Lincoln (Neb.) - Dec. 14, 1999 - When Judy Slater's editor at Sarabande Books asked the author to give a general description of her stories, Slater said she "had a hard time."
"The stories in 'The Baby Can Sing,' don't have a real theme," she said. "They're varied. I like to think that there's humor in all of them, but they're not comic stories."
Slater, an associate professor of English and creative writing teacher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, won Sarabande Books' Mary McCarthy Prize for her debut collection of short stories.
Most of the stories have a bittersweet quality, even though humor does thread its way through them. Take the situation of a photographer hired to take pictures at his former lover's wedding. Or that of a young woman who forms a romantic liaison on the basis of her partner's skill in a game of Trivial Pursuit. Or that of a psychiatrist who takes the advice she has been giving to patients and sets off to start a new life.
Each of those stories is more likely to evoke what the Sarabande editor called resilience rather than comedy, for they dramatize "the lives of ordinary people who wonder what they can do to bring more passion into their lives, or at least, less loneliness."
Slater's stories do provide a varied cast of characters, ranging in age from the baby who can sing in the book's title story to teen-agers, adults and people from all walks of life, from college students and musicians to professional people and tradesmen.
"I shouldn't admit this, but I draw many of my characters from real life," Slater said. "But except for some minor characters they end up as composites."
And they usually end up in situations unrelated to their real lives, she said. "I had a photographer I once knew in mind when I wrote 'The Bride's Lover,' but as far as I know he was never jilted like the photographer in the story."
Less dependent on reality among Slater's stories are at least two that are sheer fantasy, as in "The Baby Can Sing," where a mother fantasizes a brilliant life ahead for her infant child. The other story, "Soft Money," describes what an imaginative office worker does when given the go-ahead to remodel his office any way he wants.
"Both those stories are based on quirky dreams," Slater said. "The story about the psychiatrist who takes her own advice, 'Our New Life,' also came out of a dream."
Overall, Slater is a writer whose style was praised not only by Stuart Dybek, a noted short story writer and the judge for the Mary McCarthy Prize, but by reviewers for Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews.
Dybek said Slater's work "rings true to experience, her observation of the world is keen, reported in a prose distinguished by fresh imagery and clever turns of phrase."
Publishers Weekly said Slater "undergirds her pretty prose with a solid, deeper beat." The stories "come to life with Slater's offbeat humor, subtle touches of irony and compassionate story-telling."
Slater lives in a household she shares with a fellow writer, her husband Gerald Shapiro, a fellow teacher of creative writing at NU and also the author of a recently published collection of short stories, "Bad Jews."
"We work together very well," she said.
Like her husband, she said she is most comfortable with short story form, "because I've been doing it for so long.
"Finally, after all these years, I have confidence that when I start a story, I'll end up with a (finished) story." And like the writer Flannery O'Connor, she believes that "a story should surprise you. If it doesn't, it won't surprise the reader."
"I love the feeling when a story kind of takes off. I don't
know where it's going, but I know it's going to be interesting."
Back to menu
For questions regarding these releases, contact:
tsimons@unlinfo.unl.ed
u
(402) 472-8514, Fax: (402) 472-7825