The First Honeymoon: New and Selected Stories
By Lyn Coffin
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
Lyn Coffin writes with heart and humor of longing and searching—for place, for connection, for love. Here, among these 17 stories, an artichoke reveals for a young bride the fault lines already dooming her new marriage; a mother makes final amends for telling an unwelcome truth about Christmas by telling a comforting lie about death; a young girl navigates the madness of her mother, the possible evil of her father and questions about her own state of mind; and we are treated to an inspired retelling of the classic Tortoise and the Hare fable. Coffin’s fictions cross boundaries; they are funny, ominous and heartbreakingly true.
Who will enjoy this book: Fans of realist fiction, American fiction, poetry, and the literary fiction short story.
“Sexy, smartly engaging and quirkily off-beat, these stories are a delight to read and ponder.” – Judith Roche, National Book Award-Winning Author of Wisdom of the Body
“Like Oates, like Updike, Coffin gives us characters we recognize, in spaces that are familiar—a coffee shop, a bar. She masterfully reveals the small yet extraordinary moments which eventually become irrevocable fate. Fiction worth re-reading: witty, wise, deeply imagined.” – Jed Myers, Author of Watching the Perseids
Lyn Coffin
Lyn Coffin (b. 1943) is an award-winning fiction writer, poet, playwright, translator. More than 30 of her books have been published by Doubleday, Ithaca House, Abattoir Editions, and others. Her poems have won many awards and been published in more than a hundred literary reviews and magazines. Her plays have been performed in Singapore, Detroit, Boston, Off Broadway, Ann Arbor, and Seattle. She was a recipient of a Michigan Council for the Arts grant and a National Endowment for the Humanities Award.
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Reviews for The First Honeymoon
13 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I liked how each of these stories seemed to be not about an event so much as a feeling. The stories are told with humour (although often of the bitter kind) and are thoughtful, quirky, and interesting. They cover topics of love, writing, sorrow,death. Often, I reread my 'story of the day' just to enjoy the style, the sentence structure, the beautifully composed thought.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lyn Coffin is an award-winning fiction writer, poet, playwright, and translator.She has given us a surprisingly solid work of fiction here in this fine collection!Some stories are very charming while others are quite dramatic and moving.I will need to revisit this book soon.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not a fast read, for all the best possible reasons - each story is so self-contained compared with the others, that starting the next story when finishing one is jarring. Better to finish a story and take time before picking the book back up and starting the next.In the best of these, Lyn Coffin has mastered the inferred narrative - she's not storytelling in her stories, but giving us the characters, feelings, and settings that led the narrative she isn't writing down to the place where we join it. It gives us enough of these stories' souls to learn the full story, to teach it to ourselves, and even extend it, all in a surprisingly short time in language allusive and elusive. The Gift Horse, The Psychiatrist's Second Wife, and The First Honeymoon each offer a novel in concentrated format, and in these and others along these lines, death, intimacy, and flat-out sexual tension play big roles in giving us what we need as readers to learn lives in short order.Other stories in the collection could be accused of the 'too clever by half' stories, based on some surprise conceit, but for all that, I enjoyed them. When somebody clever shows off, and is good at it, the ride is fun: fireworks may not last, but damned if they're not pretty to look at in the moment. The Butterfly, which evolves from what seems like a prose poem to, maybe, something longer than flash fiction but not much, actually fooled me twice in that short span - and I enjoyed it all the more.Ranging from uncomfortably, darkly beautiful to clever romp, the stories in this collection are worth the time to read, and worth time between each story before starting the next.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is an excellent collection of short stories. The author immediately takes you into the mind of each main character and every story is like a little mystery of what was going to happen or what will be revealed. It's a skilled author who can make you care about each of her character from the first few sentences. The first story, The Gift Horse, is very memorable and touching, and had me pondering about telling the truth, and whether that is always the best policy, as a dying mother finds out when she reveals something to her young daughter. Fable, a retelling of The Tortoise and The Hare, with extra morals, was very funny. The title story, The First Honeymoon, had a surprising and delightful ending. I highly recommend this collection to all who love interesting and surprising short stories.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lyn Coffin is an accomplished poet, translator, and playwright in addition to teaching literary fiction and other pursuits. This is a collection of short stories that draws on all these talents. It is diverse, reflective, sometimes funny, but sometimes just writing best appreciated only by other writers. There is usually a brilliant sentence or two in each selection and the title story is excellent. Check out the author's website - pretty cool writing and photos. I was surprised to find out her age!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It is always worth taking the time to not just read but fully digest the fiction of Lyn Coffin. There is no better way to do that than with her short stories and this collection, The First Honeymoon, while not always hitting the high mark, does not disappoint. Included are stories alternately funny, heart wrenching, seriously quirky, and always intelligent.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I adored this collection, but there were a few that stood out as absolutely amazing. Perhaps the one I will go back to, over and over, as part of my meditation needs, will be "The Butterfly."Coffin writes about writing and about relationships with passion and emotion. There is depth to her text and concepts, and I have a feeling I will come back to this collection and find something new to love every time.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a short collection of stories, well under 200 pages, but it is no quick read. The stories need time to digest and some demand an immediate re-reading. Full of imaginative, witty ideas and startling wake-up-your-head sentences.I felt like I was eavesdropping on the very intimate relationships of some exceptional characters, and some ordinary folks with buried quirkiness. From 'Point of View Problems', a couple of examples I've highlighted for my book club, the first an idea from page 97: "She had converted late to sanity and, like most converts, was especially secure in her faith." Hah.And an image from page 101: "Carolyn's palpable dislike of him slid off her face like snow off a roof." Wow.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lyn Coffin's short story collection is immediate and emotionally evocative. I laughed out loud, I cried, I was shocked, and I was intellectually stimulated. Coffin's writing is crisp and clear. To use the author's words, "Reading you, I had the impression of moving many ways at once, as if I were dispersing. It was pleasurable , yet terrifying, like a ride on the roller coaster. When I wanted to get out of it, I couldn't. Mostly, I wanted in." I think this is the most well balanced short story collection that I have ever read.
