A Stick Of Green Candy by Jane Bowles, 1957
The magic trick:
Using the difference between imagination and reality to show a coming-of-age experience
Ten years ago I started this SSMT website with a Jane Bowles story. Today I close the SSMT experience with, yes, a Jane Bowles story. It’s an orchestrated coincidence. It’s not like Jane Bowles is my favorite writer or anything. It just kind of happened that way. I certainly like the clean, full circle. And no doubt, this is one of my very favorite stories that I read for the SSMT site. It’s a really special story and a fitting conclusion.
The narrator, a young girl, has the very unique – and endearing – habit of drilling an imaginary corps of soldiers when she plays alone in the clay pit near her house. OK, so that’s a magic trick in itself right there. What a memorable, specific characteristic.
But let’s extend it out. This is a coming-of-age story. The imaginary friends serve as our narrator’s comfort zone. It’s her being a kid. An incredibly precocious, imaginstive kid. But a kid nonetheless.
The events of the story – her interactions with her father and, crucially, the appearance of a new boy in the neighborhood – awaken an awareness of and pivot toward a more mature world. It’s a direct contrast to the play-army thing she was doing before. The effect is a pretty magical synthesis of the coming-of-age experience.
And for one last time: that’s quite a trick on Bowles’s part.
The selection:
Having always left the pit at an earlier hour, she felt that an explanation was due to her soldiers; to announce simply that she had fallen down was out of the question. She knew that her men trusted her and would therefore accept in good faith any reason she chose to give them for this abrupt change in her day’s routine, but convincing herself was a more difficult task. She never told them anything until she really believed what she was going to say. After concentrating a few minutes, she summoned them with a bugle call.
“Men,” she began, once they were lined up at attention, “I’m staying an hour longer today than usual, so I can work on the mountain goat maneuvers. I explained mountain-goat fighting last week, but I’ll tell you what it is again. It’s a special technique used in the mountains around big cliffs. No machine can do mountain-goat fighting. We’re going to specialize.” She paused. “Even though I’m staying, I want you to go right ahead and have your recreation hour as usual, like you always do the minute I leave. I have total respect for your recreation, and I know you fight as hard as you play.”
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Short Story Magic Tricks 
Thank you for this. For every one of these. New authors, new favourite stories and a hundred helpful story-writing ideas and tips.
Thank you again. If you have any inclination to gather these together and publish them I’d be first in line.
jon
Such a kind comment. Thank you! And I might try to put together some kind of collection or at least book form of lists. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, I can’t quit! I’m going to keep going, pulling back to one story per week – starting tomorrow!
Thank you so much for all the insights and recommendations! Every time I read a short story, I look to see if you have written about it. Some favorite reviews that come to my mind (among many others):
Updike – “Pygmalion” (“The story – as often is the case with Updike’s work, I find – shows no real interest in getting down to a hard truth. It’s clever and amused with itself. These stories seem to think that the process of attempting to connect the dots through various chapters of our emotional lives is an acceptable stand-in for actual emotional growth.”)
Ron Carlson – “The H Street Sledding Record” (“I’ve read this when I was head over heels in love and thrilled with the world. It made me even happier. I’ve read this when I was lonely and bitter, wrapping presents in a cold apartment with my cat. And it only made me happy. That’s a rare story.”)
F. Scott Fitzgerald – “Winter dreams” where you explain why “The Great Gatsby” is far better (“Advocating for the first-person narrator”)
etc. etc.
Holger
So nice of you to read this site and leave such a nice comment here. Thank you! I’d forgotten about those stories/SSMT notes. It’s been a long time now! So I’d decided a couple of years ago to stop at the 10-year mark, so I could devote what little free time I have to actual writing and not just reading. But as I get to the actual day, I’m finding that I want to keep reading. So I’m going to compromise and keep posting on SSMT – just on a weekly basis instead of daily. Thanks for checking in!