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Stories can leave you with questions; the kind that lead to self-examination, growth and a new appreciation or the kind than leave you puzzled and laughing.

“The Hurt Man,” by Wendell Berry, The O’Henry Prize Stories 2005

A good story sends a character up a tree and throws rocks at him. A great story brings him back down and knits him back together. This is a great story.

At the age of five Mat was beginning to prepare himself to help in educating his grandson, though he did not know it.

What redeeming actions do you perform in sight of your children that will burn in their brains and be reproduced for generations to come? 

“Going Where the Wind Blows,” by Jan Christensen, On Dangerous Ground: Stories of Western Noir

Reading this story was like playing Barbie dolls. Here is the whoring anti-heroine going up stairs with her trick, step, step, step; here comes the bad sheriff pushing through the barroom door, stomp, stomp; and here is the madam dead at her desk (bend her at the waist, stretch out her arms and push her head down). A nice touch was her mother’s voice reciting Scripture in Barbie’s head. Did Barbie have a mother? 

“Love in the Night,” F. Scott Fitzgerald The Short Stories

Sometimes the question is, am I going to like this story? Am I going to care about this callow Russian prince? At the end, I did. Raised in a cocoon of wealth to despise his American heritage, Val experiences the horrors of the Russian Revolution. His salvation is the love of a young woman and the hope of the American Dream, where wealth can be rebuilt with ingenuity and hard work.

“Give Me Your Heart,” by Joyce Carol Oates

And she means that literally. In question in this short story from which the mystery and suspense collection takes its name is if the spurned lover demanding payment in kind for heart break is a living or ghostly presence.

“The Golden Era of Heartbreak,” by Michael Parker, The O’Henry Prize Stories 2005

No one can torture a broken hearted man who has been dumped quite like the clueless husband who brought this heartache on himself. My question was whether the story would hold up under his initial lavish lament of grief. Enter a small cast of thugs who take on the task and finish him off.

“The Mystery Man,” by Sylvia Nash, Christian Fiction Online Magazine

My palate doesn’t tolerate too much sugar, so my question was, “Will this story be too sweet for my taste?”  A little, but a line early on kept me reading:

I gave up a man who loved cats but couldn’t be in the same room with them because of his allergies and then became engaged to a man who hated cats and discovered he couldn’t be in the same room with me.

Ouch!

“Love Monkey,” by Tatjana Soli, Freight Stories #8

How can you not read a story with the title Love Monkey? This Thelma and Louise tale had lots of hooks for me: Great lines like “The metal roofs reflected heat like a bunch of parallel-parked barbeques”; and well drawn characters, the Sonoran desert among them. Soli captures the stretch through Other Desert Cities perfectly.