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Every third Saturday of the month, Minás Gallery hosts the 510 readings, the self-proclaimed “only dedicated fiction series in Baltimore.” With its intimate upstairs gallery, vintage boutique, and “free book with every purchase” policy, Minás is a good spot to hold fiction readings.
Host Michael Kimball introduced the first author, Josh Weil, author of The New Valley, a collection of three novellas. Weil read from “Sarverville Remains,” the third novella of the triptych, and according to Weil, the most challenging. His protagonist, Geoffrey Sarver, speaks in an undefinable dialect, a strange mishmash of failed tenses, sprinkled with words like “iota” and “grand.” Initially, the voice was distracting, but soon it developed into a sort of rhythm that set the pace for the rest of the story, pulling the listener into the rural Appalachian landscape of Weil’s story.
The novella is an apology letter from Geoff to the incarcerated husband of Linda, a woman he’s been having a sexual relationship with. Geoff reveals the situation slowly, digressing and returning to the topic of Linda as he struggles to articulate himself. Unfortunately, the twelve minuted reading time per author imposed by the 510 series was not long enough for Weil to do anything more than set the scene for his unsual protagonist, leaving the audience with plot questions rather than sparking discussion about the story’s substance or form. Geoff’s assumed regional dialect actually stems from his mild retardation, a fact I discovered only after reading more of the novella myself. I’m glad I did. Weil’s truncated reading didn’t do justice to his terrific story.
Laura van den Berg read next from her collection of stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us. Jean, the central character of van den Berg’s selected story, Where We Must Be, is a failed actress turned Bigfoot impersonator. It’s a premise that could easily shift into slapstick, but it manages not to, thanks to van den Berg’s precise, lyrical prose. In his introduction, Michael Kimball noted that van den Berg has a tendency to examine, “Mythical creatures made human,” but this doesn’t seem quite accurate. Rather, she never let the audience forget that her character was a woman, undeniably human, struggling to inhabit something mythical.
The last reading of the night was Geoffrey Becker reading “Santorini,” from his book of short stories, Black Elvis. In it, Laura, middle-aged and single, falls for her best friend’s college-aged son during the trio’s trip to the Greek Island. It was a promising premise and Becker’s prose was pleasant, but like Weil, he only had time to set up the story, finishing before it really got interesting. And while I wasn’t as curious to know what happened to Laura as I was Weil’s Geoff, I did wonder where Becker would take his characters.
This is a problem when there is a set time limit for fiction—authors who don’t have work short enough to fit into the twelve-minute allotment have to read half of a story, part of a novella. Which may be fine to get a taste of their prose style, an enticing sample of what the book may hold if you buy it, but as an event in itself, this type of strict time limit for every reading can leave audience members dissatisfied.
Minás Gallery
815 W. 36th Street, Hampden
Baltimore, MD
Monthly – 3rd Sat. 5pm.
Photo of Geoffrey Sarver courtesy of the 510 Readings
Tags: 510 Readings, Geoffrey Becker, Josh Weil, Laura van den Berg, Michael Kimball, Minás Gallery
Filed Under: Feature Sounds
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