The Baby Can Sing and Other Stories by Judith Slater :: Biography Biographies Essays

The Baby Can Sing and Other Stories by Judith Slater When a group of short stories is put together, in most cases there is a significant aspect in why the writer chooses certain stories and in a certain order, much like books of poetry. There is a reason to the writer's madness. If a writer has enough stories to fill a book that is so good it deserves to be printed and stay in print, they've probably written enough stories to fill two or more books and those that made it were what the author felt to be the best or looked the best together. The stories have a connection that links them together. In The Baby Can Sing and Other Stories, all of the stories tell the tales of going off away from the usual or the norm. Let's assume for the sake of argument that Judith Slater wasn't available to explain why she did what she did with the book and stories involved. The writer is unreachable for questions or comments for the majority of the time, so much that the idea of contacting the actual writer is often not thought of. Without knowing anything, the first story "The Baby Can Sing" is a phenomenal introduction to the collection. Based on reality, the story talks about some imaginary baby that can dance and sing. It doesn't have a beginning, middle, and end, making it different from a traditional story. It has no climax or dramatic point. It is the stream of consciousness that the narrator rides along away from whatever the reality is. The class came to a conclusion that the narrator was actually pregnant but something happened to the baby. At one point since she says, "When I was pregnant..." and that is the only comment in the past tense. Everything else is in the mystical present or the 'would be' future, both being skeptical and wishing. The class speculated that whatever happened to this woman's baby (i.e. abortion, miscarriage, etc.) was not good, as if losing a baby in any way were a blessed event. In that case, the narrator could be taking her mental state away from the harsh reality and to a dreamlike place of the impossible.