Barn animals that can speak only on Christmas Eve riff, wisely and comically, on humans and their stories. Composer Franz Joseph Haydn has an otherworldly experience while looking through the telescope of his contemporary, astronomer William Herschel. A blind woman and her young companion visit old graves to recover vintage roses. A reclusive science fiction writer is visited by a woman from another world, who informs him that he'll be given the choice of two doors into fantastical realms in appreciation for his strange stories. A couple of Civil War buffs take advantage of a future service that brings their Confederate ancestors back to life for short visits, with tragicomic results.
These are a few of the sometimes homespun, sometimes surreal short stories in North Carolina author and poet Fred Chappell's new collection, "Ancestors and Others" (St. Martin's Press, 320 pages, $27.99). Of the many books I read in 2009, it was by far the best, a treasure chest of gemlike stories, masterfully written and brilliantly unpredictable.
Chappell's strange, beautiful fables cross a number of genres, including historical fiction, science fiction, Southern Gothic and primitive Appalachian storytelling. Even his gravest tales contain humor.
My favorite was "Alma," narrated by a lonesome mountain man in a postapocalyptic future whose wilderness haven is invaded by a motley slaver whipping along a chain gang of dirty, starved women. Although the protagonist does not have the words to say why, he is profoundly unnerved by the brutality and by the women, especially one who calls herself Alma. ("I was thunderstruck," he says. "I didn't have the least idea that women could even talk, much less have names.")
Here's how it begins:
"I feel different about women than a lot of men do and I'll tell you why. It's because I had me my own woman one time. I lived real close with her and that has made me think thoughts apart."
One minute, Chappell channels the sensibilities and limited grammar of a rural resident of his native North Carolina. In the next, he embraces the baroque tone of 17th-century high society. You think of Twain, Hemingway, Faulkner, O'Connor and many others while reading him.
Describing his writing is rather like describing the taste of a rare and rich dish. The only way to really experience it is to sample it. Rest assured this reader will be seeking out his other works after having discovered him in this one.
