Third Collection of Short Stories by Stanislas M. Yassukovich
What's It About?
Yassukovich has created another diverse and rare collection of 14 tales in a variety of settings and venues tackling social class, relationships, human nature, good and evil, deceit and historical perspective, placing characters in a struggle to separate right from wrong and navigate the proper course.Perhaps the greatest compliment one can pay a writer is this: As long as Stanislas Yassukovich keeps writing stories, I will keep reading them.
I remember being introduced to this author when someone handed me James Grant, a long, dense novel about a privileged yet troubled young man that I thought I could never get through. As it happens, I couldn’t put it down (to use a cliché Yassukovich would scold me for). The breadth of story, characterizations, themes, insights and emotions had me longing for more.
Since then, the author has turned to short stories as his vehicle of choice, and he once again delivers in spades with his latest work, aptly named Third Collection of Short Stories. Yassukovich has created another diverse and rare collection of 14 tales in a variety of settings and venues tackling social class, relationships, human nature, good and evil, deceit and historical perspective, placing characters in a struggle to separate right from wrong and navigate the proper course.
Like most writers, Yassukovich writes from personal experience – and what a range of experiences he has had, from stops in London, Southern France, Harvard, the U.S. Marines and South Africa, to give you an idea.
“The more I indulge in backward glances, the more I appreciate how fortunate I have been,” he writes. “As in any evocation of memories, I add considerable embroidery to their underlying pattern, and heavily disguise the characters – many of which are outright inventions.”
But their trials and situations are very real, in that they search for the truth in the face of devious intentions and misinterpretations. In his story, “The Fifth Commandment,” he writes “The curious are so often given to extreme conclusions in their observations. The truth lurked behind the less generous thinking of friends and family.”
In fact, “The Fifth Commandment” is the first in a pair of stories that examine the delicate relationship between father and son, in this case a lifelong distance that neither attempts to close. Compare that with “The Gentle Tennis Pro,” in which a father fully loves and supports the efforts of his son to make it in the high-pressured world of professional tennis with the talent but without the seemingly necessary killer instinct.
SIMPLY INTOXICATING
He introduces us to “A Morganatic Marriage” of two people of unequal social class trying to make it through the current political climate and “A Stenographic Marriage” in which the boss weds his very smart and competent assistant, triggering a series of jealous feelings.
Yassukovich’s writing can be simply intoxicating. In “The Girl with a Limp,” he so beautifully captures a man’s growing love for a girl he encounters on his morning horseback ride that gradually turns into unrequited (at least in a romantic sense) infatuation. “As we crossed, I touched the brim of my flat cap, and she raised her head to look at me and then gave a slight nod. My glance at her face had been so brief that, illogically, with no chance of seeing her again, I stopped and turned to watch her walk away.” And so it begins.
Speaking of writing, the author expresses his annoyance, as I referred to earlier, for aphorisms, saying and cliches in trying to make a point. In “The Wisdom of Youth,” it’s one of those nagging hangovers from childhood when an adult tries to get one to eat porridge or brush his teeth. There’s such “ruthless logic,” he notes, in “a stitch in time saves nine,” for example.
It was in that youth, perhaps, where the seeds were sown for Yassukovich’s special literary journey sprinkled with story, personality, dilemma, learning, growth, interpretation, and, ultimately, decision and conviction. That, in a nutshell, is Third Collection of Short Stories, so full of wisdom and a spectacular perspective on the human condition.
“It didn’t take me long, as I was growing up, to realize that human nature is full of inexplicable inconsistencies. It’s no good saying that these defy logic, as it’s likely that there is no logic in human nature.”
There’s nothing illogical in grabbing for Third Collection of Short Stories.
AUTHOR
Stanislas M. Yassukovich was born in Paris of a Russian émigré father and a French mother. The family went to America in 1940, and Stanislas was educated there at Deerfield Academy and Harvard College. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps and then moved to England in 1961, where he pursued a distinguished career in London, becoming known as one of the founders of the international capital markets. On retirement, he moved to the Luberon region of Provence in Southern France, and he now lives in the Western Cape, South Africa. For services to the financial industry, Stanislas was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Freeman of the City of London. His previous works, Two Lives: A Social and Financial Memoir, Lives of the Luberon, James Grant, a novel, and Short Stories, a collection, were published in 2016, 2020 and 2021.
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