Readers won’t feel cheated by ‘Infidelity’> Frankfort man’s work among adultery tales

HIGH INFIDELITY, collection of short stories by various authors, William Morrow & Co. 1997, 347 pages, $22.

Gregg Palmer of Frankfort is keeping literary company with the likes of Richard Russo, John Updike and Margaret Atwood, between book covers, at least. Palmer’s short story, “When Love in Autumn Blooms,” is included in the collection, “High Infidelity: 24 Great Short Stories About Adultery by Some of Our Best Contemporary Authors.”

Palmer’s story is about the troubled marriage of Shirley and Stuart. “`You saved my life,’ Stuart told Shirley, again,” it opens. However, when Stuart suffered his stroke and his life was saved, he was not with Shirley. He was with his longtime mistress. Somehow, “when the vessel exploded, and the blood was soaking through his brain,” Stuart confused the memories of his wife with those of his mistress.

Therein, according to the author, lies Shirley’s moral dilemma. Does she tell her husband the truth? Does she exact revenge for years of betrayal? Or does she go along with Stuart’s lapsed memory in hopes of finding a love they’ve never had?

“I like to write stories in which people cross the line into situations that are morally or legally questionable,” said the 33-year-old writer, who teaches special education at Brewer High School. “I like to describe characters working through the process and the struggle required to regain moral ground, even though, in the end, they may fail. It is the struggle that concerns me.”

Born in Bangor and raised in Carmel, Palmer graduated from Hermon High School in 1983, earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Maine, and graduated from the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is hopeful that being included in “High Infidelity” with established, as well as up and coming young fiction writers, will help him find a publisher for his recently completed novel, “Census.”

Palmer’s premise makes for fascinating reading. He succeeds at portraying Shirley’s emotional roller-coaster ride in trying to decide what, if anything, to do about her husband’s jumbled memory.

While her decision to simply go along with Stuart’s transformation is realistic, it is also slightly dissatisfying. The end of the story only raises more questions which can never be answered. What if the husband regains his memory? What if the mistress asserts herself? Will Shirley’s tiny acts of revenge lead her to larger ones?

The 23 other stories cover the subject of adultery from nearly every angle and point of view. There is gay adultery (“When Dogs Bark”), wife adultery (“Cleaning House”), husband adultery (“The Wild”), revenge adultery (“Hairball”), ex-wife adultery (“Pie Dance”), imagined adultery (“Secret”), parent adultery (“The Year of Getting to Know Us”), student adultery (“Ray Sips a Low Quitter”), celebrity adultery (“Ike and Nina”), Lolita adultery (“Goodness”), and not-really adultery (“Dick York”).

While the theme of infidelity is the thread that weaves these stories together, it is style, not substance, that sets them apart. The separation and differences among authors also seems to be generational. Established writers such as Updike, Russo and Richard Yates take far fewer risks than do Palmer and his colleagues.

The exception is Atwood in her story, “Hairball.” Author of more than 20 books, including novels “The Robber Bride” and “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Atwood’s story of magazine editor Kat is witty and surprising. The tale of a calculated and outrageous act of revenge, it is a gem of modern storytelling.

T. Coraghessan Boyle’s “Ike and Nina” is the “true confession” of the man who acted as the liaison for the affaire de coeur between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Madame Nina Khrushcheva. This is a glorious satire of the take-no-prisoners, tell-all memoirs that tumble through the bestseller list, ghost-written by nameless, faceless literary hacks. Boyle, author of “The Road to Wellness,” successfully mocks all that is wrong with the publishing industry.

In “Cleaning House,” writer Alyce Miller exposes how a woman can take a lover while remaining faithful to her husband. In four short pages, she swiftly cuts through skin, muscle and bone to reach the marrow of her characters. “Her lover’s name is William and his fingers work faster than a shuttle on a loom,” the story begins. Miller’s prose is sparse, spare and utterly brilliant.

By contrast, Russo’s “Buoyancy” is the mundane story of a middle-aged man’s discovery of his own fragility and frailty. Paul Snow, professor emeritus, and his wife, June, seek to recapture the passion of their marriage, wilted so many years ago. But what the professor finds on the September shores of a vacation island is that it is he, not his wife, who is the more delicate partner.

But the inclusion of Updike’s story, “The Lovely Troubled Daughters of Our Old Crowd,” is a mystery, other than for the prestige of the author’s name. There is no story of adultery here, just a lament for a suburbia lost to the march of time and feminism. As the final story in the collection, it adds nothing to the substance of the whole.

Overall, however, reading “High Infidelity” is like eating a box of chocolates without a map identifying which variety rests in which slot. Some stories, like Palmer’s, are delicious, rich and creamy, with incredible surprises at their soft centers. Others are more bland, delivering exactly what was expected from their size and shape. But even the disappointing ones are still chocolate, after all, and worth eating, or, in this case, reading.

Gregg Palmer will read his story and other selections from “High Infidelity” at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 13 at Borders bookstore, Bangor.