What do You think about Whites (1992)?
Selected this book after hearing Norman Rush read Bruns at this year's Woodstock Writer's Festival. Past reviewers have said they do not like the abrupt endings to most of the stories, but I liked that visceral technique. This book gave me a sense of place and time that seemed very authentic even though I've never been to Africa. I had some trouble getting through Official Americans, but at the end I understood that I had been on the same meandering journey as the main character. Looking forward to reading more by this author.
—Susan
I started subscribing to the Paris Review this year. I know, kind of silly, since almost all of their stuff is online. But I like the short stories, often, and I like feeling the thickness of the pages when I read it outside. One thing I've picked up from the issues I've read is that there seem to be a lot of writers who are seen as touchstones in American fiction, most of whom are completely unfamiliar to me - what I have begun to call the MFA canon. It includes names like James Salter, Marilynne Robinson, John Williams, Lydia Davis, Grace Paley, Joy Williams, Lorrie Moore, Evan S. Connell, and at the top of the chain, the Tolstoy and Flaubert of the canon, John Cheever and Raymond Carver. The defining quality of this fiction is a very minimalist, introverted, calmness. It concerns itself with the domestic lives of mild-mannered people, who observe the world with a wry wit and defeated mien. Overly complex plots are rare. I get the sense that MFA students, focused on recreating this lapidary, elegant prose, aren't going anywhere near the experimental pyrotechnics of John Barth or Thomas Pynchon or D Foster Wallace (perhaps the latter, only through his short stories).Which isn't meant as a criticism at all. The stories that the Review prints - some indie writers, some stuff from the slush pile, whatever Zadie Smith is working on - are superb. Having never been in an MFA program, I'm more at the stage of learning and processing than critiquing. But there seems to be a cluster of influence here that I've only just begun discovering. (Can someone let me know if this is what that whole MFA vs NYC thing was about?Anyway, this collection of short stories is another book by a "writer's writer" that I'd place firmly in the canon. The first four stories are five-star brilliance. They, like the rest, concern American expats living in Botswana, mostly as aid workers or government contractors. Norman Rush lightly describes the lives of well-off, educated Westerners living in a society filled with danger and poverty and great kindness. Africa is filled with contradictions and causes people's values to veer wildly and their identities to change, like a psychic Bermuda Triangle. While most of the characters are the eponymous Whites, one story is narrated by a native BaTswana in broken English, and, amazingly, comes off as wonderfully sympathetic and real, without an ounce of condescension. Rush finds his characters frustrated and tired, overshadowed by an ever-present drought (mentioned roughly once every ten pages). But like the physical one, their spiritual drought refuses to break. Africa still eludes them, as it has eluded every writer seeking to get to the bottom of it. Rush wisely doesn't try that. His style is naturalist and authentic, and perfectly suited to his subject.
—Josh Friedlander
Hard to choose a rating for this, but the fact that this is a successful short story collection (not a term I'll really attempt to define) makes me more likely to overrated it than under.Probably the one thing that bothers me the most about the book is Norman Rush's face on the dust jacket. Sure, that's superficial. I realize that. But it's a very punch-able face. It's the face of a man who wants to be Ernest Hemingway. And then, on occasion, he writes like a man who wants to be Ernest Hemingway. Plus, his hair is dark, but his beard is white. That ain't right.I should probably say more. Maybe later.
—Brad
