The gift of gab

>> With The Truth Is, Mary Soderstrom proves she's a master of her craft

by JULIET WATERS

Richard Ford claims there's an old rule for writing that goes, "If you're not sure where a story's going, have one of your characters pull out a gun." It's a rule Montrealer Mary Soderstrom has probably never needed. The stories in The Truth Is, her latest collection, are always going somewhere; and something dramatic and important is always happening. Death, murder, seduction, divorce, natural catastrophe, tragic illness, illicit sex while the kids are watching South Park--you can rely on Soderstrom to provide an event worth telling.

In the first story, "Always Assuming That You Want To Know the Truth," there is a bizarre hoax involving a coffin, a suicide and a terrible fate for a suspicious character. All of this is told in the aggrieved, obsessed, slightly compassionate tone of a next-door neighbour. Soderstrom writes like a master gossip--like one of those rare older women who knows what's going on, knows how to tell it like it is and never gets distracted by details.

While she's narrating these life-and- death situations, her voice is almost stubbornly ordinary. Her prose is pared down to the bone, scarce on imagery and mostly journalistic. The poetry is in the intricacies of structure and the resonant themes, not in the language.

In the last story, Frances, a recurring character, explains what she considers to be "the closest thing to the truth I've found." It has something to do with how to grow winter flowers. You trick them into believing it's spring by leaving them out in the garden until the first days of winter. "To flower, it needs the brush with death that is the cold." Then, when you bring it into a sunny corner, it blooms almost immediately. "The blooms the plant bears become a symbol of how we challenge The Tree of Life, how we try to cheat the deaths which await us. Sometimes the great darkness comes very close, and sometimes we can escape it, hardened but beautiful like steel tempered in fire. Like an azalea blooming in winter."

Many of Soderstrom's characters seem to be looking for that fake Eden, some create it, and some perish trying to create it. A few, like Frances, grow from the experience. But just as interesting is how her stories' structures seem to mirror that process. They read like a collection of misleadingly dull branches that unexpectedly bloom events and meanings and insights where one least expects it.

"Flood Damage" is an example of Soderstrom at her best. A carefully crafted story about survival, it tells the story of a woman, Anne, who nearly loses her son and husband to a terrible flood. Soderstrom layers a series of small crises until a dam breaks literally and figuratively laying the groundwork for acts of unexpected courage and realization. At the same time that this brush with death makes Anne realize how deeply she cares about her family, she is also recognizing how her husband is sucking the life out of her. While she's saving him, she's also realizing it's time to leave.

A Plateau resident since '68 when she moved here from Berkeley, Soderstrom weaves her stories through the shooting galleries, souvlaki restaurants and bus routes of Parc Avenue and beyond. Some even make their way back to San Diego, like "Manifest Destiny," which got a nice rave from T. Coraghessan Boyle, who called it "a superb, tightly constructed and disturbing story." But generally her tales aren't particularly entrenched in time or place.

Some readers may find them a little old fashioned, occasionally dated, particularly when Soderstrom tries to get inside the head of teenagers or some stereotypical shady character. While she may be able to pull off a credible compassion for their concerns, the generic language and details will distance hipper readers.

Still, when it comes to craft, and particularly structure, these are stories that any writer would benefit from studying. Because the truth is, there just aren't enough stories out there that are this good.

The Truth Is by Mary Soderstrom, Oberon press, pb, 168pp, $17.95