i read “the history of sound” a couple of years ago, and i loved it to bits. i am now happy to report that the rest of this short story collection is just as compelling as its title story — there is something so beautiful and humane about the way shattuck writes, although i do have to admit that the title story is still my favourite. i am so, so happy he is getting a proper debut release and cannot wait to see what he comes up with next!

Ben Shattuck’s The History of Sound is a collection of interconnected stories, set across three centuries or so, from the 18th Century to the near future. They are all set in the same geographical area – New England – which not only provides a backdrop and sense of place, but ultimately also assumes the role of a “character” in the narrative.

The stories are self-contained and can be read and enjoyed individually – indeed, some of the pieces were previously published and have been reworked for this book. However, the key to understanding the collection’s structure is found in a preface to the book:

<i>hook-and-chain:

A song or poem form popularized in eighteenth century New England, in which the first and last lines rhyme and contains rhyming couplets within

As in: A BB CC DD EE FF A</i>

This old song-form inspires the book’s shape. Each story is paired with another one, which sheds new light on its companion piece, sometimes providing answers to unresolved narrative threads, at others presenting the same facts from a different angle. The poignant opening story, about two young men who spend a summer together collecting folk songs on wax cylinders, is linked to the final one, framing the rest of the collection.

This is an ingenious approach which gives momentum of the narrative. In any event, however, the stories taken on their own are artfully written, in language which is sometimes poetic, sometimes deceptively simple, revealing the personal emotions which have marked humankind throughout the centuries. There is an underlying thread of melancholy and wistfulness as Shattuck presents us with accounts of lost love and lost opportunities. This is a remarkable book.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-history-of-sound-by-ben-shattuck.html

The History of Sound is a series of paired short stories and a collection that I very much enjoyed. It’s one I’ve been anticipating since reading the title story a few years back and, admittedly, that remains my favourite of the stories here. The rest of them, though, were still very solid stories, each self-contained and complete on their own but juxtaposing nicely every time with their pair. I think I like most short story collections when all or some of the stories link together somehow, so this book was satisfying in that way. One that I would definitely recommend.

Beautifully written! Nice to see a new writer of short stories emerge!

Will post about this book on ig for its UK pub date in November.

I really enjoyed this short story collection. It developed into something slightly different than I was anticipating after reading the first few, but the first pair are a great introduction. I appreciated the general grouping of stories about lost loves (romantic and not), although the “sound” element is lost a little in others; I can search for it, but it’s less clear, especially as they become more directly narratively attached, and perhaps the title is not meant to be read across the whole of the collection, anyway. One addition that I would personally have really appreciated would be some illustrations or drawings, especially as museums and historic pieces are a feature (the antique dildo? The glass flowers? Thurber’s sketches?). I think these could have really helped distinguish some of the time periods as well as complementing the collection as a collection of tales geographically and narratively intertwined.

The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck connects people through time and the discovery of artifacts which reveal something about the human experience of love, loss, longing.

Ben Shattuck’s carefully constructed The History of Sound comprises twelve stories, each with a companion piece, an idea summed up by one of the book’s epigraphs: ‘The second half of the couplet often completes the sentence or sentiment of the first’. A writer stumbles upon the mystery of what happened to a logging crew, solved in a journal of the crew’s daily life which becomes increasingly dark, for instance. A present-day story of love and regeneration sparked by a puzzling thirty-year-old photo of a Great Auk, long thought extinct, is touchingly resolved in the next piece. The opening and closing stories satisfyingly bookend the whole.
Set largely in New England, Shattuck’s engrossing collection crisscross centuries, exploring themes of love, loss, art and the natural world in lyrical, poetic but elegantly understated prose, often rooted in the dramatic landscape in which they're set. Highly recommend this one, and not just to short story fans.