Compassion, Michigan is a short-story collection by Raymond Luczak. Known for writing collections of poetry, personal essays, and fiction; editing anthologies; and writing plays and novels, he’s also an advocate for better accessibility for the Deaf community. Since so many of his books focus on the experiences of gay men (check out some of his book covers), I was surprised to finish Compassion, Michigan and realize every story’s protagonist was a young women with the exception of a story about a transman and one about a person who believes they do not experience gender—they’re just who they are.

Luczak’s collection takes place in Ironwood, Michigan, where the author was born and raised, writing stories covering quite a bit of history, from the days when the iron ore mines attracted thousands of immigrants to work there to the city’s recession, of course tied to the lack of mining jobs and people leaving. Ironwood is in Michigan’s upper peninsula, a rather isolated part of my home state. In fact, in one story set in the 1980s about a deaf girl living in Ironwood, we learn she must travel three hours yearly to reach the only audiologist in the upper peninsula.

Another interesting factor that surprised me aside from the female protagonists were the lack of D/deaf characters. Not that a Deaf author must write Deaf characters, of course, but this is my first fiction collection by Luczak—thus my surprise. In fact, the first book I read by him was an edited work of another Deaf person called When I Am Dead: The Writings of George M. Teegarden, which was about a teacher. It was a fascinating look at Deaf education during a time when most places had banned sign language, instead forcing children to try speaking and reading lips only, which can lead to language deprivation.

I do wish Compassion, Michigan had been structed somewhat differently, perhaps with the stories rotating in main characters as secondary characters—perhaps neighbors or bosses or love interests—instead of each story being disconnected. As a result, the plots and characters started to blur together: women who are unexpectedly pregnant, women escaping husbands, women who realize they are attracted to other women. In a sense, Luczak recognizes this: “Each generation recycles the past. In between they create and weave stories filled with the same old plots that never feel that way to any of them.”

I did enjoy how “The Traitor’s Wife” gave me a good sense of setting. I felt like I knew where and when I was based on the historical references and the way the small-town people behaved once they found out that the main character’s husband was a traitor to the U.S., not a soldier fighting in the Korean War, as he said he was. While he’s gone (good riddance!) but before he’s caught, the wife starts buying up loads of plants, and I loved all the plant descriptions. Plant parents, unite!

I’m eager to go back and read Luczak’s nonfiction about his life as a gay Deaf man in an isolated area, who didn’t learn to sign until he left for Washington, D.C. where Gallaudet University is located. It’s the only university in the world for Deaf students. His life sounds interesting.

Books of Fall 🍁🎃🍵

• Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• Just Desserts by G.A. McKevett
• Slewfoot by Brom
• She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall by Dave Newman
• Submerged by Hillel Levin
• The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson
• Homing by Sherrie Flick (DNF)
• The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter (DNF)
• Ask Elizabeth: Real Answers to Everything You Secretly Wanted to Ask about Love, Friends, Your Body — and Life in General by Elizabeth Berkley (DNF)
• No Good Deed by Allison Brennan (#10)
• Fat!So? by Marilyn Wann
• The West Passage by Jared Pechaček (DNF)
• Quest for the Unknown: Bizarre Phenomena by Reader’s Digest (DNF)
• Icebreaker by Hannah Grace (DNF)
• Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
• Queer Little Nightmares, edited by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli
• Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• Compassion, Michigan by Raymond Luczak
• Bitter Thirst by S.M. Reine (Preternatural Affairs #8)
• Syd Arthur by Ellen Frankel
• Deaf Eyes on Interpreting, edited by Thomas H. Holcomb and David H. Smith
• A Life in Letters by Zora Neale Hurston