Joyriders: Stories, a short story collection by Greg Schutz, begins with a quote from “The Vanishing World” by poet Sandra Lim:“When I come to the right place, I believe I’ll paint a door on it and walk right through.” This epigraph highlights Schultz’s belief of the artist’s power to create opportunities or pathways to new experiences stemming from trauma. The dichotomy between action and consequence permeates the narratives, serving as a primary tension that defines the characters’ internal struggles and their interactions with the world. Schutz’s flawed, melancholic, and curious characters explore the universal need to reach out toward one another in an earnest, yet unaware, attempt for connection.
The title story weaves a taut, gritty narrative with a feeling of unease, exploring the lives of various characters who are connected by a small, rural community and one senseless act of violence. Jimmy Barnes, a deputy sheriff, is central to the story, embodying a weary, disillusioned figure who feels the weight of his profession and the town’s darkness. Schutz writes:
It’s because he’s tired. Sometimes he wakes in the middle of the afternoon to the applause of talk shows through the duplex wall and, outside the window, the thunder of lawnmowers. In his nightmares, he’s always searching for something he needs to find but cannot; waking, he wanders the duplex, still wondering what he’s looking for. His life, he supposes.
The tension builds subtly as he encounters a young couple in a stolen truck that raises questions about their intentions. The other characters, including Doc and Del, further amplify this theme of searching, whether for answers or for comfort, through their interactions with each other. Later in the story, the girl in the truck muses, “Strange, she thinks, how one little thing—an accident, really—can split you from your life so completely.” It seems as if the characters in the small town are actively living consequences of choices made long ago, despondent fates that they are all resigned to.
The reoccurring theme of interconnectedness plays out with “The Little Flashes” and its sequel piece “You Are the Greatest Lake,” winner of the 2024 Reprint Prize for The Masters Review. The former follows a lonely, divorced lawyer who begins a relationship with her carpenter, Thom, a cheating husband separated from his wife. Despite the excitement of a new relationship, the conflict that plays out is mostly within the protagonist herself, as there is a clear distinction between her social performance and her authentic self. The story begins with an admission: “I didn’t think of myself as lonely before I met Thom, which may be the same as saying I wasn’t, not quite, until he came along—that he made me unhappy.” After he fixes her cabinets, she asks him out for drinks, and Thom replies that his wife wouldn’t like that. She responds: “Well, of course,’ I replied, ‘but why would you tell her?’ At the time, I didn’t think I meant it. It’s just that I had to say something, and I come from the school of comedy that believes the best way out is through.” The reader, having access to her pang of loneliness, recognizes this false confidence as a societal mask, a tool used to protect herself. This is readily apparent after she and Thom have sex, which she describes as Thom wanting to destroy me, to wear me down to nothing, to make me go away so his normal life could resume, and my job was to withstand all this, enduring and absorbing everything, harder than he was in the end and more permanent than the life from which he’d been thrown. I was still here, holding him after we came. And now, certainly, I was lonely.
The protagonist seems to avoid living, opting more for existing and allowing life to happen at her. She moved back in her hometown, yet people don’t recognize her. Despite her passivity, she soon recognizes the impact her decisions have made on others once she meets Thom’s daughter.
A highlight of the collection is the sequel story “You Are the Greatest Lake” as it follows the couple on a trip to Thom’s lake house with his nine-year-old daughter, Dot. While the prior story explored the protagonist’s insecurity, the latter highlights her understanding of her situation. She remains to the side of Thom and Dot’s relationship, and each scene is full of subtle tension, delicate character studies, and the occasional rupture of emotion.
The prose is carefully measured, and the vivid descriptions of the natural world stand in contrast to the emotional landscapes of the characters. Schutz writes, “The yard rolls down to the lake, grass giving way to pebbles and shells, pebbles and shells pouring smoothly into the water to form the firm gravel bottom that Thom says draws bass into the bay on cloudy mornings and afternoons.” It is in this setting that the protagonist haunts, keeping a respectful distance from Thom and Dot’s time together, and happy to grab any crumb of interaction from Dot that Dot allows. The emotional void between Dot and the narrator makes their interactions strained and uncertain; Dot’s replies to her are a cheeky trademark, “Huh?” The child’s struggle to comprehend her father’s relationship is a poignant and affecting aspect of the story, particularly when Dot’s moments of connection with the narrator are short-lived, revealing the struggle of bonding with a child who may never fully accept her. “You Are the Greatest Lake” has a subtle strength that comes from evoking emotions without directly displaying them, using instead a calm mix of actions and unspoken thoughts.
“The Sweet Nothings” is a patient and relatable piece that provides an intimate look at the complexities of family dynamics. Valerie and Mack meet when they are paired up in college where she is earning a degree in elementary education, and he plays football. Schutz delightfully writes: “Valerie suspected that she, trained to cajole children into learning through charm, trickery, and force, had been made his partner in order to protect him.” To put it simply, their interactions during their early years are cute and I found myself smiling at their youthful awkwardness and optimism.
The narrative then follows the progression of their relationship, beginning with their courtship and concluding with their lives as grandparents, and we, the reader, emphasize with the beauty in their ordinary and mundane lives as parents and employees. When they first meet, Valerie muses, “Love was a new muscle sewn into her chest; it squeezed at the oddest moments.” This pleasure soon dissipates once they live together: “Above all, there was the inescapable intimacy of a life shared. Nothing remained hidden for long. If she was cranky, sweaty, or had gas, he would know. And she would always know the same about him, whether she cared to or not.” Soon, they find themselves having nightly “check-ins” with each other in bed where they discuss bills, their careers, their son’s questionable life choices, and their exhaustion with caring for Valerie’s father.
No one escapes the pull of time, but the couples understanding and patience with each other is an example of true compassion. Unlike other relationships in the collection, Valerie and Mack’s connection is foundational and unconditional. It’s a backdrop for the rest of the action to play out, and despite their time together, each scene hints at their shared appreciation for each other. “They’d never gotten more graceful. If anything, their means had grown simpler, more honest and direct, over the years.”
Joyriders: Stories delves into the complexities of human connection, where characters navigate love, grief, and yearning in unconventional ways. Schutz skillfully utilizes a literary device that is rarely seen nowadays: patience. He doesn’t shy away from allowing moments to breathe and characters to reflect. Despite isolation, quick moments of connection illuminate the characters’ lives, showing how even fleeting interactions can impact us. Ultimately, Schutz’s collection suggests that all lives, however solitary, are part of a larger shared experience.
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Publication Date: March 14, 2025
Reviewed by Mark Massaro
Mark Massaro earned a master’s degree in English Language & Literature from Florida Gulf Coast University. He is currently a Professor of English at a state college in Florida. His writing has been published in The Masters Review, Newsweek, The Georgia Review, The Hill, Los Angeles Review of Books, Dash, Rain Taxi Review, The Sunlight Press, and others.