Old Crimes: Stories of Jill McCorkle

Photo: Angelica Edwards in Indy Week

Epigraph: “Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.” —Arthur Miller

Study Group Leader: Marlene Hobel [see Marlene's bio]

Meeting Times/Dates: Tuesdays, Period 1 (9:30 - 10:55 am), March 11 through May 20 (No Class April 15)

Zoom Link: https://brandeis.zoom.us/j/95156452348?pwd=ZlZvaGtiUGNHdzlOUnk2eXlkZEFHZz09

Password: Marlene

Meeting ID: 951 5645 2348

Phone-in Number: 312 626 6799

Contact: marlenehobel@gmail.com

Course Description

Like her celebrated predecessors Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor, and Carson McCullers, Jill McCorkle gives us contemporary stories that contribute to the rich canon of Southern American fiction. She explores themes of memory, regret, and loss, reflecting the Southern preoccupation with the past and its influence on the present. Her characters often grapple with personal and collective histories, providing a nuanced view of Southern identity. She deftly blends humor with pathos to convey an authentic portrayal of human relationships.

In this course, we will sample McCorkle through her latest short story collection, Old Crimes: and Other Stories. These interconnected stories, anchored by a fictional small town in North Carolina, delve into the lives of characters within the same community, and sometimes the same families, who are burdened by regret, memory, and the enduring impact of secrets and mistakes. Each session will be a facilitated discussion, with the group exploring the stories and learning from each other.

I hope you’ll join me in exploring the old crimes (of the past, of the heart, of passion) of McCorkle’s characters.

Please see the class ground rules.

Course text

Jill McCorkle, 2024, Old Crimes: and Other Stories, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, ISBN 9781616209735.

Objectives

Work together to probe and understand the stories.
Learn to "stay in the story" and mine each for meaning and writing craft.
Reach our own individual conclusions about the merit and appeal of McCorkle's work. Answer the question, "Would I recommend her to others?"

Assignments

Each week of this website (see navigation bar at the top) details your assignment for that week's session. Please be sure to read all of the material on each week's page. Note that we are skipping two of the stories and we are not reading them in the order they appear in the book, so be sure to check the website each week for the correct assignment.

Read each story at least twice—the first time to get the overall sense of the story, and the subsequent close reading(s) to analyze the story, considering the "think about" items I've included.

The Zoom link for each class is provided at the top of the home page and on the footer of each page.

The ground rules are included on each week's page as a reminder of how to engage in a fruitful, respectful discussion.

Photo: Tom Rankin from Jillmccorkle.com

Biography

Jill McCorkle was born in 1958 in Lumberton, a small town on the Lumber River in southeastern North Carolina. The small town life was a big influence on her storytelling. “I almost always start out in a town that looks a lot like Lumberton in about 1963,” she says. “Somehow those early memories in my childhood, the places I loved in the town, the people I loved in the town, really shaped my whole sense of society.”read more...

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