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The Theory of Light and Matter
Andrew Porter
Released: Jan. 5, 2009
Rating: 4 out of 4 stars
A younger brother wonders if he should hate his older brother for the inexcusable behavior he afflicts on others.
A son witnesses his mother’s growing affection for a married woman while his father is away.
A woman recounts the advancements of her much older physics professor who she partially fell in love with.
Ordinary people living in places from rural Pennsylvania to the suburbs of Los Angeles are the voices of Andrew Porter’s award winning fictional short stories collection “The Theory of Light and Matter.”
Most of Porter’s stories are entirely imaginative but were sparked by a personal observation he had, from past acquaintances to an event.
Lancaster, Penn., which is the heart of the Amish community, was the setting in Porter’s “Departure,” a tale about two teenage boys who would go to a diner near the K-Mart to observe the Amish kids.
“I used to go to this arcade in a strip mall, and these Amish kids would show up in street clothes and play Pac-Man,” said Porter in a San Antonio Express News interview.
“I knew behind this image there was something important to me that I didn’t understand.”
The main component to Porter’s stories is not the plot but the characters’ emotional response to their own lives.
There is no initial message but the male/female, young/old and homosexuals/heterosexuals protagonists looking back on a past event.
A feeling of sympathy is felt for his protagonists because of how lost and emotionally broken they are to the pain of loving someone and themselves.
In the first story, “Hole,” a young man reflects on the disappearance of a childhood friend.
The narrator is reconstructing ghosts to understand what happened on that hot summer day.
Why does his friend turn around when they were a few houses away from jumping in a nice cool pool?
The reader is lusting as much as the narrator to know the answer as well, but in reality it will never be known.
His book has earned him comparisons to such writers as Raymond Carver, John Cheever and Richard Ford.
Like Carver, Porter focuses on people’s internal weakness and how past memories of disappointment and regret become a burden.
Each narrator wants to rediscover a hidden truth but it is too late to make a difference.
Guilt is a major theme in these stories because they all focus on a specific event told by the same character, only years later.
Their past affects their present.
By using first-person, Porter becomes his characters by interpreting their feelings, which engages the reader emotionally.
The reader learns about their early childhood and their relationship with their parents or partners.
It peels their layers and what they are is revealed.
Porter follows the Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor’s usage of raw and plainspoken language.
His tales are not filled with over imaginative images but a straightforward storytelling format to present the struggle each character is feeling.
Reach Andrea Waitrovich at: lifestyle@thepolypost.com
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