The Sunnier Side and Other Stories

I bought this book on the strength of having read Jackson's The Fall of Valor, and was not disappointed. In fact, some of the writing in these short stories is more accomplished and readable than the novel. Jackson's writing is that kind that calls no attention to itself while it enraptures us with the stories he tells. It's clear these are people he's known, the gaudy, lonely, transgressive, secretive lives of people who all know each other. It's a vacation to a small town and the characters and situations of their lives. Next up, his most famous book, The Lost Weekend.

Charles Jackson is one of those writers we have forgotten about, and it is a shame. These short stories remind us about the pre World War Two years in small town America that are not sticky sentimental nor political, bit rich with reality. I found them fascinating and absorbing.

Charles Jackson was a minor American writer of the Forties and early Fifties. To the extent he is now remembered, it is for his novel "The Lost Weekend", which is better known in its Academy Award-winning film version, directed by Billy Wilder. Vintage Books has just reissued "The Lost Weekend" as well as Jackson's THE SUNNIER SIDE AND OTHER STORIES. It originally was published in 1950. Here, editor (and Jackson biographer) Blake Bailey excises two stories from that 1950 edition and adds two other stories, making for a total of eleven short stories.Most of the stories are set in the small town of Arcadia, New York between 1910 and 1918, and in most of them the first-person narrator and protagonist is Don Birnam, who went through his adolescence during those years. Don Birnam is the alter ego of Charles Jackson, who was born in 1903 and grew up in Newark, New York, a small town between Rochester and Syracuse in the Finger Lakes region south of Lake Ontario. The theme of the stories in THE SUNNIER SIDE is how small-town America can be both nurturing and suffocating.The best piece in the collection is the title story, "The Sunnier Side". It is written in the form of a retrospective letter (penned in 1949), in which Charles Jackson replies to a letter from a former resident of Arcadia who chides him for not writing more "about the sunnier side of life, life as it is & should be". After fifty pages of reminiscences about Arcadia, centering around three once-young and vibrant girls who all were enveloped by sadness and confusion in their adult lives, Jackson responds directly to his correspondent's criticism:"'Life as it is & should be,' Miss Brenner? I can't agree with you. For who are we to say what life `should be'? It's a large order, and its prescription and fulfillment are in larger hands and hearts than ours. Of course life `should be' happier than it is; our American ideal would certainly be bigger-and-better happiness; but to insist on this, or to lament the fact that it isn't so--that would mean challenging the gods themselves."The good folks of Arcadia want to pretend they live an idyllic existence. They would rather not acknowledge, at least publicly, the earthy, the scandalous, or the sinful. Good decorum and hypocrisy reign. But Jackson and his alter ego Don Birnam insist on proclaiming that the emperor has no clothes.It's an oft-repeated motif in American literature. Jackson handles it better than some, not as well as others. His style is discursive. He is prone to authorial asides to the reader and to linguistic filigree. As a result his stories are unnecessarily protracted. On several occasions he strained my patience, provoking mental muttering, "C'mon. Get on with the story!" For its relatively prosaic content, the book is over-written.Charles Jackson himself, as an adult, was maladjusted. He committed suicide in 1968. Who knows to what extent Arcadia/Newark contributed to his dysfunctionality.THE SUNNIER SIDE is worth reading, but I can't say that it is worth making a special point of reading.

I had never read anything by this author before and only know of his fame from Lost Weekend, but these very insightful and well written short stories held my interest and made me think that there is nothing new under the sun. These seemingly small town tales explore pederasty, self loathing, homosexuality, abuse, masturbation, small town gossip, and many other of our favorite sins. It has made me buy another of Mr. Jackson's books. Highly recommended

I seldom read short stories, preferring longer fiction. But for some reason I bought this volume of stories by Charles Jackson. It can quite easily stand with the best I've ever read, the masterful stories of John Cheever. Most of these stories are interrelated, a young Don Birnam (later immortalized in The Lost Weekend) being the lens through which we observe this small New York town. The mood of most of these is fairly serious, though at least two are flat-out hilarious. The best is probably "Rachel's Summer," the last quiet sentence of which will hit the reader like a blow to the solar plexus. It is simply brilliant. So is "The Night Visitor," involving the same family. Charles Jackson didn't give us a huge body of work, but this book, like The Lost Weekend, will assure him a readership. I cannot recommend this book too highly.

Great read and it was delivered quickly