The Loudest Voice - A Short Story by Grace Paley - first published- 1959:

A reading by Rhea  Perlman

December 11, 1922 - The Bronx

August 22, 2007 - Thetford, Vermont

"“Active? Active has to have a reason. Listen,” she said sadly, “I’m surprised to see my neighbors making tra-la-la for Christmas.” My father couldn’t think of what to say to that. Then he decided: “You’re in America! Clara, you wanted to come here. In Palestine the Arabs would be eating you alive. Europe you had pogroms. Argentina is full of Indians. Here you got Christmas … Some joke, ha?”

Rita Perlman is the perfect reader for a Grace Paley story.  Her voice and the exquisite artistry of Paley combine for a wonderful experience. If you have access to the story read it maybe first, then listen, then read again.

The story is set in New York City, centered upon a family of Yiddish speaking immigrants from Eastern Europe.  The story shows us the universal tension in immigrant families between maintains their traditions and getting their children established as "real Americans", paving the way to success. Their daughter is known for having a very loud voice.

It is Chirstmas season, of course the family does not observe the holiday.

At the daughter's school, she is maybe ten, is asked, because of her loud voice, to play an important part in a play about the life of Jesus.  As we see in the opening quote, this is a transition point for the parents, her mother objects to this and her father accepts.

A wonderful story.

Rita Perlman also reads, on You Tube, another story by Grace Paley, "Goodbye and Good Luck".  (I posted on this back in 2013 and loved hearing it read.). Set in the venue of the Yiddish theater, I loved it.

Mel u

"Goodbye and Good Luck" by Grace Paley (1959)

I was very happy to learn that a Kindle edition of The Collected Stories of Grace Paley is available.  Grace Paley (1922 to 2007, born in New York City) wrote short stories and poems.  There are forty three stories in the collection and I hope to read them all and post on some.  She was descended from Russian Jews and and was steeped deeply in the stories of Issac Babel, Chekhov, Turgenav, and James Joyce.  (I base this on her Paris Review interview.) Like her friend and fellow New Yorker Hortense Calisher, Paley strongly indentified  with her Jewish ancestory.  

In posting on short stories that can be only read in a purchased collection I know the readership of my post will be very limited, in the long run I am keeping a record for myself.

"Goodbye and Good Luck" is the lead story in the collection and it is a very good one.  It is set in New York City.  The lead character and narrator is a woman, now in her mid-fifties.  The story begins when she is in her late teens.   She has just gotten a job selling tickets at a Yiddish theater.  One day a well know star spotted her in the ticket booth and told the manager he wanted to meet her. Thus begins and on and off thirty year relationship. She becomes his mistress and his "resting place".  The acute observations of the woman spare no one, including herself.  Paley did a great job of letting the woman grow old and gain a bit of wisdom.  This is a very enjoyable story.

I also read "A Woman Young and Old"

Please share your experience with Grace Paley with us.

Mel u

Angela Carter and Grace Paley Buy or Pass?

"The Company of Wolves" by Angela Carter (1979, 6 pages)
"My Father Addresses Me on the Facts of Old Age" by Grace Paley (2002, 4 pages)

Angela Carter and Grace Paley

A Test Drive 

Yesterday I was looking in the best book store in Manila to buy collections of short stories, Power Books in Trinoma Mall, to see what they had in stock.   I noticed they had
editions of the  short stories of two writers I have seen mentioned a lot in the book blog world but have never read, Angela Carter and Grace Paley.   I had checked before and there is no Kindle edition of their collections.   I decided I would see if I could read one of their stories online before deciding if I will buy the collections or not. I was happy to find a story by both writers. 

"Children do not stay young long in this savage country".

"The Company of Wolves" by Angela Carter (1940 to 1992-UK) for sure pushed me into the buyer category.  It is kind of a very dark fairy tale about a  sinister world.  It is a very occult story no doubt with all sorts of references to English tradition that go over my head.   There are witches, people turned into wolves, evil children and a real sense of the terror of the night.   The story is just so marvelously written I have no ability to retell the plot without trivializing it so I will not try.  I am really looking forward to rereading The Collected Short Stories of Angela Carter in 2013.   

"My father had decided to teach me how to grow old"

"My Father Addresses Me on the Facts of Old Age" by Grace Paley (1922 to 2007-USA)  Paley wrote only short stories, unlike Angela Carter who also wrote novels.  Successful short story writers often feel a pressure to write novels but Paley resisted this.    This story, originally published in The New Yorker, is told in the first person and is about a grown woman whose father has decided he wants to council her about how to deal with old age.  The story alternates between the advise he gives her and her reaction to it.   Her mother, the man's wife of decades has died and it was usually her who gave out the parental advice.   They are of Russian descent and of the  Jewish faith, just as Paley was. Her parents were Ukrainian emigrants and spoke Russian and Yiddish at home.  The father is very well read in the Russian classics.   He talks about which of the great Russian writers were probably anti-Semites.  He says in the times they lived most were.  He says Tolstoy was not, Gogol probably was and he did not think Gorky was.  This conversation was enough to push me to a buyer on Paley.  I will say I think her father was wrong about Gorky.   He talks about how his daughter is more in the American world than he is.  I hope to read The Collected Short Stories of Grace Paley in 2013.



You can read the Paley story in the free archives of The New Yorker 

"The Company of Wolves" can be read here.

I also found a 600 page edition of the complete short stories of Issac Singer at Power Books but that will have to wait!  I was also surprised to see they had an edition of the complete short stories of Zola Hurston which is also on my buy if it is still there next Christmas list!

Please share your experiences with Grace Paley and Angela Carter with us.

Mel u