In Sunlight or in Shadow

Block, Lawrence, ed.. In Sunlight or in Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper. New York: Pegasus 2016. Printp

First Sentences:

Bosch didn't know how people in this place could stand it.

It felt like the wind off the lake was freezing his eyeballs in their sockets.

      [from Nighthawks by Michael Connelly] 

Description:

So you think you want to be a short story writer? Here's a quick check on your potential. Take a painting, any painting, and write an interesting story that incorporates the painting's scene and people. Not as easy as it might sound, but it can be done, and done very well by skilled authors.

This was the challenging concept behind editor Lawrence Block's collection of short stories, In Sunlight or in Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper
He asked seventeen of his writer friends to select a painting from Edward Hopper and write a short story to flesh out their interpretation of the action and people depicted in the painting. He got enthusiastic responses from such luminaries as Stephen King, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, and Joyce Carrol Oates, Gale Levin (an international authority on Edward Hopper), as well as several writers I had never heard of, but plan to read more of their writing very soon.

Here's some samples of their plots and a link for you to view the painting:

• Surveillance of a woman by a Los Angeles detective in the icy cold of Chicago. [from Nighthawks]

• A woman finds the person who gave her up for adoption and then goes to work for her anonymously as a hospice nurse [from The Story of Caroline]

• A house with a door that opens only onto the sea, with rooms that keep adding themselves to the house, and a chef who might be a descendant from Atlantis. [from Rooms By the Sea]

• A couple who casually hold people hostage in a closet in their quiet apartment while they coolly empty out the victim's bank accounts [from The Music Room]

• A painting that serves as a code for a Russian nuclear scientist. [from The Incident of 10 November]

Each story is so different, so well-written, and so clever in its incorporation of the painting's elements. I highly recommend the collection for the writing and the beauty of seeing so many of Hopper's somber, emotional paintings.

By the way, editor Block has carried this author/painting theme in several other collections, including From Sea to Stormy Sea with stories about seventeen American paintings, and Alive in Shape and Color using as the basis for background any painting from cave art to modern abstracts. I know what I'll be reading over the next few months.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Block, Lawrence. From Sea to Stormy Sea   

Block collects seventeen stories with American art as the inspiration, from artists including Winslow Homer, Grant Wood, Helen Frankenthaler, Andy Warhol and fourteen more.

Block, Lawrence. Alive in Shape and Color  

Short story writers in this collection, including Joyce Carol Oates, Michael Connelly, and Stephen King, are allowed to choose any visual art piece as the basis for a new story. Wonderful.