Just Jennifer

 Permanent Member of the Family by Russell Banks (Ecco, November 2013)

In his first collection of short stories published (six published here for the first time) in over a decade, Russell Banks plumbs the depths of human beings, their frailties, shortcomings, dreams and the things we tell ourselves and others that become our truths.  The tone for the rest of the collection is set by the first story, “Former Marine” in which Banks lays out, very simply, the life of one man who has tried his best, but has been defeated by forces around him: he has “retired” (been let go) from the local auction house, has mortgaged his trailer and land so his three sons, who are all now employed in law enforcement, were able to attend college and has turned to robbing banks, ineptly, to support himself.  As yet another act of fate intervenes, a chain of events is set of that ends with a stark and startling act.  “Snowbirds” explores a woman’s unexpected reaction to sudden widowhood; the title story watches as a family comes apart and then reassembles itself after divorce and death.  With simple precision, Banks lulls the reader into a sense of normalcy, though all the while foreboding pervades the narrative.  His ability to put a life under a microscope, dissect it into its most basic parts and then put it back together in unexpected ways has a Hitchcock-esque quality in many cases.  Theses haunting characters and the startling situations they find themselves in will stay with readers long after the last page is turned.