The Bigness of the World by Lori Ostlund

have since come to understand that this – the need to imagine our pain worthy of another’s anguish, our circumstances capable of invoking sacrifice or even despair in another human being – is a basic human need, one felt even more deeply as we confront our own shortcomings in meeting this need for others. ~ And Down We Went

Several weeks ago I received an email from an old friend, Lori Ostlund. Her collection of short stories, The Bigness of the World, won the 2009 Flannery O’Conner award for short fiction. The Flannery O’Connor Award is an annual prize awarded by the University of Georgia Press named in honor of the American short story writer and novelist Flannery O’Connor.

Of course I immediately asked for a copy. Having received my shiny new hardbound version over a week ago, I have been savoring one story each night. It is my treat before bedtime.

I love short stories. I recognize that publishers no longer appreciate this literary format, because we live in a culture obsessed with reality programming and memoirs, but a well crafted short story is the perfect way to end your day. I have never been capable of reading a book over an extended period of time. I consume books, regardless of length, in one to two sittings. Perhaps it is due to my desire to experience stories from beginning to end without the mundane world interrupting my journey. As a child, I would plow through the library shelves every summer, reading one to two novels per day. When I found novels that I loved, I would read them multiple times, committing paragraphs and pieces to memory. As an adult, life rarely affords the opportunity to feast on a novel in one sitting, because the obligations associated with work and domestic details tend to require a few hours of sleep. As a result, I don’t read as much as I used to, which is unfortunate because I find it more relaxing and rewarding than television.

I throughly enjoyed each tale.  Each story mixes humor with keen insight.  She draws considerably on her Minnesota background, allowing the influence to infuse her characters with normalcy, which becomes eccentricity as normal is defined differently around the world. In Idyllic Little Bali a group of disparate American tourists find comfort in one another’s company, as they unknowingly wile away the final moment’s of one man’s life.  In And Down We Went the connections between people, and the impact of our relationships, is explored through a triad of misadventures with defecating fowl.  In All Boy a child realizes that his parent’s have fired the babysitter for wearing his father’s socks rather than for confining him in a closet.

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