Worthy

What do we deserve from life, how far will we go to feel accepted, and whose rubric gets to measure our value? These are the very universal, very human quandaries that unite the stories in the poignant and elegantly written Worthy, Kerry Langan’s fourth collection of short fiction.

In several stories, children are featured as protagonists who try to move in adult worlds with limited understanding of all the complicated emotional situations adults might be entangled in. Glen in “Here” learns he is another man’s son and brother to his best friend when the long-simmering resentments between his parents come to a head. “Deserving of All My Love” opens with Lisa, about to make her First Confession, describing her new neighbors, the Brennans, as “the nicest of neighbors … openly affectionate, hugging and kissing on their front lawn.” Her impression is shattered when she peers through their window and watches as an argument between the perfect couple turns physical with a shove down the stairs. In both these stories and others, the children’s bewilderment is palpable, the sudden loss of innocence acute. But rather than veering into sentimentality or cynicism, Langan’s light touch with her characters and their journeys suggests that such a loss can be instructive, a lesson that the world they will inevitably move into lacks the black-white certainty of childhood.

In another clutch of stories, younger children yield the spotlight to older teens and young adults whose social dynamics have higher stakes as they begin to experiment with some of the trappings of the adults around them. “It was the stage of life when we were desperate to fit in but also eager to stand out,” says Claire, the middle-school narrator of “Verge.” Here, the descriptions of schoolyard fights, sitting on the sidelines of the skate rink hoping to be asked on a date, and the complicated feelings toward friends who are prettier or more popular transport the reader right back to those awkward years and the struggles to become confident in oneself. Self-confidence and finding one’s voice is also the aim of college-age Pam, the protagonist of “Grade.” After she disagrees with her English professor and carefully argues her points, he tries to take her to task in their one-on-one conference. When she holds her ground, he resorts to complimenting her looks—a power move striving for diminishment. This becomes a moment of clarity for Pam: “She opened her eyes and saw how lucid everything looked … no blurred edges.”

This collection contains two longer pieces, the novellas “Trillium”—a tale of revenge and agency, by turns delightfully wicked and heartbreaking—and the title story, “Worthy,” set in a manipulative cult where the leader’s persuasiveness and mind control targets young women cut off from troubled families and longing to find acceptance where they can. The longer form allows Langan to take her time developing the characters, their motivations, and their yearnings. As a result, the novellas are thought-provoking and deeply satisfying.

Kerry Langan demonstrates over and over in this collection her keen understanding of human nature and the often messy way we live our lives. Nothing is neatly tied up here, but that is life itself: We need, we search, we come to terms or we continue looking for more. At the conclusion of every story, I found myself wondering what more the future would hold for the children, the teens, the young adults, and even the adults, all of them standing as they are on the cusp of a change in their lives, and all poised to recognize their worth. Readers looking for fiction that moves them and nudges them toward a better understanding of their fellow humans will love this collection. It is a tender delight.