Book preview
The First Honeymoon - Lyn Coffin
The
First
Honeymoon
New and Selected
Stories
By Lyn Coffin
Published by Iron Twine Press at Smashwords
Copyright© 2016 by Lyn Coffin
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Five of these stories first appeared in other publications: A Gift Horse
was published in The Bridge; Her Political Body
appeared in Rackham Review; A Lesson In Black and White
appeared in Ball State Forum; Falling Off the Scaffold
was first published at Michigan Quarterly Review and reprinted in Best American Short Stories, 1979 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishers); On the Topmost Branch of a Beckett Tree
was published online at Big Bridge (bigbridge.org)
This book is available in print at most online retailers
www.Irontwinepress.com
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Lyn Coffin is an award-winning fiction writer, poet, playwright, and translator. Sixteen books of her writing have been published, and her plays have been presented internationally. Her short stories have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies, including the Best American Short Stories edited by Joyce Carol Oates. She teaches literary fiction at the University of Washington. Lyn holds an honorary PhD from the World Academy of Arts and Culture (UNICEF) for poetic excellence and her efforts on behalf of world peace.
For Leif
CONTENTS
A Gift Horse
Rodin’s Girlfriend
Fable
The First Honeymoon
Dear Ron
The Psychiatrist’s Second Wife
The Butterfly
Failing May Broxholm
Among Friends
Dante’s Three-Part Structure
Her Political Body
The Dexter Mill
Point of View Problems
A Fable for John
A Lesson In Black and White
Falling Off the Scaffold
On the Topmost Branch of a Beckett Tree
THE
FIRST
HONEYMOON
NEW AND SELECTED STORIES
A GIFT HORSE
Denise was sure she was right to have said what she did, until Leah left for school. Then misgivings rushed upon her, waves cresting into cavalry horses, a soldier on every one.
The shop girl smiled again. What was she waiting for? Oh, yes. She was supposed to buy something. At least look at something. The counter and showcase were littered with china bric-a-brac. She had come seeking something for Leah—an angel, possibly. Leah needed something to take Santa’s place. But porcelain figurines weren’t right for a seven-year-old, even the most careful.
What could she have been thinking of?
Death. She’d been thinking of death. Her death. Her impending
death. Only it was more as if death had been thinking of her. She hadn’t had any medication this morning, wanting her thinking clearer. It was, too. But the pain in her gut had gone crazy.
Leah,
she began, suppose you were grown-up and had a daughter and you loved the daughter very much the way I love you and let’s suppose your daughter believed something and the something made her happy but wasn’t true. Would you tell your daughter the truth? Or would you let her go on believing in the thing that wasn’t true but made her happy?
The salesgirl wasn’t smiling now. Denise flailed about in her mind, searching for what her mother had called some saving grace.
She looked at the girl’s white plastic badge. HELLO! My Name is Beth!
said the thick, aqua letters. Maybe some time in the 21st century, Leah would be a salesgirl here. No, the imagination was a round-eyed bank teller and truth produced a six-shooter and pulled the trigger. The truth was, she would never live to see her daughter grow up. Somewhere inside her, a tumor was growing like Topsy. A storm was brewing. It was time to batten down the hatches, only there were no more hatches left.
This young woman wanted to please her—no, more than that—she wanted to do right. The beautiful young always did. I love you, mommy. Are you mad at me?
That was Leah these days, and they went over and over the truth as if it were a role that needed to be memorized. They went over and over what was coming until the future was a stone rolling downhill, away from the tomb. And every morning, there it was to deal with again. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Leah, sweetheart! I told you this nasty cancer thing isn’t because of you.
Who’s it because of, then?
Denise waited, afraid to answer too soon, before the dust of emotion had settled, and truth stood revealed. It’s not because of anyone, sweetie. Not you or me or daddy or anyone.
