Woods Are Lovely, Dark and Deep and Other Stories (eBook)

M.C. Anderson (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
136 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-0889-1 (ISBN)

Infos

This collection of stories, M.C. Anderson's second book of fiction, portrays life in 1950s and '60s Minnesota, and particularly in its North Woods, with an intimacy that only a native growing up there could capture. With simple but elegant language it paints with words the breath-taking beauty of its setting. And with compelling drama it reveals that culture's mores, social milieu and class conflicts. The Woods Are Lovely, Dark and Deep, the novella that gives this book its title, focuses on a romance and troubled marriage and the joys and tensions of love. A clan of backwoods poachers and members of two Native American reservations figure in the action. The story's denouement is as surprising as it is horrific. The six other stories range farther afield. One is a drama about teenage runaways living in the barn of a down-and-out riding stables. Another explores the innocence of the son of a Lutheran pastor of Norwegian heritage. A third focuses its lens on the social world of the peripatetic set who travel south each winter to train and compete with their retriever dogs. The final two tell of a family's embarrassment with an uncle enamored of Hitler and Naziism, and the depression of a lawyer contemplative in the final stage of his life.

The Woods Are Lovely, Dark and Deep and Other Stories is M.C. Anderson's second book of fiction, following the publication of The Lovestruck Detective, his debut novel. During his career he was employed as a reporter and editor for The Kansas City Star, where he wrote an occasional column, and The Minneapolis Tribune, among other newspapers. He lives with his wife, artist Sandra Shaw, and their two Shih Tzus in Thomasville in southern Georgia.

Textauszug

1

WHEN ROD WAS SUSPENDED as game warden for excessive use of force, Sophia thought: Dad was right. He said Rod was a hothead and would be trouble.

She hadn’t listened, of course, thinking her conservative father a stick in the mud. She loved her dad and the respect in which he was held in Winona, Minnesota, but no one would ever say that Raymond Bailey, the bookish, middle-aged man with thinning hair, was fun. This was 1949, when the war was over and people were enjoying themselves again, and Sophia wanted fun and excitement. Rod brought both. Furthermore, as all her sorority sisters at Winona State University agreed, Rod was sexy. They envied her. Rod was tall and fit – 6 foot 4, the handsome star end of the football team. When he flipped the forelock of his dark hair and his brown eyes flashed, her heart fluttered.

How could she not love him?

Her dad, prominent in Winona as the local judge, had wanted her to choose a boyfriend from a family of their social class, someone ambitious about a career and serious about his future. Rod hadn’t met either of those tests. He had dreamed from his early teen years about being a game warden, and Raymond thought that wasn’t a sufficiently promising future for the husband of his smart daughter, the girl who had always received A’s and been her school’s beauty queen. She had made them so proud and now she was about to throw her life away.

There was another reason Raymond had opposed the relationship. He had reservations about Rod’s character. From gossip around the courthouse, he was aware that Rod had hung out in high school with a group of jocks called The Sunday Punch Club. They went for strolls in the night and slugged unsuspecting walkers. A couple of the teens in the group came from leading families. What a bunch of thugs.

At first, Raymond hadn’t talked to his daughter about that, fearing it would only make her rebel. He could imagine her rising to Rod’s defense and becoming even more passionate about him.

Even leaving aside that behavior in the young man’s past, Raymond still couldn’t understand why Sophia would pick Rod, whose single mother lived in a modest ex-urban house and was divorced from Rod’s father, who was an alcoholic and made his home in a mobile home hidden away in the heavily forested bluffs lining the Mississippi River. Rod’s family was trash, for God’s sake!

He had made that argument, and when he did, Sophia exploded.

“You’re biased against Rod because his family has no money!” she retorted, causing her father to firmly shut his mouth and end
the conversation.

Sophia felt triumphant and free as she ignored her dad’s guidance and followed her heart’s desire.

But on this day, nearly a decade later, she admitted to herself that her dad may have foreseen the predicament in which she now found herself. Rod was making her deeply unhappy, and she believed he would continue to do so.

Even now, however, she was far too sheltered to understand how crushing that unhappiness might eventually become. Or to imagine the horrific crime that would shatter her life and the complacency of an idyllic North Woods town.

Which was a blessing of sorts.

HER EYE WENT TO ROD during their freshman orientation at Winona State because of his height. He was standing alone in the center courtyard, tanned and fit, looking shy but sure of himself, with the diffident confidence of the athlete. She had been in high school with him, but their paths seldom crossed and she hadn’t thought much about him. He hung out with jocks and was always in the gym or on the practice field. As a so-so student he wasn’t in the college entrance track with Sophia and her friends.

But seeing him now on this first day of her new life, she thought he was terribly attractive.

She was ready for some adventure, perhaps a conquest.

