In Which Brief Stories Are Told

Ferris State University English professor Phillip Sterling believes Northern Michigan is not easily categorized. Sterling, an accomplished poet, has recently published a collection of short stories, many of which take place in this area.
The prevailing narrative thread in his book of short stories, “In Which Brief Tales Are Told,” is the uncertainty between what is known and what is suspected. In each of the fifteen stories, narrators, some omniscient, some confined, unravel details that often leave as many questions as they answer.
Published as part of the Made In Michigan Series from Wayne State University Press, “In Which Brief Stories Are Told,” demonstrates Sterling’s poetic tendencies in prose narratives. Case in point is “The Small Bridge.” In the span of six pages, Will and his future/ former wife Joy move from an early encounter raking leaves to marriage, then onto divorce, all the while imagining their daughter Artemis, and how the failed relationship reveals their most intimate feelings.
The raking, “no more than stench of death and decay,” serves as an appropriate metaphor for their failed relationship, made only less so by the wonder of their daughter. Here, Sterling’s narrative veers to the heart of the matter, as we learn, “What should be said instead is how little they knew of each other at this point in the story.”
In “An Account in Her Name,” Sterling’s narrative approach is more traditional. A middle-aged woman returns to Northern Michigan to meet a banker about a savings account her long missing sister kept. In the unfurling of events, readers learn that the sister, a teenage lifeguard and swimming instructor at a public beach in Beulah, left a legacy of not only mystery but also insight
Edie, the lifeguard gone AWOL, worked hard at their father’s restaurant, a place he buys in order to move his family north, to escape the sinister possibilities of the city. His family is slow to buy into his dream, though Edie works hard to keep up appearances.
In the span of a summer, Edie disappears while returning North from her studies at Kalamazoo College, unleashing events that bring down the dreams of those around her, including her parents and her sister. When the sister, the story’s narrator, conducts her banking, however, the mystery is at once renewed and reduced.