I think it’s God,
Leah said. I think he did this to you. Why are you looking like that? It’s the truth. That’s what I think!
But why? Am I so bad God has to gun me down?
And Leah looked down at her and there were honest to god tears brimming over her lower eyelids. No, mommy. Not you. He’s the one that’s bad. When I get big I’m going to tell people not to vote for him.
Beth was leaning forward, peering at Denise with a mixture of sympathy and satisfaction, distaste and curiosity. Denise tried to look at her, but it was like looking at someone through smoke or water. The girl had big blue eyes, almost like Leah’s. She had blonde brown hair which floated out from the sides of her face. There were spots of color in her cheek, too dramatic and uneven to be anything but natural. Her dark eyebrows had been plucked almost to extinction. Maybe Beth’s mother had a thing about facial hair. Oh, but she, Denise, must try to be where she was, and not hidden somewhere inside it. She mustn’t let death, the fact of it, drive her underground. Leah was counting on her, Richard too. And Beth—right here, right now—was leaning forward, waiting. Perhaps Beth was an angel in disguise.
Denise fished around inside herself and found her voice. She dragged it up to the surface. It was a magic fish with a ring in its mouth. What would it say?
I’m sorry, Beth.
The words were right, but the tone was wrong—a preface to some important, difficult rite. Denise could see the young husband who would say those words. He would be in his study, late one mild winter’s night. He would be smoking a pipe—No. Forget the pipe. But he would be pacing, unable to look at his shivering wife. I’m sorry, Beth,
he would say. I don’t know how to go on without you.
Excuse me?
Beth said.
Denise focused on her with a start. Beth had the tonality down flat. When she said Excuse me,
the tone let you know she had nothing to be excused for. Maybe Beth was an angel, after all. Or maybe she was just young and pretty and underpaid.
I’m a little spacey these days,
Denise heard herself say. The words gave her courage: she picked up a blue china horse the size of a Kleenex box. When you were holding something, people didn’t so strongly expect you to talk. No, that was wrong. You didn’t so strongly need to talk. That must be it.
Denise held the horse up to Beth. It was garish and old-looking. Almost unbearably cheerful. How much is this?
Beth smiled again. When she smiled, she moved her head a little and her tiny globe earrings began to swing. Denise felt ice forming under her feet. She was on a playground, about to slide. The slide was so long, you couldn’t see the end. There were boys down there with dogs. She focused on the end of Beth’s nose. It was a nice nose, with a nice end. Let’s go powder our noses,
her mother would say, when she needed to go to the bathroom.
It’s on sale for $49, ma’am,
Beth said. Part of our Christmas clearance.
Denise nodded...Ma’am
...Seems like kind of a lot,
she said. The conversation was beginning to feel okay—a pair of jeans which had shrunk in the wash.
Beth seemed taken aback. It was $69 before the clearance,
she said somewhat primly. Denise wanted to take her hands and reassure her. Never mind,
she wanted to say. Don’t take it personally.
Beth reached across the counter and took the horse out of her hands. Look,
she said. This is why.
She turned the horse so it faced Denise and held it up at eye-level.
The horse’s mouth was wide open, in the kind of exaggerated yawn usually associated with hippos. I guess this particular gift horse—
Denise began.
Beth shook her head as if shaking off flies. Look inside,
she said.
Denise took her so-called reading glasses out of her pocket and put them on. The horse’s mouth leapt into sudden focus.
And then she saw. The inside of the mouth and all down the throat, as far as the eye could travel—her eye at least—everything had been painted. The primary color was a Pepto-Bismol pink and not a little jarring. But there were other colors too, and after another visual adjustment, Denise began to make out scenes. The inside of the horse was an unbroken continuum of tiny landscapes, punctuated with small houses, tiny trees, even, yes, dotted with infinitesimal people.
And Leah looked up at her with those eyes, those eyes which were not Richard and not Denise but Leah now, Leah only. I’d tell her the truth, mommy,
she said. And her lower lip trembled. And when Denise told her—There isn’t any Santa Claus, Leah. Not really.
— she didn’t make a sound, though tears slid silently down her cheeks, one after the other. She said nothing until she was almost out of the room. Why didn’t you tell me he wasn’t really real before?
she said. Why did you let me believe in Santa Claus all the way until now? Didn’t you know?
Wow.
Denise put the horse down. Her hands had become perpetually cold but sweaty. It was hard to hang on to anything.
Beth smiled. Do you like it?
She asked, not without a trace of eagerness. The questions of the young were never without a trace of eagerness. It was like a badge for them.
Well...
Denise paused. She had, as Richard would say, a thing about honesty.
She wouldn’t lie, even out of kindness. In her opinion, lying was always a mistake. The truth was always what people needed to hear, even when the truth came like a frozen turkey, wrapped in blood-stained words like Four weeks to a year.
It’s fascinating,
she said. I’m not sure I really like it, though.
Beth nodded, but looked crestfallen. When she