Aristotle for Novelists”, is now available. The various links that I led this episode off with will be in the show notes for quick access. And as always, if you did enjoy this episode, I want to encourage you to click that subscribe button or follow button depending on what podcast platform you're listening to this on, because that's the number one way that we can get this show in front of more eyeballs and ears and in return, inspire more men to read. If you want to connect with me, there are two ways to do so on my website, DouglasVigliotti.com, or on Instagram @DouglasVigliotti. It's the only social media that I have. And last but not least, if you want more information on this podcast including signing up for the monthly newsletter, all you have to do is head over to the website BooksforMen.org.