Safe Inside the Violence by Christopher Irvin
My rating: 4/5 cats
i know a lot of reviewers (myself included) have been told “you’re wrong!!” on here before because of things they’ve written, but i think what i’m about to do may be a goodreads first – to straight-up tell the BOOK “you’re wrong!!”
silly book, you are not crime stories.
i mean, some of the stories are crime stories, and some hover around the periphery of crime and violence, but i think that the audience for this is much larger than the crime fiction audience, and a crime fiction audience may not respond to some of the stories in here if they are looking for their genre-fix. there are several stories with zero malfeasance other than small domestic betrayals or teenage bullying, one anomalous slipstream tale of crustacean weirdassery, and one that the hallmark channel could film as a holiday special, if they were feeling a little gloomy one year.
when i was doing my reread this morning to write this review, i was struck again by how very solid this collection is, and how many beautiful stories readers will miss out on if they’re like, “crime fiction?? not for me!”
this book is much better than my ability to review it right now.
it’s sort of the second cousin of grit lit – full of the small quiet sufferings of people under pressure from work, family, their pasts, people who are lonely or trapped, people who make difficult decisions that go against their personal codes under duress or for some greater good that never pans out, the disenfranchised working class, the smalltown resentments and long memories of new england, the general cruelty of life and regret, the suffocating weight of the mundane & etc. and then some really are crime stories with guns and FBI agents and murders and all of it. but with the exception of Bitter Work, which is a crime story’s crime story, many of these are about the blurrier edges of crime – the helper monkeys to the true criminals, who are paid to clean up after, cover up, or look the other way after the crimes have been committed.
the writing is excellent, in both the descriptions and insights but also in the paths the stories take – the twists and soft ironies that blossom into unexpected tragedies or even less-expected happy endings.
i mean, this is such a little wisp of description, but it is doing so much work underneath its seeming simplicity:
Randy felt the squelch of his tennis shoes as he stepped around the slush-drowned sidewalk in front of Doyle’s Tavern. The depression near the entrance flooded with the least bit of rain, and in the winter, as soon as the salt trucks made their first run. It had been that way for decades and always would be, giving the locals something to bitch about while Tom poured their first round.
love it.
and this – which will probably mean nothing out of context, but gave me happy shivers when i was reading it:
“You knew.”
She sits down, slides over to me, brushes the dust from her palms. The words echo inside my head, sharpen, turning inward. You should have known.
and i know i’m not doing this book any justice because i am suck at writing reviews lately, but i really and truly liked this book, even if i am lousy at articulating why.
favorite stories:
Union Man
Lupe’s Lemon Elixer
Vacation Package
Napoleon of the North End
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review TK – i still get exhausted writing reviews for short story collections, even when i like them. and i liked this one, so i want to review it enthusiastically, but – exhaustion. a vicious cycle which i will soon overcome.
Union Man
Imaginary Drugs
Digging Deep
Bringing in the Dead
Lupe’s Lemon Elixer
Vacation Package
Beyond the Sea
Safe Inside the Violence
Napoleon of the North End
Blind Spot
Bitter Work
Nor’easter
The Things We Leave Behind
