LOVE, SEX, AND OTHER CALAMITIES

This debut short-story collection paints the wistful life of a newspaper journalist as seen through his sexual and romantic encounters.

Though nominally a volume of tales (and a poem), Hickok’s collection is told in sequence almost exclusively from the perspective of one character—Art Stafford. The prologue sees Art as a jaded adult looking to start his life afresh. It is dreamlike yet sexually explicit, heavy with regret (“He glared at the sullen unshaven face in the mirror. ‘You’ve got to stop living in the past’”). From here, readers are taken on a chronological journey through Art’s early experiences, failed relationships, and middle-aged sexual renewal. The first story, “The Beating Heart,” tells of a seaside vacation where 11-year-old Monnie shows 12-year-old Art her breasts. It concludes not only with a prescient awareness of how sex will shape Art’s life, but also with an allegorical inkling that he will be forever the fish, not the fisherman. Subsequent tales detail Art’s relationships in high school and college. Some of these stories contain dialogue sections that verge on the inane, such as “Chosen by Sharon” (young teens speculating about vaginas). Others, such as “Loving Fiona,” hint at more profound insights into death, philosophy, and intellectual attraction. Throughout, Art grows in sexual experience. The closest he comes to happiness is in “Life Is the Dream, Love Is Reality,” where his first truly defining relationship ends in his girlfriend’s pregnancy and death. Subsequent tales, such as “The Singer, Not the Song,” afford more chronological scope, examining Art’s adult relationships across a span of years. By the time readers reach “Life Is a Short Story,” 50-year-old Art has come to terms with his predilection for doomed affairs. Throughout, Hickok writes in an assured style, pulling readers along. The narrow sexual focus results in a distorted picture, yet other aspects of Art’s life emerge at the edges—his intelligence, his career as a journalist, even the sincerity with which he gives in to his male urges and construes sex as love. The collection ends with an epilogue in which Art, now an older man, reflects on the women he has known, most of whom are dead. It is a somber, quite powerful conclusion, rather greater than the sum of the preceding parts.

Subdued yet alluring; a pensive reflection on the male psyche.