We were heading back to Pittsburgh after playing a show in Harrisburg, rain coming down all around us as we rode the equipment-laden van back West on the Pennsylvania turnpike.  Night was falling, and I was pounding roadside coffee when my old friend JD—who had come along to film our show—asked our drummer, KG, “Well, what do you think makes a great record then?”

 

It was such a simple question, so direct, and, the way JD phrased it, you could tell there was a precedent for the question—it was obvious this was part of a larger conversation.  KG hemmed and hawed a bit, but then finally spat out something like, “A great album is something that’s familiar to me, something that reminds me of the things I like, but that also is its own thing—it’s unique in a way.”

 

KG’s answer was also simple and direct, yet it was unquestionably vague.  JD seemed satisfied with it though, and the conversation seemed to end there.  I popped a mix-tape into the tape deck and kept my eyes on the horizon and the dashboard.  Their conversation got me thinking.  About music, sure, but also about taste, about temperament, and about Karl Hendricks and his short story chapbook.

Like most good debuts, Hendricks’s Stan Getz Isn’t Coming Back gives a sampling of the writer’s versatility while establishing a strong new voice.  Hendricks has put a great deal of thought into the arc of this chapbook, and it shows.  It’s no accident that the chapbook begins with beginnings—the first story (“Doug’s New Jacket”) about a guy’s pregnant girlfriend and his new jean jacket, the second about a fifteen-year-old girl’s first date.

 

Already by the start of “Pam’s First Date,” I’m struck by the ambitious choice of the narrator; writing in the voice of a teenage girl seems to me like something that would come with age and much practice.  Hendricks pulls it off, though, and it sets up the concise title story—the centerpiece of the chapbook—quite nicely. 

 

The brevity of “Stan Getz Isn’t Coming Back,” in turn sets up the long closing story (“The Card Party”).  It’s a nice move, closing with the long story—it reminds me of reading a book of poems by John Ashbery.  It’s also smart because “The Card Party” is the most ambitious story in the collection.  Unlike the other stories, it alternates between two complicated narrators—a balancing act of sorts—and both characters are compelling enough to keep the reader’s attention.

 

One of the things about Hendricks’s chapbook that makes me think of my friend KG’s idea about great records is the style of Hendricks’s writing.  Hendricks is upfront about the influence of Raymond Carver on his writing, and it’s true that there is an evident connection to Carver (and Hemingway before him) in Stan Getz Isn’t Coming Back.  The stories are written in a very clear and direct style with only occasional moments of opulence or decoration.  And while dialogue isn’t overused, it’s apparent Hendricks has a knack for writing it successfully. 

 

I’ve come to admire this stripped-down tradition in fiction, and so, already at my first encounter with Hendricks’s fiction—hearing him reading “Stan Getz Isn’t Coming Back”—I was taken with his work.  I recognized it as something that reminded me of the things I like.  Something I find that separates Hendricks from his predecessors, however, is his sense of humor.  While the stories in his chapbook consistently deal with regret, loss, and isolation, there is occasionally a comic moment that gives a reprieve from the intensity of the subject matter.  Sometimes this comic moment is humorous at the expense of our narrator, though usually, the narrator is in on the joke.

 

One thing that offsets the generally stripped-down style of Hendricks’s writing is what an old writing teacher of mine would call “moments of transcendence.”  Placed among the keen descriptions and telling dialogue of these stories, Hendricks composes stunning images and asides that are the hallmark of his talent as a writer.  These are sometimes executed simply by a surprisingly strange scene—like the basement party in “Pam’s First Date,” with its bowls of soup and girl dancing to a live punk band in her underwear.  However, more commonly, these moments take place in the inner monologue of a story’s narrator—like the “woeful canyon” image at the end of the title story. 

 

Reading through Stan Getz Isn’t Coming Back, it’s hard not to notice the endings of the stories.  Not only because Hendricks likes to end with moments of transcendence, but also because in these stories of depressed, frustrated, and oftentimes overly nostalgic individuals, there is usually a sense of hope for them by the end.  The stories open with a character in a certain state of flux, but they don’t end with the character’s certain success or failure.  They tend to close with a character hopeful for something positive.  Or at least hopeful for change. 

 

Which illuminates one of the great things about Karl Hendricks’s chapbook—his wonderful use of the short story form.  Seeing these stories of his together like this, it’s clear why the short story is his form of choice.  Hendricks is very adept at capturing moments of transition in the lives of his characters.  We don’t just see any snapshot of the life or lives of these people he has created—we see a very important one.  Maybe it doesn’t give us any indication of what will become of them.  But perhaps it gives us a bit of perspective on our own lives and the moments that change us, for better or for worse.   

 

Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit and now lives in Pittsburgh, where he sells books, writes, and rocks.  He is also an editor at the New Yinzer.  He plans to have a full-length book of poems published by Six Gallery Press.