What We’re Reading: The Peripatetic Coffin

The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories by Ethan Rutherford (Ecco, Release date: May 7, 2013)

Ethan Rutherford’s first full-length published book, The Peripatetic Coffin, is a collection of short stories loosely connected by a common theme of depths, both literal and figurative. The opening title story takes place on a doomed submarine expedition by Confederacy soldiers in the bay of Charleston, while others dive deep into the characters with rich emotional texture. Each of these stories are steeped in recognizable characters and life circumstances. The stories are just long enough to pull you in to their fully dimensional worlds of honest characters. Rutherford has a knack for seeing past the surface-level interactions of these characters, leading the reader in knee-deep, then shoulder deep as he immerses you in the inner lives of his characters. Many of the stories are also connected with recurring themes of loss, desperation, resignation, and uncertainty. Yet the author takes care to not veer off into unnecessary wallowing in murky depths of over-wrought emotions. Rather, Rutherford uses humor, well-placed juxtapositions, and other flashes of lightness to buoy the stories.

Rutherford doesn’t limit himself to developing one single character far more than the rest, or alternatively, developing one storyline alone. Instead, these stories are like life: complicated, with story lines bleeding in and out of each other. One of the darker stories that really resonated with me, “John, for Christmas,” is about two parents, Joan and Thomas, grappling with the escalating actions of their emotionally unstable, possibly manic son John. Not only does this story cover their relationship with their son, but also their tired marriage, Thomas’ yearning for their young, beautiful renter named Sarah, and Joan reflection on her love for her son, and her loss for how to help him.

The story takes on a slightly static feeling, as if we, the reader, are peeking in on something we shouldn’t be seeing, thanks to the third person narrative, the continuous falling of snow grounding the different threads of this story, the removed setting of Joan and Thomas’ farm, and the quiet, intimate moments of loss experienced by the three main characters on their own. In the following excerpt, Joan is waiting for her son to arrive for dinner, and her husband and Sarah to come back from an errand. She finds herself in John’s old room, cleaning. In this understated solitary moment, we sense her bewilderment:

She went to the window. The snow had begun to stick. The room was in good shape. It was whisper quiet. It was, she thought with some satisfaction and some sadness, just the way he liked it. John’s favorite song, when he’d been small, had been “What Do We Do with a Drunken Sailor?” Now the melody came back to her, and, standing at the window, she hummed some fragments. She’d never liked the violence of the song, but what stuck with her this time was the question that began the refrain—what do we do? What do we do. The alpacas, who had not moved, and who would not move unless prodded, were turning white with the weather. They did not appear to mourn the missing.

All of these moments revealing the history of the characters’ relationship with each other build at a well-crafted pace, peeling layer off of layer, culminating in one of the most beautifully written ending paragraphs I’ve read in a while.

Not all the stories are so blatantly serious. The opening title story, while doomed from the beginning, clips along with brusque pacing, and humorous characters resigned to their fate. “Camp Winnesaka” is a playful romp, told by a conversational, apologetic narrator. Rutherford fully utilizes creative and refreshing approaches to each story, and flexes his chops with an impressive range in content, narrative style, and characters. It’s a book that kept my mind alert and fully invested throughout.

Rutherford has wide ties with the literary world, receiving his MFA from the U of MN in fiction, a creative writing teacher at Macalester, U of MN, and the Loft, as well as a former bookseller at both Three Lives & Co, and Magers & Quinn. His work has been published in Ploughshares, American Short Fiction, The Best American Short Stories (as selected by Alice Sebold), One Story, Fiction on a Stick, and more.

If you’re from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, join Rutherford for his book launch on May 7 at Micawber’s Books in St. Paul. Author Matt Burgess of Dogfight, a Love Story will open for Rutherford. If you can’t catch him there, take a look at his other upcoming events both here in Minnesota and in other cities on his tour.

What other authors show board range in their writing? Are there collections of short stories that keep you fully invested the whole way through?