Short Story Wednesday: Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King

Lily King is a new author for me. She has written several novels, but she came to my attention when I read about her short story book, Five Tuesdays in Winter, at Patricia Abbott's blog in 2022.

This week I read four stories (of ten) from that book. All of them were very good. Each story focuses on a specific incident or series of events, but as the story is told, much more is revealed about the characters. The stories have so much depth.

"Creature"

This story was forty pages long and it overwhelmed me (in a good way). A woman describes her experiences when she took a job as a teenager (14 years old). She was a live-in babysitter for a well-to-do family for a few weeks. The kids were young, both under six. The kids' uncle is visiting; he is married but arrived alone. And he is young enough to be attractive to the babysitter. That is the setup for the story, but I can't say much more about it. The writing is beautiful, the events and feelings are described well and feel real. 

“Five Tuesdays in Winter”

This one is easy to describe, and it was just as good as the first one. It is a love story, plain and simple, and it is a lovely one. The characters are a reticent bookstore owner, his twelve-year-old daughter, and a woman who has recently been hired to work at the store. 

This quote from the story reveals a bit of his character:

"Mitchell's daughter, who was twelve, accused him of loving his books but hating his customers. He didn't hate them. He just didn't like having to chat with them or lead them to very clearly marked sections – if they couldn't read signs, why were they buying books? – while they complained that nothing was arranged by title. He would have liked to have a bouncer at the door, a man with a rippled neck who would turn people away or quietly remove them when they revealed too much ignorance."

"North Sea"

This story is about grief and the relationship between a mother and her daughter. Oda's husband died unexpectedly, leaving her and her young daughter with very little money. Since his death, their relationship has been strained. Oda plans a vacation in hopes of mending their relationship. I liked the story but it was bleaker than the others.

“When in the Dordogne”

The first three stories I read featured young girls, either preteens or early teens. I read a fourth story to see if each story in the book was going to follow this pattern. But in “When in the Dordogne,” the main character and narrator is a fourteen-year-old boy. His parents go on an extended summer vacation because his father has had a breakdown and needs relaxation. 

The first paragraph:

"The summer of 1986, the summer I was fourteen, my parents went to the Dordogne for eight weeks. My father had been unwell, and it was thought that France, where he had studied as a young man, would enable his recovery. Through the university’s employment office, my mother hired two sophomores to house-sit for the time they would be out of the country. As I came with the house, these two college boys were obliged to take care of me, too."

Right there I knew it was going to be a great story and I was right.