| Glowing Observations of Moments in Life |
February 23, 2010
Tara Masih's debut collection of short stories, Where the Dog Star Never Glows, displays her great talent at observation and description, as well as her bravery in tackling places and periods outside of her own experience. She moves her stories with confidence and faith through locales as different as a beach village in Puerto Rico, a haunted mining town in Montana, the suburbs of Long Island, a Texas border community, and small town New England. Her characters are interesting and true to life, familiar in their uncertainties and fears and in their hopes for what life holds ahead of them. Many of the stories could serve as good jumping off points for longer pieces (novels) about the characters and how they grow and change through conflicts and resolution.
Masih has a good eye for detail and a nice, easy sense of character. She is perhaps too eager to set up conflicts that are neither organic nor integral to the places and characters she is so good at creating, and she is apt to make grand conclusions to finish off her story telling. She must trust more in power of the small details in life -- and in her writing -- to speak volumes without the need for underscoring or exclamation. She is at her best in recording and understanding place, such as the play of light and sound in our surroundings, and characters, especially the reactions, both emotionally and physically, that occur between lovers, friends, family, and strangers. Following her characters patiently through longer pieces and allowing natural conflicts to arise and resolve would bring a satisfying depth to her writing, such as is found in the final story in the collection, the lovely and moving "Delight."
I look forward to reading more from Masih and would love to read a novel from her, a work that would give her the space, time, and patience to allow her characters to breathe, stretch, live and grow under her watchful guidance and gifted pen.
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