(from 2022)
Short Story Wednesday: "Hinges" Graham Swift
Graham Swift is one of my favorite writers. He won the Booker Prize for LAST ORDERS and was short listed for several other books. MOTHERING SUNDAY, WATERLAND, SHUTTERCOCK and LAST ORDERS have all been made into films.
In
this story, the two adult children of a man who died taking his golf
clubs out of the trunk have gone to a minister to tell him about their
father's life so he will have something to say, (about a man he didn't
know) at his funeral. Funny how often this seems to happen in stories.
The woman thinks back over her father's life to an incident when she was nine and her father had called a carpenter to fix the hinges on their door. Although the carpenter was far from a young man, she is attracted to him--the first time she has experienced anything like this. And it becomes apparent that "Joe Short" is something of a Lothario in their neighborhood.
At the funeral, she considers telling this story, how her father held her hand while they waited to have their front door put back on. But in the end, she reads the poem that appears on the program. Of course, it is the writing that makes this story work. There is no eureka moment, no mystery solved, no problem overcome, just people going through a situation we have all gone through so its familiarity is soothing. And perhaps gaining some insight into their life (and ours).
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