Dying Light and Other Stories by Donald Hays

Dying Light and Other Stories Reviews

• 
  Matt Simmons

  An uneven collection--not bad, mind you, and incredibly great in places, but uneven. "Ackerman in Eden" sets itself up with a conceit that goes nowhere, "Orphans" stops before it really gets going (but would not work as a novella, either), "Private Dance" is entertaining, but ultimately feels like an attempt to elevate smut to literature, and "The Rapist," while a compelling picture of the vilest of crimes, just leaves you feeling unsatisfied.
  
  But four of the stories are simply breathtaking. The opening story, "The Rites of Love," is an incredibly moving picture of the ambiguities of romance, and what we owe those we love--and how defining who it is we love, and why we love them, is the messiest and most difficult of all human decisions. The story's dinner scene is one of the most beautifully and erotically romantic moments I've read, and the closing image just sears itself into your mind, not to be forgotten. "Material" is a nuanced and exceptionally well-told story about storytelling itself, illustrating how the very act of creating art is itself a perhaps violent action (this seems to be a fairly consistent theme throughout the collection, and Hayes thus feels like a poor man's James Salter). "Redemption" is both disgusting and incredibly human, and "Dying Light" is a truly moving and beautiful portrait of a marriage, a family, a father and son, and how we often don't--and perhaps can't--understand each other until the very end.
  
  These stories are thus both incredibly beautiful and incredibly upsetting and vile, often simultaneously. Which is, I think, the result of Hayes' use of sex, both the most beautiful and the most violent, disgusting thing human beings do. These are stories, then, of individuals facing a choice between the beautiful and the vile, and their very human inability to often do anything to move from one to the other. Hayes's talents as a humorous writer are not on display here, and this colors the entire collection with a darkness that makes the stories often overlap, run into each other. But, on the whole, despite some problems with differentiation between certain stories, despite a few that fall flat, there are three or four absolutely golden stories here, especially the opening and closing ones. For those alone, this book is worth your time.
• 
  James Martin

  As with any collection of stories, I found myself preferring some to others. But, in the end, I was glad I stuck with it, especially for the last four stories. Hays' stories are character driven, and often find people in the middle of some dramatic change in the course of their lives, as often as not for the worse. There's a pathos that undergirds the whole collection, but that isn't to say the stories are without humor. They are though, many of them, informed by a frank acknowledgment of the inevitability of death. I find quite a few of the characters and their lives still bumping around in my head. And that's as good a mark as any of a good story.
• 
  Stefan

  This was written by a faculty member at Arkansas. The language is rich and precise, creating not only characters, but people. Hays was always one step ahead of me (which is the way it should be, but often isn't); it will keep you reading to the end. Although humorous, dark and well-written, the stories left me wanting a little more sustenance.