THE METEOR SYMPHONY

Burke offers a compilation of short fiction, poetry, and flash fiction that she calls “my latest exploration of jazz, poker, falling in love, sunsets, and life’s amazing adventures.”

The author presents a collection of her work in three sections—stories, poems, and “microfiction”—that finish with the title story. The 10 initial tales range in length from three to 15 pages and often center on love and music. In “Middle School Love,” for instance, the narrator reflects, years after the fact, on working out the second movement of George Frideric Handel’s “Water Music” right before going on a first date: “When I was not sixteen anymore, the heartbreak served up a valuable lesson,” she recalls. “There’s a moment when you know whether you can trust another person with your love.” Likewise in “Second-Hand Squeeze Box,” a woman accompanies her friend to buy a clarinet in a 1980s pawn shop and is unexpectedly “ambushed” by a heavy, old squeeze-box accordion: “I couldn’t resist,” she remembers. “The mother-of-pearl buttons and deeply folded bellows called out to me from behind glass”; she ends up meeting—and being charmed by—the instrument’s original owner. The volume’s poems are less narratively straightforward, with items such as “The Mirror” being typical: “How have I aged? / With aggravation and adaptation / An eye on my career and professional veneer / With stumbles and fumbles and all kind of errors.”

As with most mixed-form collections, the results are uneven. The poetry, for example, is largely unremarkable, and the untitled flash-fiction samples often feel unformed and unfulfilling. “The neighbors behind me pulled into their driveway, headlights blindingly announcing themselves through my bedroom window,” begins one of the latter, finishing up with, “Must I be awakened?” The collection’s longer stories, by contrast, are full of compelling imagery and narrative interest. All are quite strong, and some are excellent. The book’s title piece is a standout, in which a cellist from a small Alabama symphony orchestra travels back to her native New York City in pursuit of a seemingly impossible dream. A disreputable online seller has convinced her that he possesses and is willing to part with the manuscript of the first movement of an unknown symphony by her musical hero, Gustav Holst. When she meets with him, he pulls a gun on her, and she’s only narrowly rescued by police, who—in the story’s only unconvincing detail—cursorily send her on her way, manuscript in hand. She soon consults a series of well-drawn specialists who offer their opinions regarding authenticity of the Meteor Symphony. In this and other tales, Burke strikes a wonderfully convincing note of world-weariness, with narrators who’ve been scarred by love but somehow still maintain a capacity for wonder. Many of the works then convincingly supply elements that are worthy of that wonder. Overall, the set would have been stronger if the poetry and flash-fiction had been dropped, but even so, the longer stories carry the day.

An uneven collection whose best stories are ultimately satisfying.