Long Made Short by Stephen Dixon

 


Long Made Short - A dozen short stories collected here where Stephen Dixon's imagination takes wing to perform dazzling somersaults, back flips, handsprings along with the author's signature bellyflops. Say, what? Oh, yes - nobody writes about men and women caught in the swirl of gyrating possibilities or psychic meltdown quite like Stephen Dixon.

The tenor of these stories ranges from dark and tragic to light and whimsical. To serve as teasers, here's a trio of opening lines:

THE RARE MUSCOVITE
I can be such an egotistical self-righteous pompous son of a bitch; unaccepting, nonaccepting, I can't think of the right word but it's what I so often am and all of it's what I am again. Moscow, my wife and I, she to research a book she's anthologizing and introducing, I just to accompany her and see a city and be in a country I've never been to, and it's really just the extra airfare, since restaurants are very cheap and the hotel room's the same for one or two.

FLYING
She was fooling around with the plane's door handle. I said "Don't touch that, sweetheart, you never know what can happen." Suddenly the door disappeared and she flew out and I yelled "Judith" and saw her looking terrified at me as she was being carried away. I jumped out after her, smiled and held out my arms like wings and yelled "Fly like a bird, my darling, try flying like a bird."

LOST
He's called at his office. Something unspeakable's happened. "What is it?" Come home quick, the caller says, his wife needs him. "Why, what's wrong, something with her?" His daughter. "What, what is it?" Come home now. "Just tell me, then I'll be right home. Is she hurt? Was she hit by a car? Is she dead?" She's dead. A fight started between several boys and girls a block from school. Someone pulled out a gun - a kid, they don't know if it was a boy or girl. They don't even think this kid was one of the ones fighting. Everything happened so fast. Some shots were fired. One went into her head.

In addition to these memorable yarns, there's one story I found particularly fascinating, a 30-pager entitled The Victor. To share a deeper appreciation for Stephen Dixon's unique voice and style, I offer the following:

THE VICTOR
Stephen Dixon might qualify as the most overlooked writer of literary fiction in America in the second half of the 20th century. He obsessively pumped out dozens of short stories and a handful of novels published by small presses over the course of thirty years but was mostly unrecognized until 1991 when his novel Frog became a finalist for the National Book Award.

Being a National Book Award finalist meant Stephen Dixon was obliged to attend the award ceremony at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, a formal affair where he had to wear a tux, only the second time in his life, the first time was at his sister's wedding thirty-five years prior. "The whole thing is too ceremonial," Dixon told an interviewer, "And being an emotional person, how can I accept someone else winning." And he goes on, "I don''t like being the center of attention. That's one of the reasons I'm a writer."

As it turned out, another novel, not Frog, won the prize. And to think Dixon devoted a full five years to writing his 700+page Frog. But Stephen Dixon being Stephen Dixon wasn't about to let the organizers and judges off the hook so easily after he went through all the trouble of borrowing a tux to attend their highly distasteful ceremony. The result is The Victor. Of course, for the purpose of writing his short story, Dixon changed the titles of the novels and the names of the authors, including himself. However, to heighten dramatic effect, I'll change the narrator's name back to Stephen Dixon and his losing novel back to Frog.

There he is, 55-year-old Stephen Dixon, in his tux, sitting at his table with his wife Jane, his editor, his publisher. The chairperson of the American Fiction Foundation takes the stage, announces this year’s winner – Lemuel Pond for his novel Eyeball. Stephen shoots a glance at his wife who is looking sympathetically at him; she squeezes his hand. His publisher shakes a fist; his editor wipes her tears away with her linen napkin. Stephen mouths to his wife, “Fuck them.” Then he says, “That jerk didn’t deserve it, that’s all I’ll say. It’s a piece of shit, what he wrote, so of course you have to expect they’ll reward it, the gutless judges, the toadying foundation, the scummy big stiffs of the publishing world here, our little guys excluded.” Note: Frog was published not by one of the jumbo New York houses, Vintage, HarperCollins, Random House but by obscure Dznac Books.

Stephen Dixon fumes as Lemuel Pond shakes hands all round, climbs the steps to the podium, adjusts the microphone and delivers his predictable mawkish speech, thanking everyone on the planet who ever came near him or his crappy, two-bit novel. Afterwards, Stephen strides out of the room to call his journalist buddy Ned to let him know he's lost, tells Ned to write up his column with the title Zero Wins. Stephen stumbles back to his table to swig down his drink and eat his tasteless entree, head down, in silence.

Back at his hotel room, their babysitter asks Stephen to sign her copy of Frog. He pens an inscription, "To Cecily Houston, who sat for us night this book lost the AFA, thanks and very best."

Later on, in Bed, Jane tries consoling him, even has sex with him, but he’s too wound up. When Jane rolls over to go to sleep, he stares up at the ceiling and replays the entire evening at the ceremony with one modest change – he’s the winner.

Now his imagination fills out all the glorious details beginning with the Chairperson’s announcement that Stephen Dixon, author of Frog is the winning author. “I can’t believe it,” he says to his wife, kissing her. “I can’t believe it, this is impossible,” he yells to the table. The editor’s hugging the publisher. She jumps out of her chair and runs around the table to hug him.” And it takes off from there: his being lead to the stage to make his speech, his stuffing the Association’s $10,000 check in his pocket, his walking back to his table, handshakes and pats on the back at every turn, his interviews with the press, all the cameras clicking, the plans for an extended tour, the feature headlines in the New York Times and leading magazines, invitations for TV appearances. Ah, to be the winner! (This section of The Victor is 20 pages long!). As Stephen Dixon makes clear in his sly way, the only thing the winner doesn’t win is more time at his writing desk writing, exactly what a compulsive, obsessive writer such as himself needs – not wants; he needs.


American short story writer and novelist Stephen Dixon, 1936-2019