Byers Stories Long Only to Connect

In the subtle and evocative opening to E.M. Forster's Victorian romance, Howard's End, the words "only connect" take on a profound meaning in 28-year-old Michael Byers' debut collection of evocative short stories about unfulfilled longings and lives around the fog-shrouded Seattle shore. A Truman Capote fellow in the Wallace Stegner Fellowship program at Stanford University, Byers himself transmutes into the characters of his creation by an impressive flex of his literary muscles.

As dreary as the Pacific Northwest coast around which his tales are spun, Byers' short stories inventively explore the domains of psychology and interpersonal relationships through the minds of his chief actors. The briny odor of Seattle air clings damply to the pages of the book, with Byers' distinct imagery painting vivid arenas for his divorced women, widowed men and pubescent and imaginative children to perform in.

More than just an eddy of literary creativity, The Coast of Good Intentions tells a simple and plain truth that humans are driven by an intense desire for companionship and that, without this simple necessity, humans are bound to feel miserable. In "Shipmates Down Under," a father and son explore the realm of unspoken filial connections, discovering the faith that each has in the other in a time of family distress.

Quietly capturing 20th century American life without resorting to good housekeeping and cereal commercials, Byers' families are conventional and ones that we can relate to. His pediatrician mothers don't save the lives of 30 cholera-stricken infants a day, nor do his scientist fathers discover life-saving cures for cancer. They are normal parents who read to their kids when ill, cancel vacation plans without too much ado, have a verbal fight or two without getting distraught over it. Byers' characters are not larger than life, despite their whimy--they're just about life size.

Moving slowly yet with a sense of purpose, Byers' chief actors seem to have all the time in the world to consider the complexities of psychology, and each story tells a truthful tale about some kind of a momentous change in interpersonal situation. The personality of each character dwells in the depths of meaning, and, even if the worlds the characters inhabit might teeter towards the fanciful, they relate to the every day of the common man with the help of Byers' unvarnished narrative skills.

From the get-go, however, he does not dawdle over the fact that he intends to have his lonely men and women pair up in the end, his imaginative children grow out of their childhood fancies and his old couples stay happily in love and senility. But the stories are nevertheless tinged with graver shades and are not paltry at all.

Imperceptibly morbid and achingly sorrowful, "In Spain, One Thousand and Three," the tale of a widower lusting after his dead wife's mother, is a story that gnaws at the open wound of the human soul that has lost its mate. The Seattle winds could hardly drown Martin Tuttleman's intense longing for companionship, whilst his profession (customer serviceperson in a video game company) involves precocious adolescents whose pretended social savvy aggravate him further by reminding him of what he no longer possessed.

Only connect.... These narratives plead their cause to the human ear, asking it to remind the soul of its need to connect. Metaphorical entities themselves, the stories are also intertwined in their single-threaded loneliness, voicing the message that Byers obviously wants to give.

"Wizard" is a searching tale of a pair of humans who seek answers to the same questions, both involved in the production of a play about the life of Thomas Edison. Flitting between the shadows of the play and the cobwebs of reality, the short story leaves it to the reader to grasp the threads of fiction after his or her own fashion. One can barely tell when the tale spins from the story of the scientist to that of the assistant director and his cast A febrile reiteration of the word "soul mate" in myriad forms ("sole mate") reminds us of the pitch of Byers' anecdotes and how seriously he takes himself. An intriguing and feverish last passage asks agitatedly, "Where is your soul? Is it here?" as if prodding a criminal into revealing his hidey-hole. It's almost as if the author were ascertaining the location of the soul in order to negotiate with it a treaty of interpersonal alliance--the frantic "Is it here?" expressing the desperation of the fellow human sufferer, victim of the everlasting hell that is loneliness, aching for friendship.

The only reproach to be made against The Coast of Good Intentions is exactly that. It wants to tell the story of the coast of good intentions, and this moral undertone wraps the otherwise remarkably perspicacious oeuvre in a virtuous air--something that doesn't quite fit on the rest of Byers' literary turf. Were he intending to give a lesson in ethics by preaching them, these stories could not seem less undeserving of an exemplary attitude that they seem to take. Happy endings don't have to straighten their moral codes to be "good." In fact, normal as they seem, the characters in Byers' book are drawn out of their amorality with the help of his skillful word-painting, thus saving them from an eternal literary damnation.

Only connect... And how far as Michael Byers willing to go in order to connect? Certainly a long way. As an effective fiction writer, he steps out of his author's shell to don the simple attire of his characters, living each narrative convincingly enough for us to believe that Andie, Martin, Rosie, Alvin, Janine and Louise are all inside us, desperately longing for just an opportunity to connect.