Stories in the Old Style: This collection of eighteen previously published short stories by Al Sim includes "Get the Can," winner of the 2001 Glimmer Train Short Story Contest. Bill Roorbach, author of "Big Bend," "The Smallest Color" and "Temple Stream," says, "Stories in the Old Style harkens back to the days of Cannery Row, of Jack London, to the splendid era of American realists. Al Sim's people are the people Johnny Cash sings about, whether the setting is the great Southwest or Soho in New York City. And these are the people who make America such a complex and bedeviled place. So turn off the electric lights, unplug the phone, shoot your TV, and sit down in the easiest easy chair you've got: it's time to enjoy Stories in the Old Style."
Stories in the Old Style
by Al Sim
Review by J Uschuk Stahl
253 pp. Press 53 $18
If you appreciate the idea that narrative forms follow the patterns of life itself, you already have a feel for just why Al Sim’s Stories in the Old Style works so well. Just as the stories we’ve grown up loving, Sim’s stories not only contain all the classic elements but do so with the beauty of gem-like compression. Real short story lovers will love this book.
Take the first story, “Get the Can.” “The only haole kid in sight” of the first sentence talks with Mike—they stand at the edge of the Pacific Ocean and notice the brightly colored fish swimming in the cracks of the causeway on which they stand. They engage in a telling exchange.
“See da one” Mike said. His finger stretched toward a tiny pale green fish.
“Poison, eat it, you die fast.”
“Why would I eat it?”
The other boy shrugged.
“Mebbe you get hungry.”
The two go on to participate in the dangerous game of the title. Of course the haole boy is hungry—for life itself and must risk his life to prove it.
Each of Sim’s stories glow with subtleties and precision of language. Read this, and you’ll remember what a beautiful piece of art a short story can be.
Stories in the Old Style by Al Sim
Midwest Book Review by Laurel Johnson
Al Sim's short stories have appeared separately in many publications. How perspicacious of Press 53 to gather these 18 stories into a book! Mr. Sim does, indeed, write in a style reminiscent of John Steinbeck and Jack London – old style. Critics have alternately described him as a writer with a "shrewd and unrelenting voice," and a writer of "honesty and grace." Depending on which story you are reading at the time, both descriptions apply.
Consider the following excerpt from "The Bootleggers Toes" for example. This quirky story demonstrated with dark humor the tactics humans will pursue to ease their morbid curiosity:
"John Dilts had not previously appreciated his toes. He had mostly cursed them, for he was forever stubbing them in the dark while dressing in the morning. He had a quick step and would smash a toe pretty thoroughly. They had become scarred and gnarled ahead of their time, testy and inflexible. Now he lay in bed and looked down at his bandages. He twitched his remaining toes and winced. It wasn't the pain he winced at, thought there was plenty of that. It was the sickening sense of absence, the false feeling of movement, the shrug of little phantoms."
Each story has its own hook. Memorable characters battle hunger or drought, struggle with pride or vengeance, move forward courageously with humor and hope, or flounder helplessly with their demons. Many of these stories literally made my hair stand on end as I read them because Sim's words inhabit the minds and hearts of his characters so realistically.
Stories in the Old Style, the fourth excellent book of short stories published by Press 53, is highly recommended.
