The worst part of writing this statement was recalling all of these events because, honestly, I’d just as soon forget.

This is a very good story collection that came out in 2018, but it’s from a relatively small university press. The reviews for it are also lauding. The cover lead me to believe it would be another “weird” book like I enjoyed with variable levels from the collections “Heads of Colored People” and “Friday Black”; the title also contributed to this feeling.

But it’s not. It’s a really mature collection of stories with a few moments of humor, but almost no strong moments of irony or tongue-in-cheek wryness. It’s simply about mostly generally well-educated Black adults dealing with adult circumstances. And so each of the stories are built more or less along these lines. But there’s some interesting in form such as making one story almost entirely through emails, another deals with planning a 30 year reunion and has some back and forth of a committee meeting.

There’s no playing in this collection though. It’s a debut work, but it’s also the work of someone who isn’t wasting anybody’s time with stories that aren’t deeply considered, thoughtful, polished, complete, and worth your time. It’s the first story collection I’ve read in a long time that I read over the course of a week, rather than over the course of a day or two because I wanted to slow up a little as I read. It’s the exact opposite of some recent story collections I’ve read that were in a rush to capitalize on way to a novel or because of viral fame. I would absolutely read a Renee Simms novel were she to write one, but these stories feel full-circle enough for me.

And then I got to the last story, and began to think about whether or not this is a 4 or 5 star review. The title story of this collection is simply put one of the best stories I’ve read in a long time. It’s collected mostly through a series of emails among a mother of a Black son going to a predominately white school, a teacher who never responds to her emails, and the head of the school. It’s funny and touching, it’s pained because she’s trying to be patient, and it’s honest and revealing. I am a teacher and I don’t quite teach at a school like this one, but there’s enough of it in my school to see her here. It’s also a very nice palate cleanser from the awfulness of kids in the national media right now.

(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Meet-Behind-Mars-Michigan-Writers/dp/0814345123/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548251550&sr=8-1&keywords=renee+simms)