Taking Chances
Fri., Aug. 2, 1996
by David Rice
Bilingual Press, $10 paper
The stories in Give the Pig a Chance, David Rice's first collection of short stories, are stories in which the mingling of North and South American cultures plays a prominent role. In "Lucía's Last Curse," a curandera is enlisted to help heal a sick college boy; in "Calves Never Forget," an Anglo man and his adopted Mexican son separate cattle from their calves. And everywhere is the language: bakeries are called panaderías, and they sell not donuts but molletes and marranitos; kids kill sapos and fear at night el Cucúi; tías call their nephews and sons "M'hijo" (I wax lyrical as only a trueblue Wonderbread Anglo can).
It is ironic that Rice has been told to tone down the Mexican-American elements in his writing. Where Rice succeeds in Give The Pig A Chance, he succeeds not by "whitewashing" his stories, but by describing his border-town world so thoroughly, and his characters so deeply, that the differences become transparent, allowing us to see (with Anglo eyes, admittedly) through to the good old human verities. "Heart Shaped Cookies" is a story about loss and grief; "In the Canal" is a fine, brutally funny, Tarantino-esque short-short; and "Give the Pig a Chance," in which two brothers fight over the death of a pet pig, is an evocation of human yearning for grace and redemption.
Where Rice fails, or rather, succeeds reservedly, is in the area of what might be called "craft issues." Some of the stories are poignant but flow irregularly; others seem to lack strong structure and ultimately feel more like essays or anecdotes. These are especially important things when you write as simply as Rice does; in these stories, there is no "literary" sleight-of-hand to distract the reader. It's writing for the sake of the story, and, like those simple little dresses that you have to be in hardbody shape to wear well, any indulgence in the wrong place shows. But when the stories in Give The Pig A Chance work, they work powerfully. These stories stay with you. The "simple" characters' "simple" dilemmas become your own because, of course, they always were. -- Barbara Strickland
