'No Diving Allowed' a melancholy reflection of life

Many lovers of literature contend that poetry is the highest form. Poetry is certainly the most economical, condensed genre of literature. The poet creates sounds and images from just words, and in a few lines evokes memories, emotions, and insights.

Writers of short fiction have a similar task. Where a novelist has hundreds of pages to convince the reader to connect with the characters and events in his work, the short story writer has just a few pages.

In “No Diving Allowed” by Louise Marburg, due out Oct. 6, the author presents us with 14 stories of people struggling with disappointment, divorce, death, and heartbreak. Marburg’s clear, spare style allows her to engage the reader with complex, human, sympathetic characters in just 10 pages each.

As the title suggests, each story includes a swimming pool as central or incidental to the story. This thread throughout the book prompts the reader to consider how the pool functions in each story.

In some stories, the swimming pool is sparkling clear water that cools and refreshes. In another, the pool is as broken and empty as the lives of the characters.

Several of these short works present siblings, some who cannot overcome childhood conflicts and rivalries, and others who seem to be the only reliable emotional support for each other in a difficult world.

In the title story, Gareth visits his sister, Marion, whose husband cheated. Gareth and Marion spend the afternoon at the country club pool, where some sneering boys ask Gareth, who is obese, to do a cannonball. Marion is furious, but Gareth obliges and makes a huge splash. To the boys’ delight, he does it again. Marion and Gareth are run out of the club, and Marion will soon be run out of the home she loves, but the pair return home and sit “in an easy silence.”

Although all of the stories are about ordinary people navigating an ordinary but sometimes painful life, Marburg does offer the reader some hopeful stories. In “Attractive Nuisance,” the curmudgeonly narrator reluctantly befriends a neighbor boy who is lonely and teased by his classmates. 

Marburg’s stories are engaging, even if bittersweet, and give readers much to think about. Her style is similar to Vonnegut’s, and her subjects remind me of those in “The House on Mango Street.” There is a lot of life in just 145 pages of “No Diving Allowed.”