Hiding in Plain Sight – Or how I stumbled on Pie Dance by Molly Giles

I just discovered a gem. Most of you may have already found it. I’m notoriously late to the bandwagon. Like the band’s packing up by the time I find it. (With the exception of One Republic, I found them years before they got big. Pretty proud of that one. ).

So the deal is, my study work of short story craft continues. I do very deeply believe to write well you have to read well. I came across a book called “You’ve Got To Read This.” Edited by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard. “Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held them in Awe.” I’ve not picked it up for awhile and I actually hadn’t read that deeply into it, until this week.

I submitted my latest story after some completely obsessive revision and editing time, which puts me in that place of, what are we working on next. I have another story that is complete but in need of some hefty re-weaving. My first stop on my inspiration journey toward that is reading some exceptionally well crafted works. So I picked up You’ve Got To Read This again.

The fun thing about this book is the intros by other authors, lending insight into what wow-ed them about the piece as well as tidbits of their own writing advise. Right now I have a hard time with the longer pieces of short fiction so I’m flipping through the book. I see a piece with an intro by Amy Tan. That grabs me. What would one of the authors I really admire get impressed by? I flip on to the story and it’s not super long. Ok, I think I’ll give this a shot. It was a little piece by author Molly Giles called Pie Dance. And it is now my second favorite short story of all times.

My review will be short and sweet. Two women have a conversation on a porch. The owner of the home is the X wife. The visitor to the porch, the current wife. The conversation casual. Seemingly. Once you get to the end of the story, lets just say, more is revealed. On said revelation you realize there was SO much more to every word the women exchanged.

It blew me away. So tight. So lyrical, So poetic yet full on narrative. Oh don’t take it from me just go read it.

And it appeared in her collection of short stories Rough Translations. (Published November 10th 2004 by University of Georgia Press (first published 1985). I don’t have the book…yet.

This is hands down the writing I aspire to. A person can read the story and take it word for word and enjoy it, actually love it! Or read on the deeper level of the dicotomy existing, right there,…hiding in plain site.

Like this story has been. For years. How had I not read this! Have you??