One-dollar stories pay off
a review of Elizabeth Bruce’s Universally Adored & Other One Dollar Stories
by Tom Navratil
Elizabeth Bruce may be one of those writers who thrive on prompts. Every story in her new collection, Universally Adored & Other One Dollar Stories, begins with the phrase “one dollar.”
In her vision, the needs that can be satisfied by a single dollar are varied and surprising: a can opener, the comforts of a coin-operated massage bed, forgiveness. The power of these stories emerges in the elaboration of those needs and the sharp glimpses they provide into the fuller breadth of the characters’ lives.
Elizabeth Bruce has long been an active voice in the D.C. literary community. Her debut novel, And Silent Left the Place, won the annual fiction prize of Washington Writers‘ Publishing House. The DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, as well as HumanitiesDC, have supported her craft. Many of the stories in this collection have been performed on stage, including at the Capital Fringe Theatre Festival.
The stories take place in everyday settings around the country, with one disturbing exception overseas, and focus on different phases of life. The variety of scenarios is impressive. Childish hijinks give way to family tragedy in “Mashed Potatoes.” In the title story, a symbolic dollar points to closure, and perhaps a new beginning, for an artist who misses her ex. A bartender has a unique way of coping with her germophobia in “Boiling the Buggers.”
The lengths range from flash to multi-page New Yorker-style pieces. They are crisp, and each has a zesty flavor of its own. You may intend to snack on a few, and end up gorging on the whole bag.
If I had to pick a favorite, “The Grass Jesus Walked On,” about a young couple on the lam in post-Civil War Texas, would be a top contender. It depicts, in nuanced microcosm, perennial themes of exploitation and gullibility throughout American history. This offshoot from the main plot was especially inspired:
“As a show of our appreciation, sir, we give you this switch dipped in the River Jordan by John the Baptist himself.” Ida reached out to hand the man a long, slim twig stripped of leaves.
Another strong contender is “Ice-Cold Water,” set in present-day DC. In probing a father-son rift during the time it takes for a stoplight to turn green, the story ends up furnishing an encouraging moment of grace. The setup is ordinary, but Bruce expertly elucidates the tension:
The ice-water man was moving toward them now. Jack watched him approach and looked over at his dad.
“Who is this guy,” his father asked. “Is he here all the time?”
“Every day, Pop,” Jack said quietly. Please, he silently prayed, don’t let Pop make a scene.
“And that’s all he does, sell water? He don’t try to sell you no drugs or nothing?”
In this collection, the author’s inventiveness is on full display. She excels at leaping immediately from the “one dollar” starting point into the midst of one fresh and surprising challenge after another. Almost without exception, the stories share a taut authenticity. And many of them end with a well-wrought callback to the greenback from whence they originated.
In this collection, the author’s inventiveness is on full display. She excels at leaping immediately from the “one dollar” starting point into the midst of one fresh and surprising challenge after another. Almost without exception, the stories share a taut authenticity. And many of them end with a well-wrought callback to the greenback from whence they originated.
For a dollar to loom in significance in a person’s life points to economic precarity, and that is one throughline in the collection. With compassion and keen observation, Bruce takes readers into the lives of those on the outside of America’s prosperity. A busker, a latchkey kid, a rookie drug mule—each has a particular need for a dollar at a particular moment. In “The Tuesday Theory,” two boys who lost their mother, and never had a father to speak of, have developed a comforting weekly ritual in their local diner.
This collection will appeal to fiction-lovers seeking to feed their curiosity and their compassion. Several of the pieces address racism, head-on or obliquely. All of them peer into the stresses and strains and struggles of life in America. These evocative stories are not political or polemical. But art has a way of prompting questions. Reading this book, I couldn’t help but reflect on the chasm between the billionaires and those among us suffering deprivation or poverty, those not given much of a chance. Elizabeth Bruce has a talent for turning a detail into a gut punch, as when a man wrongfully incarcerated for decades splurges on the Sunday paper reporting his release. Or the heartbreaking futility of a young girl pulling off a heist to get a bottle of cologne for her itinerant farmworker mother. These stories dip readers into the lives of people all around us striving for one sparkle amidst the impenetrable bleakness they face. How revealing an incident can be in expert hands. Elizabeth Bruce’s narrative gems don’t read as if they carry an agenda, and yet they point to vast gaps in justice. They ask, implicitly, yet insistently: does it have to be this way? And also: how can I help?
Buy a copy of Universally Adored & Other One Dollar Stories from Bookshop or your favorite local independent bookstore.
Check out the podcast Elizabeth hosts with her husband Michael Oliver, Creativists in Dialogue, in which they interview people from all walks of life about creativity's role in shaping who they are. They explore creativity at both the practical level and the process level. They also, on occasion, delve into the philosophical dimensions of creativity—that might have influenced a person’s life and work. The podcast is available free on both Substack and Spotify.
Elizabeth Bruce's debut novel And Silent Left the Place won Washington Writers' Publishing House's Fiction Award and distinctions from ForeWord Magazine and Texas Institute of Letters. Her bilingual book, CentroNia's Theatrical Journey Playbook, garnered four indie awards. She's received DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities and McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation Fellowships. Originally from Texas, Bruce is based in D.C. Discover more at elizabethbrucedc.com.
Tom Navratil is the author of Dog’s Breakfast, a comedy of international intrigue. Read Norah’s interview with Tom, covering his novel, his past career in the U.S. foreign service, and many things in between.
