Labor Days: An Anthology of Fiction About Work - Edited by David Gates

There isn’t much to be said about David Gates that hasn’t already been said countless times.  I read Jernigan after it had been out for a while, and then realized it was published at the same time as The Sportswriter.  The Wonders of the Invisible World, is a collection of stories that I didn’t particularly care for one way or the other.  A writer can’t please his readers all the time.  There was a shift, and moment when I was reading Jernigan, that I knew it was something great. Maybe it’s the hero, which echoes again in Preston Falls, his last novel, which when I read it, also kicked my ass.

Standing in a bar once, I recalled a scene from Preston Falls to my friends, where the Doug Willis, and early Don Draper, or late, depending on how you look at it, is remodeling his summer house, and he actually goes out and beats on the ground with hammer after he fucks up some part of the inside of the house with his hammer.  Then he goes back in the house and has two more fingers of hooch, and keeps working, where more shit happens, and he’s totally losing his mind.  To my credit, I got lots of laughs when I told this story, probably more than I’m getting now.

I waited around for more David Gates fiction, and I’m still waiting, but I recently grabbed Labor Days off the shelf and realized I hadn’t given it a good read.  Then I saw there was a Cheever story in the book, I had to remind myself of those days when I told stories in bars, that I didn’t or wouldn’t read Cheever. Now, I’m a changed man, and Cheever is loose in my life, like a uncle I never knew I had who only shows up for Thanksgiving dinner at my house. Maybe it’s living in the suburbs that made me who I am now, evolved with out trying, but the question remains, is it for the better? Work, suburbs, life, living, happiness? You decide.

-JR

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