We're back at it with Hobart's editor, Aaron Burch, and our discussion of the work to be found inside The Great Outdoors issue of Hobart.
Christopher Kennedy - Three Shorts
Three pretty varied stories in terms of content, but what jumped out at me was their voice - Kennedy seems to have an ability to convince at least this reader that he fully understands the narrator. Did that have anything to do with your selecting these stories for Hobart? Were there other efforts from Kennedy to select from and, if so, how did you opt for these three?
Aaron Burch
Yeah, Kennedy's voice knocks me out.
OK... I just reread the pieces to try to make my comments as on-point as possible, and I'm going to make a really hackneyed comparison here -- there's a line in one of these shorts, "Museum of Wrong Turns," that goes, "In the boxing hall of fame, the largest fists don't always belong to the greatest champions." I am going to try, for the most part to avoid here what I've hinted at already, i.e. these shorts not being the "largest fists," etc.
I can't actually right now find my copies of his books on my bookshelf and so can't verify that this is true of my favorite shorts of his in general or if is is specific to these three, but one aspect that I love is that they aren't so much one small sliver of a scene, as is often the case in short shorts, but they are large, expansive stories that Kennedy just condensed down to only the most necessary of lines. And then those lines left remaining are killer.
Anyway, back to your question about voice instead of just me rambling, though what I guess I was trying to get at. Yes, I most definitely agree, one of the strongest aspect of these shorts is the trust that Kennedy assures in the reader, right from the get go, and then never releases, that this voice is nothing but assured, and that these are fully formed characters, even if we are just seeing them in short, short pieces. I love Kennedy's shorts (in general and these specifically) because i can go back and read and reread and reread them again, just for amazing lines, here and there, like poems, but there's a real narrative to them to that, every time, I feel knocked out by, by the final line.
Comments