Sherry Chandler

Here’s a way to celebrate Thanksgiving: Jim Tomlinson’s short story collection, Things Kept, Things Left Behind, was reviewed today by the New York Timea!

In the book business, short-story collections by emerging writers are a tough sell. Among the heavyweight publishers these books are rarely bought, and when they are, the deal includes a novel in the not-too-distant future. As a result debut collections by only a handful of new writers make their way to a wider reading public each year.

Fortunately university presses pick up the publishing slack and distribute collections by emerging writers, often in the form of prestigious awards. Most notable among these are the Iowa Short Fiction Award and the John Simmons Short Fiction Award, both given by the University of Iowa Press and selected through the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. This year’s winners were chosen by the short-story author George Saunders. They are “Permanent Visitors” by Kevin Moffett and “Things Kept, Things Left Behind” by Jim Tomlinson.

In the tradition of many classic story collections — from the Deep South back roads of Flannery O’Connor’s short masterpieces to the sleepy towns of Huron County, Ontario, found in Alice Munro’s exquisite work — both of these books are deeply rooted in a sense of place…

Read the rest. As Jim says, it’s “quite favorable.”

I raise a glass of Alice White Merlot to Jim! What a thrill!

in this Thanksgiving NYTimes essay by Corby Kummer:

A RECENT article in the Montreal newspaper La Presse quoted growers as claiming that within a few years Canada would be a larger producer of cranberries than New England.

That the article was written in French only pointed up the hurtfulness of the boast. Canada is already the biggest harvester of lobster, that other quintessential symbol of New England — even if the Pilgrims regarded it as little more than trash fish, unworthy of a place of honor at the original Thanksgiving table (the only sure items at which were deer and wildfowl, according to Kathleen Curtin and Sandra Oliver’s “Giving Thanks”). Bad enough already that Wisconsin produces more cranberries than Massachusetts. Must we cede to Canada those too-tart, hard-to-love, health-giving remnants of a time when New England agriculture had national significance?

Well, yes. Cranberries and any number of Thanksgiving Day staples are probably headed north thanks to global warming, as Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, told me recently. Dr. Epstein looks at the future, and it’s not so hot for native foods, or at least not for those that grow in the United States.

The present isn’t so great either…

In short, folk, the days when “the frost is on the punkin” look to be numbered. And a small number at that.

Sorry about the native chestnut, now making such a promising comeback in those Appalachian forests after decades of breeding with blight-resistant varieties to recreate an almost all-American strain. American chestnuts have a lovely, soft, floury texture — perfect for stuffing — and a sweet, delicate flavor. It’ll be back to Chinese chestnuts, the mealy, low-flavor kind — unless you are able to find a source for Italian and French chestnuts, the ones with real flavor, and are willing to pay premium prices for them. But don’t worry about the cost: they’re probably doomed too.

Same for the pumpkin for the pie and the string beans for the canned-onion-ring casserole, as opportunistic weeds and pests move into disrupted climate areas and wreak havoc with growing cycles and yields.

I read this to mean that soon your trip out to Double-Stink Hog Farm to pick your own punkin will find it smothered in kudzu.

When the Frost is on the Punkin

WHEN the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then the time a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover overhead!—
O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the cellar-floor in red and yaller heaps;
And your cider-makin’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage too!…
I don’t know how to tell it—but ef such a thing could be
As the angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me—
I’d want to ‘commodate ‘em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

— James Whitcomb Riley (text from Bartleby)