How can a story capture the moment — just any moment, really — without instantly sounding cliche? Damion Searls’ short story collection (his first published fiction), What We Were Doing and Where We Were Going, has done that with writing that uses restraint and distance. It feels ethereal yet completely relatable. The writing is simple — no charms, not quite all business, but delicately exact. He gives the reader just enough and still we are left wanting more. Maybe that’s been done before. Maybe it’s been done many times before. It works and Searls has found a way to make it modern.

Searls’ simplicity makes the writing sympathetic rather than eager to get your attention. The story “56 Water Street” has a seemingly nameless narrator (we learn his name — Giles — but it’s almost unnecessary) who is working on a novel while still maintaining relationships with his college friends. As he maneuvers through these relationships, we get so much from so little of him. He keeps short notes on his friends and his novel. Here are a few from a trip that he finally takes to the country with his girlfriend:

We see a great blue heron, alone, standing in the marsh. Slowly, deliberately, it takes off. A coat tossed onto a coat rack, limp and loose, become a gray sail, swelling with the wind.

Sun dapples onto us from two directions at once: down through the trees, up from the river.

Angela: “Are you going to write an occasional poem?”

This question is left unanswered. It seems like an unimportant question, but its mention in a story of sparse details makes it worthy. There isn’t an answer; it isn’t needed. In a story about finding gravity in the post-college-I think I know who I am but I’m only now settling into who I am-years, leaving the reader unsatisfied is so very, well, satisfying.

In the story “The Cubicles” we are taken into the lonely world of the office cubicle. Yes, this has been done many, many times before; but, Searls writes without any illusions about “the period when [the real-most] self was least real.” The narrator continues: “Work is the negation of plot, of story, though the incidents there do illuminate character…” This story isn’t quite a story but a sketch of life within the cubicle walls. Without a specific plot, Searls creates a distance (and again a sympathy) that makes the story compelling. The readers are isolated from any character action, which is essentially how it feels to work in a cubicle — distant and fragmented.

There is a story behind this collection of short stories (which could be a potential spoiler): Each story is influenced, or inspired, or even a cover of other classic short stories. Yes, it could be misconstrued as a gimmick but that would be unfair. Searls’ writing is so enmeshed within literature (he is also an accomplished translator) that each story is his own. You don’t need to know or have read these stories to understand or appreciate Searls’. If you do want to compare, check out the acknowledgement page.

Searls also uses this to his advantage. The final story, “Dialogue Between the Two Chief World Systems”, explores the influence of others on writing. It asks whether or not a new story be written from an old story by someone completely different from the original author. But, isn’t that what Searls is doing? Why would we want to read about what we are already reading? Searls creates compelling characters and a story given by a seductive and mysterious woman that needs to be retold. The rest of the story argues who should write this elusive story within a story. Complicated to describe but intriguing to follow.

There are some books that pull you in and leave their mark. Something elusive that makes you want — need — to keep reading to find out what will come next, even if it’s a simple word or phrase or sentence. Is that what makes some books good — just the experience of reading them? Should it be anything more than that? Well, what would be the point of me writing this column if you just took my word about books: Should I read it? Yes. Why? Because it’s good. Why is it good? It just is — read it and you’ll find out. But that’s what I’d love to say about What We Were Doing and Where We Were Going. You just have to read it to find out how good it really is.

 

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