The K Must Stand for King

I was fortunate enough to receive a galley some time ago, from Norton, of Lee K. Abbott's "All Things, All at Once:  New and Selected Stories."  While I didn't finish the book before it's arrival in stores (last week), I have been savoring the stories in small hits over the past couple of months, and a review is forthcoming.

Lee K. Abbott is one of those authors that other authors are very aware of, and sadly, hardly anyone else is.  He's published six other books, but none of them are novels.  One very nice thing about this new one is that it reaches back and pulls stories out of those first two collections, which were published by very small houses, and cannot be found, even online, for less than triple digit prices very often.

In a time where homes for short stories come and go quickly, and publishing houses are less willing to publish collections, finding a home for a new collection when the previous four or five were not best sellers is not always a simple task.  I think a reason Abbott has been able to continue getting publishers to make that "bold" decision to publish another collection is he does have a core audience of other writers.  People willing to drop a little cash on the table to read sentences like:

"Behind us the door clicked and we, like butchers or other workday folks with common business to conduct, stripped ourselves , eye to eye like sophomores about to fistfight." or

"She would be off and gathering up her pantyhose and slipping on her high heels and messing at her hair very professionally, but first she leaned close to me, almost nose to nose, the light behind her as harsh as the word no, and she spoke, hers a sly smile to wonde about, hers a voice with as much rue in it as there is in mine when I tell a debtor the goddamn end is nigh." or

"When she began talking about Marv - how he was a penny-pincher, for example, or not much of a poon hound, how he ironed his hankies, or what in the rest of our desert was a flat-out disappointment to a woman with appetites big as the outdoors itself - I should've risen, fled for the front door;  but Betty Porter was heat and light and water - all things, all at once - and I, something dumb in nature, did not want one without the others."

Abbott has taken a few cracks at the novel - the following comes from an interview Lee did in 2002:

Dan

All of your publishings have been short story collections.  Do you have no desire to write in other forms (poetry, novellas, novels)?

Lee

Desire?  Oh, indeed.  Talent, ability, intelligence, grit, patience--well, hardly.  Actually, I have written at three longer works:  the impossible historical novel (featuring Pancho Villa, Black Jack Pershing, and Ambrose Bierce--think Ragtime meets One Hundred Years of Solitute); the painful autobiographical novel (think Joan Didion in a smackdown with J. D. Salinger); and, gulp, a pornographic novel (called—no giggling now—BANG, BANG, about a younger couple skimming money from a Vegas casino and being pursued by an older couple hit-team; I told you, no laughing about the stuff I don't know; the longer version of the writing of this exercise in humility is an essay called MAKING WHOOPEE that Epoch published, oh, five or six years ago; for those readers keen to learn how ignorant yours truly can be--and maybe still is--I urge tolerance and forgiveness). 

The only successful longer work I managed is the title novella from LIVING AFTER MIDNIGHT, a work that became as long as it is because one of the major character's name changed from Hoffman to H-man on the seventh page of the first draft; I couldn't quit until I learned why.

While he's not seen the success he had hoped for in that longer form, he can at least sit back on his laurels over the fact that the K standing in for his middle name might also stand for King, as in, of the short story in contemporary American writing.  Not only do Abbott's stories storm across the page with his fevered style, but they also absolutely nail down men and their relationships - with women, with sons, with themselves, and with the world around them, often as it beats them down.

It's been a few years since his last collection was published, and so the name might not jump right out at you, but Lee K. Abbott is absolutely 'an established writer worthy of MUCH more recognition,' and it's about time that recognition not just come from other writers trying to learn how to write incredible short stories.  Take a flyer on this one, you will not be disappointed.

Comments

[steven gillis]

Abbott is a great, great writer and - as Dan said - one whom writers know and those who havent yet discovered will do well to pick up! (One of my favorite Abbott stories is 'On Tuesday Nothing, On Wednesday Walls' in the collection 'Wet Places At Noon.') As for the issue of writing "only" stories and no novels to date, a writer as wise and gifted as Abbott never cheats his audience with the stories he gives us and his continuing to work on the genre he is most at home serves him - as it did Carver - very well indeed and for that we are all lucky. Abbott's stories tend to run upward of 30 pages so there is no doubt if he ever wanted to write a novel, he could extend his wonderful story telling. But truly, why when one has become such a master of the story should he feel pressured to do anything else? Abbott is great and with any luck we will get him up to Ann Arbor soon to read and do a thing or three for 826michigan.

