I read They Could Live with Themselves: Linked Stories by Jodi Paloni while cuddled up against my cat back in my hometown, a few days after I received it from the author in exchange for an honest review. It was satisfying to read the short stories of a small town while wandering the town where I grew up: the trees brushing a humid blue-grey sky in the wind, children playing on the playground at the park where I grew up.
Paloni’s book is a collection of brilliant, poignant short stories that highlight what her characters and her fictional town of Stark Run have in common: both tranquility and turbulence, simmering under the surface, a restlessness standing out against the sleepy interconnection of a small Vermont town. Her characters are carefully wrought and each given their own voice without giving up Paloni’s own: she tells the small, stunning stories of teachers, parents, children dealing with tragedies, teenagers learning how to grow up. Most of all it follows, through small spurts, the story of a teenager named Sky who is figuring out whether he wants to stay or leave. Paloni’s writing is worth the read, and her characters and their narratives tell a series of stories that are emotional and satisfying to read.
One reviewer called They Could Live with Themselves a “sustained narrative,” but I would hesitate to do the same. While the short stories are linked, they stand best on their own as mini-narratives that stand tall, united by the small town of Stark Run. Spread out over the course of a year, much of the character development and some of the events happen behind the scenes, but this isn’t a bad thing. Making this out to be one sustained narrative would almost take away from the book: Sky is a central character, but treating him as the pivotal character would take away the quiet joys of the other characters she spends so much time on: Jillianna, Melissa, Sky’s parents, Charlie, Addison, Wren, an English teacher, an art teacher. Paloni doesn’t mean to tell the story of any one character, but to tell the story of Stark Run and the feelings it evokes. That mission succeeds. They Could Live with Themselves was released in May 2016 by Press 53.
“Jillianna only broke from her mother’s side to eat ice cream on the back porch with her father after dinner, enjoying the cool burn at the back of her throat, the nerve freeze that shimmied to her brain. At night, she slept alone in her room. There, she dreamt of clear blue water, shallow and lapping on white sand. In tidal pools, among crusted rocks, she saw her mother’s feet, the pearl polish of her mother’s toenails pebble-like among stones. beside them were Elliot’s chubby white feet wavering in water and sunlight like tiny sea anemones. Jillianna searched, looking for her own feet, the polish on her own toes, and woke when she could not find them. She’d lie awake until morning wondering if she, or any of them, could ever be happy again.”
