The Usual Mistakes is a
collection of twelve short stories; the first anthology from Erin Flanagan.
Flanagan is no novice, having published numerous stories in various literary
journals since 2000. The stories concern recognizable people in recognizable
situations, albeit that Flanagan gives these situations a twist that provides a
new perspective. Not all the characters behave honorably in their struggles with
relationships, intergenerational conflict, and questions of honesty and
fidelity, and the circumstances dished up by fate. Flanagan shows us people in
ordinary domestic life, at work, and in social situations where self-mage and
reality collide. As the title suggests they make the usual mistakes. At her
best, Flanagan portrays her characters with insight and delicacy, and her
stories are uncomplicated devices for reflecting dilemmas we have all
witnessed, if not experienced. The stories don’t all succeed but the overall
result is highly satisfactory.

For me, the standout story is Intervention.
As in many of these stories the narrative focuses on a young couple not yet
fully established in their extended family. Harry and Kate get a phone call
from Harry’s mother, Judith. Judith announces that she is to arrange another ‘intervention’,
a meeting of family and friends to confront her husband Gerald with his
drinking. The story pits Judith against Gerald, Harry against his father, Harry
against Kate. Each is forced to make decisions and commitments. The women are
better at it than the men, and even if Gerald’s willful naivety is a little
irritating, it’s recognizable, especially in people with drinking problems. There
is no pat solution to this complexity which ends with Judith and Kate forming a
bond forged by acceptance of their limited ability to change the men in their
lives, Kate telling Judith "He just loves that you try so damn hard…he
wants you to keep trying…so he can know you care, but he doesn’t ever want to
change." Intervention is related without moralizing, and without
forcing the sort of denouement that says more about the author than about the
characters.

Flanagan is skilful in running
secondary themes alongside the main plot of her stories. In Circus Berzerk
a young couple, Ned and Jane, have bought a house, but the previous owner,
whose wife died in the house, can’t let go of it. He cruises by, parks outside,
but refuses invitations to talk to the new owners. Even although we know little
about him, he’s a compelling figure, but he’s not the main story. Neither is
the Feng Shui consultant, or the friend who deceives his pregnant wife. The
real story is a dissolving relationship, and it takes a trip to the circus to
provide the right metaphor for it. As Jane watches Miss Ping Su juggling bowls,
Ned opines that her performance is some kind of magic. Jane thinks of the years
of practice that go into sustaining an illusion, and by the end she "know[s]
for certain there is nowhere for us to go."

Convicts can make for strong
characters, and Flanagan has a good one in Manny, released from prison
following a stretch for manslaughter. Any Ordinary Uncle weaves together
the lives of the dangerous but reflective Manny with that of his twelve year
old nephew Jeffrey, whose observations guide the story. Manny gets a shot at
redemption, and Jeffrey learns something about the adult world. A strength this
story is Flanagan’s use of diverse plot elements. The whole drama is played out
over a short time in more or less a single location, but Flanagan exploits the
small town and home setting to show us the characters in a variety of situations,
evoking a range of sentiments that give them depth and color. She provides some
revealing details such as Manny’s half-finished prison tattoo, named after the
victim of his drunk driving. Carla is attracted by Manny’s hard man swagger,
but her final role in the story is more ironic, and Jeffrey’s mother is shown
to be both flawed and human in her responses to Manny. In what is otherwise a
powerful story, some of the references to the distant future detract from its
impact, with details that are irrelevant and distracting. All the same Any
Ordinary Uncle is a great story. Flanagan makes a number of moral points,
but is subtle in so doing.

There are other strong stories. A
dead aunt on the back seat of a car spoils the holiday for Mark and Nellie, but
it sets up Laws of Relativity to provide a lively study in family
relationships. In This Weather starts with a deceit and ends with a
revelation. The tension builds throughout and Flanagan never lets the reader
off the hook: the result is something of a page turner. In Every Sad Detail,
deceit piles on deceit, and it takes a sort of humor to resolve the story.
Flanagan is up to the task, with a skillfully plotted and wry little tale. The
there are stories that for me fell short of the mark. The Story of Gladys
takes a few too many liberties with credibility, although the fake
biologist-cum-psychologist with a silk pot plant in the waiting room is an
amusing touch. But this story is a little twee; Margo’s suspicions about Ted
are a product of her fickle imagination. The Story of Gladys is more Days
of Our Lives than Six Feet Under. And the title story, too, for all
its intriguing characters is a little overdrawn. An ex neo-Nazi covered in
lurid tattoos is a well defined character; having her recant her ideas and have
the money to pay for it is pushing things. Have her meet up with a voyeuristic
fraudster with a social conscience and, well, it’s complicated to say the
least.

Burn has the elements of
tense, bitter little story, but it’s spoiled by Flannagan’s heavy-handed
treatment, and there are errors that an editor should have corrected. Amanda
has taken a job as a nanny for Tom and Connie and their two children. A week
after she accepts the position, Connie and one of the children die, but on the
next page we are told that Amanda found out by reading the papers that they
were killed in a train wreck. Unlikely. On a weekend holiday, the grief of the surviving
family members plays itself out. Tom discloses that he was glad that it was six
year old Nick who survived as "Kristin was an ugly child and obviously
liked Connie more than me." So much for being a grown up. After that, Tom
talks about missing sex, and lies beside Amanda on her bed. The next day he
sets the cabin alight in a fit of petulance when he can’t light the log fire.
There are many misplaced words in this story, and the treatment of feelings and
events is overwrought. Amanda is assigned Kristin’s room to sleep in, in one
paragraph finding it ‘eerie’ and soon after ‘serene’. In a clumsy metaphor,
Flanagan describes Nick, who has pulled a garbage bag over his head as sounding
like ‘a body in a bag’. Burn is the only story that has not been
previously published, and it dies on the page. Other stories show that Flanagan
is a better writer than this.

There are themes running through
several of these stories: football, children who bite; recidivist smoking,
young couples in precarious relationships. Flanagan’s
characters are at times close to being types, rather than fully formed
individuals. The men, especially are rather predictable, often shallow, and
recognizable from one story to another. This is particularly so in the stories
that focus on couples. There are men such as Josh in Circus Berzerk and
Ralph in The Last Girlfriend who we know only through their faults. Not
only are they unlikable, but they possess almost no redeeming features. By
contrast, Manny in Any Ordinary Uncle is a well realized individual,
complex, flawed, and with the capacity to evoke sympathy. So is Jasper in the
collection’s funniest story Every Sad Detail.

This is a good, if not perfect
collection. The best stories are complex and engaging, the prose plain and
natural. The Flyover Fiction Series is an attempt to provide a view of Nebraska
that is neither sentimental nor derogatory. The Usual Mistakes seems
like a solid contribution.

© 2006 Tony O’Brien

Tony O’Brien is a short story writer,
and lecturer in mental health nursing at the University of Auckland, New
Zealand: a.obrien@auckland.ac.nz

Categories: Fiction