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HAVE A FRIEND IN 10A: Storiesby Maggie Shipstead
When it comes to her subjects, novelist Maggie Shipstead has no type. As a daring historian of various experiences, she writes about an elite, shotgun-like wedding (“Seating Arrangements”), a former ballerina who once helped a Soviet dancer escape (“surprise me”) and the kindred spirits of a brave 20th-century aviator and the movie star who portrayed him (“great apartment”). Shipstead’s new book, a collection of short stories called “You Have a Friend in 10A,” cannot be summed up so easily. Running the gamut between parodic pseudo-autofiction and marodic, historical fiction narrated by increasingly depraved French women, the stories here are almost meticulously varied. They have been written for more than 10 years; during this time Shipstead received an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, attended Stanford University as a Stegner fellow, and wrote three more books, in addition to occasional features for Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, and magazines. Departure.
As useful as travel is any reading metaphor, Shipstead’s work has been widely praised for “carrying” his readers. He likes to base his fiction on reality and has a passion for research with an ear tuned into social codes and niche terminology. Like Emma Cline, she has an interest in recreating familiar cultural figures and tropes and tends to approach character writing from the standpoint of expertise. Ski enthusiasts, show business genres and figurative artists stand out in this collection. In the title story, an actress and former supporter of a Scientology-like cult describes Hollywood as a place where people discuss “green lights and opening abomination and sex”; The immeasurably cool skier protagonist of “Backcountry” calls his seasonal mountain resort colleagues “lifts”; A rancher’s throat in “The Cowboy Tango” – what else? – his “reptile”. In moments like these, choosing exactly the right word (“torne” appears in both stories) seems to be key to Shipstead’s mission to gain acceptance, little reassurances that we’re with her.
There’s a generous spirit underneath Shipstead’s controlled, sometimes exacting style, but his most gripping stories seem to elude him. They take perverse turns to reach the obvious ends. “La Moretta,” about a young couple on their honeymoon in 1974, definitely stands out. She is an Army girl who is fed up with the world. The newlyweds are doomed from the start, but somewhere on the outskirts of Romania, their claustrophobic anti-romance turns into “The Wicker Man”-style folk horrors. This shift is both obvious and imperceptible, the kind that makes people think a disaster is like watching a car crash in slow motion. Meanwhile, a car accident is the event that allows Shipstead to stray off course. “Angel Lust” does something similar to “Thank You,” which is a really funny story of the collection and also has the privilege of making a sporty reference to Jonathan Franzen’s 2002 New Yorker. article on “book club books” and “Recognitions” by William Gaddis.
Shipstead’s less successful stories (“Souterrain,” “Olympic Village”) tend to be either overly aware of their position as short fiction – making countless leaps back and forth in time to achieve maximum poignancy – or simply unfinished. “In the Olympic Village” is as bland as its title, unfortunately: A world-class gymnast and a world-class runner have vanilla sex after failing to win a medal. We hear all about their muscle tone and mismatched backgrounds, but this is little more than a long scene filled with flashbacks. For a story about testing expectations, this one ironically comes as no surprise. Fun enough, but task-packed shorts like this one get readers “Should this be a novel?” It can enable them to ask out-of-point questions such as:
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