The Body of This by Andrew McNabb

The Body of This Reviews

• 
  Colleen O'Neill Conlan

  I was drawn to this book after hearing the author read one of his stories, "Their Bodies, Their Selves," on an older podcast of the Maine Humanities Council (
  http://mainehumanities.org/podcast/ar...). Online, I saw the stories called spiritual and illuminating, informed by a Catholic sensibility. The book's title certainly alludes to the sacred centerpiece of the Catholic mass, when the priest offers the host, saying, "The body of Christ," and the person standing before him receives it. As a lapsed and conflicted Catholic myself, I was curious.
  
  I would say these stories are spiritual in the way that the sacred is present in the profane, and the profane present in the sacred. In these pages there are farts, erections, urine, dog shit, grey pubic hair, paunchy skin, sagging breasts, rotten teeth, spider veins, and rolls of fat. It can be a little off-putting. But it seems the characters, and the author, are seeking grace through acceptance, acceptance of all that life flings our way, including all the depredations of our bodies, and the effluvia those bodies produce. The body of this, indeed.
  
  Most of these stories take place in Portland, Maine, and most of them are brief, sometimes exceedingly so. Some stories function more as concise vignettes, with little character development and almost no plot at all. I found some endings to be abrupt to the point of frustration. Yet perhaps that's the point: that life is lived in moments, that lives move forward without much happening for much of the time, that things don't always conclude in a satisfying way.
  
  I read a lot of short fiction. I'm keen on character development, and like a story where something imperative happens. The story mentioned above does this, where an elderly couple learns a new way of being when the wife witnesses her husband's naked humiliation, and transforms it to a thing of grace. Or when a man holds a million dollar lottery ticket, and does something surprising in an attempt to hold onto a woman he senses is drifting. Not coincidentally, these are longer stories in the collection. With page space, the stories have room to expand in a way I like very much.
  
  So while some of these stories "didn't work" for me, the collection coheres in theme and voice. McNabb is a gifted writer, and I'll be looking for more of his work.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Bob

  Andrew McNabb penetrated the heads of dozens of characters, discovered their thoughts, and reports his findings in “the body of this.”
  
  Often, it’s brilliant.
  
  It’s writing filled both with humanity and a sense of place, descriptive in a way that refuses to ignore who and what we pass by everyday but fail to see.
  
  Especially who.
  
  The setting for most of the often very brief short stories in McNabb’s collection (published in paperback by Warren Machine Company) is Portland, Maine – and the old portion of Portland. The people whose minds McNabb has invaded are God’s people – church-going, Catholic people – and for the most part believable and real.
  
  Meet some faith-filled folk
  
  Take Terry, the central character of one short story who takes the approach to customer service that “could only, only be provided by loving your neighbor with all your might.”
  
  Meet Lydia, the immigrant trying to dress well and fit in at high school.
  
  There's Frank, the lonely senior citizen serving food to the needy in the church basement who feels misunderstood.
  
  And that young couple who decorated the baby’s room in anticipation of their first child only to…no, you’d better read that one yourself.
  
  Lots of winners, but not all
  
  McNabb writes some pretty weird stuff, too. When someone can bring together both reality and a sense of imagination the way he can, a reader has to wonder why he stoops to vulgarity at times.
  
  It’s offensive. And unnecessary.
  
  I say unnecessary because the empathy McNabb has for what some might call the least of God’s people is truly eye-opening, a blessing for his readers.
  
  His insight into America’s obsession with losing weight is gorgeously brought out in the little more than four pages of the tightly written “Habeas Corpus.”
  
  And the first-person story about a lottery winner – “It’s What It Feels Like” – is a marvelously-told piece of work that’s more about marriage – and the sometimes one-sideness of marriage – than about winning millions.
  
  Is it what it looks like?
  
  Or is it what it feels like?
  
  And how about us?
  
  What are all those people thinking, the ones we live with, the ones we work with and study with and volunteer with – and love?
  
  What's really on their minds?– bz
  
• 
  LindaJ^

  
  I'm trying to read more short stories but must say it's tough. I read this book because so many of the stories are set in Portland, ME, which I know fairly well. Some of the stories I liked, but some were just too grim for me -- not the setting but the people. Most are just short snapshots of time and place, while a few encompass a period of time.
• 
  Nathan

  A short, weird collection of people portraits, undistinguished from any of a thousand like it. McNabb deals in the sort of short story I find so irritating: those vague "vignettes" that use the medium as an excuse for not saying anything at all. Odd, brief and pointless.
• 
  booklady

  Thanks Steve! From your review (and knowing your high standards) this sounds great!
• 
  Mikem

  Andrew McNabb is a solid writer. Some seriously good short fiction in this collection.