Kirby takes care, however, not to define her women simply in relation to men. She explores the bonds between sisters and friends in coming-of-age and finding-yourself stories. The depressed protagonist of “Marcy Breaks Up with Herself,” for example, imagines appearing on the fictional Canadian show 20 Below, which transforms participants into radical minimalists to improve their lives. She pictures the hosts debating her candidacy: “Would it be worth it to make Marcy a different person?” Kirby explores the crumbling of a woman convinced that everything about herself is ugly and wrong.
Kirby also has a fine sense of how to navigate emotions around deeply uncomfortable, no-win situations. In that vein, “Mt. Adams at Mar Vista” is a jewel in this collection. In this stunning, sensitive take on school gun violence, two varsity softball teams meet on the field after a school shooting at Mar Vista. Kirby uses an omniscient narrator to explore the collective identity of the visiting Mt. Adams team, as well as the individual players’ personalities and struggles. The Mt. Adams teenagers are caught between their eagerness to play well and the adults’ discomfort, conveyed as admonishments for them to be “sensitive,” “on their best behavior,” and “respectful.” When a Mar Vista girl finally breaks down in tears, Kirby employs this delicate, well-managed sentence to unfold the moment the Mt. Adams girls come of age:
The girls of Mt. Adams know, at this moment, that something real and horrible and true has happened, something that can- not be changed or even understood, and the right fielder and left fielder grasp hands, and the left fielder holds hands with Simone who holds hands with Lisa, and on down the line, in a gesture that relieves the adults, so respectful and thoughtful, but the girls are doing it for themselves, to feel a part of some- thing, not a part of this tragedy, which is not theirs to own, but a part of their team on this particular day, a piece of something larger than themselves. They look across the dirt to the girl who has seen what they are afraid they will someday have to see…
Kirby doesn’t need to moralize. The reader can see more than the grateful adults can: the girls have sought each other’s comfort in the face of a world unwilling to protect them.
Kirby sets a high bar for herself with her experiments in form and character. While she is frequently successful, I did find that on a few occasions, the story itself doesn’t quite match the inventiveness of its structure. For example, I stumbled when reading “Jerry’s Crab Shack: One Star,” one of two stories told from the perspective of a man. Here, Gary F. of Baltimore, MD, posts his first-ever Yelp review, an account of a poor meal and his uncomfortable marriage. It’s a tell-all about everything from his opinions on restaurant décor to his sex life to his wife’s outie belly button. “I don’t want to lie to you, future Yelp reader. I feel like we are connecting, really unburdening ourselves.” His missive is eminently cringeworthy, as perfectly suited for his character as his words are ill-suited for Yelp. Yet I found the story’s quirky format lost its charm before Gary F. finished describing his lukewarm marriage. Dare I call Gary F. unlikable? His tale of mundane disappointment was unremarkable among so many other surprising stories.