Twelve Shades of Crimson
By Mickey Clement
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REVIEW BY GREGORY HARRIS
Mickey Clement's moving new book Twelve Shades of Crimson is a remarkable achievement -- a cycle of 12 interconnected short stories, each taking place on consecutive months. Clement realizes her ambitious project -- reminiscent of Raymond Carver's connected Los Angeles stories -- with great aplomb and presents the reader with a fascinating and emotional look at the lives of eight women and the people close to them. The dozen related vignettes -- available individually or collected -- chronicle one academic year in the life of a small group of people connected with Harvard University. But rather than exploring the ivy-covered world of academia, the tales from Twelve Shades follow the lesser-known populace of the Harvard community, from teaching assistants to doctoral candidates to residents of cheap university housing. And life for these characters is far from the bright promise normally associated with one of the world's top universities. Harvard is a symbol of wealth and prestige, yet the young mother the reader meets in the first story has trouble making ends meet. She's on her way to buy school clothes for her children when a sudden, impulsive act of charity compels her to give her last bit of money to a disabled homeless veteran. Tragedy is never far away from the protagonists, whether itís experienced firsthand or shared with other characters. Indeed, the shades of crimson mentioned in the title are the colors of freshly spilled blood. Sudden, even violent death marks several of the characters, either during the course of the book or as a result of preceding events. Yet, all is not as bleak as an abandoned winter campus. The characters almost invariably find strength from the bonds of family or from kind strangers. Although tragic at times, Twelve Shades of Crimson is inspiring in the strength the reader draws from growing with the protagonists. The author skillfully weaves the many story lines into a tapestry that never becomes tangled. Her monthly installment format also allows for interesting character development, as the reader might run into a previous character again several months after the events in her story. Sometimes the intervening time brings healing and peace; sometimes it merely charts a deeper spiral of despair. Although the stories more than hold their own by themselves, their full impact is felt when taken as a collection. The protagonists change from story to story, but since they live in a close-knit community, the reader can follow developments from previous tales. Clement received much praise for her first novel, The Irish Princess, which looked at an Irish-American family in the wake of the Vietnam War. Twelve Shades of Crimson is a worthy follow-up to that notable work. Gregory Harris is a writer and editor living in Indianapolis. He grew up as a faculty brat at the University of Louisville.
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