Love of words forms 'Pattern'

Jeffery Renard Allen's first collection of short stories is both urban and poetic.

By ANTHONY PEYTON PORTER, Special to the Star Tribune

Last update: October 10, 2008 - 1:05 PM

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HOLDING PATTERN

By: Jeffery Renard Allen.

Publisher: Graywolf, 256 pages, $15.

Review: Vivid dialogue and believable characters offset the sometimes bizarre and often unresolved events in this new collection of short fiction.

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The stories in "Holding Pattern," poet and novelist Jeffery Renard Allen's new collection, are engaging, intriguing and poetic. Dialogue is one of the things the talented Allen does best, and the characters speak a truth quirky enough to be real. Allen grew up in Chicago, my hometown, and he does urban black speech well enough to give these tales an authentic feel that some of them badly need when a character does something wildly improbable -- reveal little wings on his back and then use them to fly around the room, for instance.

Allen loves words, and he treats them lovingly, much to the benefit of the abundant poetry in these stories. He loves a simile most of all. Nearly any sentence that can accommodate a simile does so, whether it likes it or not, whether it makes sense or not. I like that kind of devotion. For example, "The wipers switched back and forth across the windshield like lascivious buttocks." Likewise, metaphors: "A big sleek silver bird with streamlined feathers and sparkling talons lifts off into sky against the wind's resistant slap, light forming a bright badge of achievement on its breast."

The stories in "Holding Pattern" hardly ever present the reader with a clear resolution of anything. Mostly, things happen and happen and happen and then they stop. Actually, Allen just stops telling us what's happening. The people he writes about are clearly going to keep on doing what they've been doing, whether it's working for them or not.

On the other hand, vagueness is part of these stories' charm. Allen obviously doesn't know everything about the characters, some of whom show up in more than one story; he just limns them as best he can, content to tell what he knows. I think he loves them, too, and he seems not to have any ill will toward even the most unsavory of them (and I found some of them thoroughly unsavory), a difficult achievement for any writer.

Allen's skill at creating unusual, believable characters makes these stories consistently readable, and even when one character is discovered having sex with the ghost of her late husband, nothing seems particularly out of order. That's a pretty good trick.

Anthony Peyton Porter is a newspaper columnist in Chico, Calif., and founding president of SASE: The Write Place in Minneapolis.

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Here are some of Books Editor Laurie Hertzel's favorite sites and blogs. Got a literary link to share? E-mail Laurie.

Talk of the Stacks An author series from the Library Foundation of Hennepin County.
Poets & Writers The website for Poets and Writers Magazine--podcasts, author interviews, and writing resources.
Creative Writing A place to keep apprised of writing competitions in the United States.
Gather Minnesota Readers The Website for Minnesota Public Radio's books blog.
The Loft Literary Center The Website for the Loft, a local place for writers and readers.
Good Reads A way to track what you're reading, and what your friends are reading.
Lost Manuscripts Just what it sounds like - a blog (sporadically updated) devoted to missing and destroyed manuscripts.
Maud Newton Very hip, reviews, links, a little attitude.
bookreporter.com A plethora of online book reviews and reading guides.
Rain Taxi Rain Taxi Review of Books.