[Richard]

I've been reading Lee's stories with deep admiration for probably over thirty years, when I first discovered him in little magazines. He is truly the short story writer's short story writer. It's really good that some of the stories in the early books are getting reprinted in the new one.

[Alyson]

I've been reading LKA's fiction since grad school when George Garrett thrust a volume of stories into my eager hand. It's addictive stuff...seductive...rich and tempting and oh-so-good. LKA has a voice like no other. That's what I really admire, what makes my blood swim. Voice cannot be taught or learned; it just is. I'm glad Norton is doing the new book, but I'm even more glad that LKA has stuck to his guns and written what he wants and needs to write. Thank goodness.

[LBellatrix]

I attended Case Western Reserve University in the 1980s when Abbott was teaching there. His was the first serious writing workshop I ever took...I was all of 19 years old. Not only is he an awesome writer, he was (and I presume still is) an incredible teacher. All these years later, I continue to be thankful that I had the great good fortune to cross his path when I did. Looking forward to this new collection!

[patry]

Is there anyone out there writing better stories than Abbott? I hope this is the book that introduces him to a wider audience.

[Buffy]

I was a student of Lee's at Case Western Reserve - his first semester there, I believe. His reading assignments were works from his favorite authors. The engineering students in his classes drove him to distraction (and rightly so, from the literal, calculated responses he received from weekly essay assignments). His criticism was dead on, challenging, and growth-producing. Here's hoping that his works become much more widely known and appreciated!

[Matt Linden]

I've been a fan of LKA's since 1992. My fave is the novella, Living After Midnight. The novella blew me away in that even though it is written in the third person it still has that distinctive Abbott voice.

"Reed met Hoffman in Gephart's freshman Intro to Comp Lit, a M-W-F lecture as notorious for the old fart's life-is-hell worldview as for its twenty-pound reading list of what Hoffman called deep-thinking European riffraff: bearded and self-absorbed sourpusses like Heidegger and Kant and Schopenhauer. By the end of the hour, after Gephart had thoroughly defaced every blackboard in CLK 202 with scribbled insights from everybody but Superman and Betty Boop, Hoffman and Reed were best friends.

"Being and nothingness," Hoffman said. "Awesome line"

"Killer material," Reed said, trying to keep pace he'd felt it too -- the way the words had gone in like fishhooks, barbed and bent enough to rip coming out."

"Hoffman and Reed," his new buddy said. "Natural damn philosophers."

Hopefully this new collection will give LKA greater recognition.

[A writer in admiration of Lee K. Abbott]

Lee Abbott is one hell of a writer. And he could be the most astute practitioner of the English language I know of. But, having said that, he writes to impress, and that is never good writing.

As good as Lee is, I think he'd be better if he would drop his competitive urges and just write from the gut (heart) and see where it goes. (Opposed to being so attached to the outcome and what critics and peers will think.)

The other comment I have is that Lee is in a trap, using the same settings and characters again and again. Writing what one knows is good advice, however I know that one can write beyond one's experiences, via research.

I've grown tired of stories set in New Mexico about country club, beer drinking, frat buddies. It only takes a few descriptions (accurate and truthful) to make settings and characters seem believeable. Chances are, readers are going to believe most good writers, and Lee is much more than any old good writer.

Also, on the subject of vocabulary, I always tell others that they shouldn't use vocabulary to impress -- words that aren't what you'd normally use. In Lee's case, he would and could use about anything in English language and have it be genuine Lee language. But, I still say his writing could benefit if he would refrain from using certain word choices to impress.

The best way to impress anyone, is by not trying to impress at all.

[A writer in admiration of Lee K. Abbott]

Again, I love this guy. I just think he could be even better. And, I'd like to see him publish a full lenth novel -- without New Mexico frat boys -- becuase I think he would bring his work to the attention of a much larger audience.