Grace Amundson

What a great beginning to Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic. I was completely enchanted by this story, having a feast with those many delectable, vivid descriptions. One of my favorites was "He picked up his drink and examined it critically, as though expecting to see some minute form of marine life in it."

A short story about an old magician and a young girl, two misfits who profoundly connect through cynicism and real magic.

Aw, but bummer. I am crestfallen there is no more Grace show more Amundson to be read. She and her fate are a mystery.

The Short Story Club group reads one short story a week. Great moderators and thinking members. You can join here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1187035-the-short-story-club show less

Do you believe in magic? Manguel’s second anthology of fantastic fiction gets off to a good start, with an almost unknown author. It is a poignant and deftly-written piece contrasting the faded dreams of adults with the faith of a child on the cusp of becoming a cynical teen, alongside some jabs at class and gender roles.

It’s the summer carnival at an aspirational (junior high?) school, with entertainment organised by the fathers. Ellerman is dressed as a clown, to the huge embarrassment show more of his daughter, Constance. Camden has booked Armitage, a haughty but faded magician, with “shrunken and yellowed gloves”. Armitage is warned that his audience will not be easily impressed, but counters that:
“Children accept the wondrous quite sensibly.”

Before the show, an easy trick, a chicken sandwich, and “the mellifluous chain of his expression” charm the stroppy Constance. It’s a touching and believable connection. And then he does something beautiful and truly amazing - a trick that is transformative for them both.

Image: Bubbles, by Nattapol_Sritongcom (Source)

Ellerman is left pondering:
“What if his parents hadn’t borne down hard on the wild illusions of youth?... There were times when he was more terrified of having a too remarkable child than a stupid one. Somewhere between the two poles was a nice, healthy average… Better they grew up to believe less than something too lurid.”
What a dreadful way to constrain one’s child’s spirit and future.

For an alternative view, Ellerman should read Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron, which I happened to read today. See my review HERE.

I’m sure it’s relevant that Grace Amundson was a woman, writing this in the early 1960s, or possibly late 1950s.

Analogies, and other quotes

• “There was an eager angelic waxiness about his nostrils.”
• “The greenish balls of his eyes like skinless white grapes.”
• “The lanterns bobbed on, broiling the dusk in hot festoons.”
• “Ellerman roamed the languid assemblage, haranguing them with a vivacity more suitable for auctioning off a marble quarry.”
• “The lavender pastures of her eyes.”
• “Constance looked at the pliant half corpse of fowl laid out on the plate and recoiled from the contours of such recent life.”

Short story club

I read this in Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic, by Alberto Manguel, from which I’m reading one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 24 March 2025.

You can read this story HERE.

You can join the group here. show less

Hardly a plot and one could see where it was going, even if you weren't quite sure what that meant, and the scenes unfold dramatically without melodrama, comma, nothing of the sort, so why so high on this sorte? Honestly, I'm writhe to write, nor ken to conjure any but conjecture, in the penumbra of this cavorting acontextual word artistry odyssey. Amundson drops words and phrases like splashes of luminescent essence. And wit to wit. One can enjoy this blast from the past presciently up to show more penultimate completion, never to arrive at a conclusive conclusion. show less