'We'll Always Have Paris' by Ray Bradbury

From "Fly Away Home," it's easy to see the road that Bradbury's stories travel. There are many here in which the perfect summer day includes the first hints of rot and decay to come. In its four short pages, "Apple-core Baltimore" holds more bitterness than a boxful of lemons in its perfect description of the weight of childhood pain and the years of resentment a man feels at his long-ago treatment by a friend. In "Come Away With Me," a man tries to help a younger man escape his abusive boyfriend. None of the tiny verbal cuts and grand mental cruelties are missed; this is a story without hope, a familiar and hard story with an exhausted protagonist and a hopeless ending.

While some of the stories are slight, the only real bum note is the single poem, the lively but self-congratulatory "America," first published in 2006 in the Wall Street Journal, and here placed last, leaving an odd over-the-top taste after a book that is rich with subtle moments.

"We'll Always Have Paris" is unashamedly a collection of stories written decades apart, sharing no theme or real raison d'etre. And while this isn't Bradbury at the top of his game, this collection pulls its weight and hits enough weird and beautiful poetic notes to satisfy and even surprise his constant readers.

--

Grant is the publisher of Small Beer Press in Easthampton, Mass.