The Collected Stories of Grace Paley by Grace Paley

The Collected Stories of Grace Paley, a compilation of 16 different works, is an engaging and eye-opening collection of short stories that span the length of Grace Paley’s career as a pioneering female author of the twentieth century. These stories—written between 1951 and 1991 and covering Jewish-American life—showcase Paley’s adeptness at weaving plot and emotion in combination with realism to illustrate her characters’ complexities.

The collection begins with “Goodbye and Good Luck,” a story that follows the experiences of Evelyn, a young woman living in New York City during the height of the 20th century. Though Evelyn comes from a comfortable middle-class family, her life is full of uncertainty as she is about to move away from her home and friends for her studies abroad. Evelyn also grapples with her feelings for her boyfriend, a deeper emotion that, though she is familiar with, forces her to confront a world of adulthood, asking questions of identity and commitment that she is not prepared to answer.

“Goodbye and Good Luck” is followed by “The Loudest Voice,” which introduces readers to Shirley Abramowitz, a young Jewish woman living in Brooklyn during the post-war era. While Shirley is certain that she wants to pursue a career, her dream is met with doubt and derision by her family who would much rather see her marry instead. Despite the overwhelming pressure, Shirley’s strength as a young woman inspired by the stories of more successfully ambitious women—like her singing teacher, a soprano at the Metropolitan Opera—prevails and she eventually starts her own successful ribbon business.

In “Dreamer in the Mirror,” readers meet Miriam, an older woman whose regrets over her relationship with her husband, children, and grandchildren cause her to continually re-examine and question them. In “Debts,” the oldest characters in the collection, Sophia and Abraham, are faced with the realities of aging: a break from the traditional life with their children, a retreat from their Romanian-influenced cultural traditions, and the fact that one may pass away before the other.

In “A Conversation with My Father,” the story’s narrator tries to have a meaningful conversation with her elderly father but can’t seem to break through his curmudgeonly pessimism and their differences in ideology. One of the longest stories in the collection, “An Interest in Life,” follows the tumultuous relationship between two best friends, Faith and Ginny, whose dreams and fantasies cause them to confront their respective limitations as girls entering adolescence.

In “Faith in a Tree,” the flip side of faith is explored as this story centers on the difference between what science can prove and what is beyond comprehension. It is the strength of Paley’s writing that she can move from the potentially dry realm of science to the mysterious realm of faith without ever losing her focus on her characters.

Other stories round out this remarkable collection, furthering Paley’s exploration of the realities of life in a post-war, Jewish-American society. In the title story, “The Collected Stories of Grace Paley,” Paley offers up a collection of stories that are both timeless and triumphant, showing readers the strength of the human spirit and the power of storytelling. These sixteen stories, that span a forty-year period, offer readers a vivid glimpse into the realities of post-war life and the emotional highs and lows that come when confronting such realities.