Jackson Free Press

"You Think That's Bad: Stories" (Knopf, 2011, $24.95), a collection of short stories by Jim Shepard, speaks to harsh realities about human existence. Almost astonishingly varied settings and writing styles heighten the common ideas the stories share. The settings range from the mystical Middle East of the 1930s to modern-day Netherlands, making stops in places such as a World War II battleground and an earthquake research center in 1930s Switzerland.

The writing styles vary drastically, from a stream-of-consciousness story meant to invoke a character's thought process to structured realist telling of events that progress in chronological order. The reader has to search for a reason that all of these stories are included in one collection, as superficially they seem so different.

Each story is told from a single character's point-of-view. The character always fulfills some form of alienation, whether that manifests itself in feeling distant from a loved one or from the world around them. Generally, the character does not feel at home in society, either because of a traumatic experience or from feeling at home in a realm separate from conventional social constructs.

This is not a feel-good collection. These stories expose the deepest failings and desires of the individual in pursuit of meaning and happiness through protagonists who initially may have had good intentions, but these intentions were lost somewhere on their journey.

After finishing one of the stories, the reader may feel disturbed, sad or maybe, like most of the protagonists in the story, just a little lost. The stories focus entirely on the protagonists' emotional states that drive the plots. Often, after a reader may have already become attached to and sympathetic toward the character, the hero must make decisions that cause the reader to question their morality.

The title, "You Think That's Bad," comes from a line in one story spoken by a character exasperated at her son. As she talks to his ex-wife, the mother constantly tries to one-up the ex-wife with a story about her son that is more disappointing than the last.

Shepard creates characters with common, but less-than-flattering aspects of human nature reminding us of what we can become.

Jim Shepard signs and reads from "You Think That's Bad: Stories" May 2 beginning at 5 p.m. at Lemuria Books (4465 Interstate 55 N., 601-366-7619).