She was attending the university in her hometown, but her indulgent parents had let her move out of their home and into campus housing with three girlfriends. The day before, after they had finished unpacking, they had celebrated their new freedom by sharing a bottle of wine. Sophia had smoked a cigarette for the first time. Or tried to, through a bout of coughing and watery eyes.

As she watched Rod this morning, she realized she couldn’t ever remember seeing him in female company. Maybe he doesn’t like girls much, she thought. Or maybe he’s just shy.

That gave her a mischievous idea.

Her friend Chloe noticed her interest in Rod and smiled conspiratorially; both were still charged with the exhilaration of the previous evening. Sophia gave Chloe a devilish look, and Chloe followed as Sophia walked in Rod’s direction. Before reaching him, Sophia opened her orientation booklet and made a point of appearing preoccupied with it.

“Oh, pardon me!” she said, laughing as she brushed into him. “I’m so clumsy.”

A look of annoyance crossed his face, but then he smiled, guardedly.

“We’re to go to the assembly next,” she said, smiling at him. “Do you know where that is?”

He started to point to an adjacent building, but she interrupted him. “Maybe you could show us?”

Sophia anticipated that he wouldn’t be so rude as to say no. He sat down next to her in the gym bleachers. She gave him a minute to enjoy her presence, then started a conversation, in which he, despite some reluctance, became engaged.

When the assembly wrapped up, he said: “Maybe I’ll see
you around.”

Sophia looked off. After he left, Sophia and Chloe broke
out laughing.

A FEW DAYS LATER, Rod was walking into the science building as Sophia was leaving it.

“Hi,” he said, looking unsure of how she would respond.

“Hi.”

As he turned to walk into the building he bumped into the door frame. Seeing that, Sophia repressed a smile.

He was in her introductory biology class, and, again feeling mischievous, she sat behind him. When the class ended, he appeared discombobulated.

“I didn’t get the assignment,” he mumbled.

“It’s chapter 2 and write out the answers to the questions at
the end.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

She had picked up her books and was slowly leaving when he blurted out, “Would you like to go have coffee?”

She looked at him silently for a moment. “Sure. Why not.”

They walked a bit uncomfortably to the student center. She watched with disguised amusement as he got coffee for her and brought it to their table.

“Are you a science major?” she asked to start a conversation and cover the awkwardness.

“Yes. You too?”

“Yes, I’m planning to be a nurse. My dad says I must have a career so I can make a living, and girls only have the choice of teaching
or nursing.”

“I want to work in conservation. I want to be outdoors. No desk for me.”

As they talked further, she was surprised at the depth of his interest in nature. Who would have thought?

IF ROD WAS SHY with girls, it wasn’t because of lack of experience. His status as a standout on his high school football team as well as his good looks had made him popular with certain girls who let him know they were available. He had taken more than one to Mount Baldy, a favorite place for young people to make out. The site overlooked the forested bluff; the muddy, swirling Mississippi River below; and U.S. 61, which snaked along the waterway. At night, the lights from the barges on the water put on a light show for young lovers.

On their first date, Rod planned to take Sophia there.

BEFORE THE DATE, Sophia and Chloe had fun consulting on her clothes and makeup. Sophia put her hair in a jaunty ponytail.

“You have to promise to tell me all about it,” Chloe said as they finished up.

“Oh, I will for sure!” Sophia said, laughing.

Rod picked her up in his 1938 Ford pickup – which she thought was cool – then took her to a movie, “Kiss in the Dark” with Jane Wyman and David Niven. Afterwards they went to a downtown ice cream shop, where she ordered a vanilla shake and he had a chocolate malt. Then they tooled around town, taking in the people on the street.

When they drove up to Mount Baldy and pulled in, Sophia saw that two other cars were already parked along the guard rail at the edge of the promontory. After parking the truck, Rod leaned back, looking relaxed, and put his arm around her. She moved into him.

“It’s so romantic,” she said, peering down at the river.

His response was to roughly pull her closer and try to kiss her. Sophia was put off by his abruptness and forcefulness and turned away from him.

She wanted to talk. Although he plainly didn’t – he looked sullen and responded to her questions monosyllabically – she persisted. When her chatter had exhausted his patience, which wasn’t long, he said: “Give me a blow job.”

“Take me home,” she said.

Rod looked shocked and irritated.

“What’s wrong with you? Other girls do it when I ask.”

What an egotist! Sophia thought. Are all football players this stuck on themselves?

THEY EACH WENT THEIR OWN WAYS for several weeks after that, but Sophia continued to think about him from time to time. She suspected that Rod was also thinking about her too; she imagined that he wasn’t used to being rejected.

She was right. When Rod visited his mom the weekend after the date, she noticed that he was preoccupied and not his usual...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.8.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-0889-1 / 9798317808891