UMSL professor's short stories feel familiar to St. Louisans

This latest collection of short stories from longtime University of Missouri-St. Louis professor Mary Troy will quickly make local readers feel right at home.

The first of the 10 stories opens in south St. Louis, an area described as "brick buildings and elaborate facades all more than one hundred years old," with flats featuring "hardwood floors and pocket doors, high ceilings with real wood molding, the height of elegance 125 years ago for the city on the river."

But St. Louis primarily plays a tangential role in the pieces that make up "In the Sky Lord." Most of the action is set in fictional Wolf Pass, Illinois, a town "hugging the Mississippi and Illinois River confluence." Living there is a rotating cast of characters, commonplace folks doing commonplace things, usually just getting by, moving in an out of each others' lives. Some leave a definite mark, others are just passing through.

Troy, as she has in earlier stories and novels, doesn't make light of their foibles, shortcomings or short-lived triumphs. She treats the characters with respect and makes them real, to the point that even readers who may initially resist becoming involved in their lives are easily drawn in.

Take Ally Rhode, who collects dogs to help relieve the loneliness that results from her few dalliances with the opposite sex:

"What she had liked about any of her men, and to be fair she'd had only five and only three were married, was that they wanted her above all others, at least for a short time. Sudden and powerful desire, brief like lightening (sic) . That was sex with married men."

Or Belinda Carswell, in the title story, who works as a neighborhood evaluator, trying to define the essence of the various locales where people might want to settle:

"The entire St. Louis area, the city and the more than one hundred cities and townships that made up the suburbs, was an odd place: a quiet cul-de-sac or a tree-lined thoroughfare could border a neighborhood where summer shoot-outs were common. People buying homes had a hard time guessing if any particular part was safe."

But it's mostly the people, not the surroundings, that make "In the Sky Lord" come alive. Most are women, though one who makes occasional appearances is Edwin R. Reece, a former race car driver known as Reecie. Introduced in a story that takes place after his death, his body is brought to the nearby Riverview Speedway three days after his demise, for 12 more laps around the track.

Making the most cameo appearances, in person or by reputation, is Stella Luck, whose public persona came from inventing a doll who rode the crest of a short-lived craze. Named Tressie Tessie, the doll sported hair that could be shorn, then "grow" again by turning a crank in her skull. Though fame was fleeting — for Tessie and for her creator — Stella managed to turn the experience into a career as a motivational speaker, what one character calls "another meager claim to fame for the Gateway City."

Troy, now an emeritus professor at UMSL, has the talent and the empathy to make such people, their lives and their environment become real. Readers who get to know them will find their time well spent.

Dale Singer retired in 2017 after a 45-year career in journalism in St. Louis. He lives in west St. Louis County.

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