Scott Sanders' Explores Everyday Miracles in 'Small Marvels'

Author of more than 20 books of fiction, essays, and personal narratives, Scott Russell Sanders visits with us to discuss his book, Small Marvels: Stories. The book contains a series of short stories about a fictional family, the Mills family, who lives in a fictitious town in southern Indiana. “All of the stories in the collection are about the same family, three generations, living under one roof, a husband, wife, the three living grandparents, and the four children all living under one roof, in this town of Limestone.” In addition, all of the stories also take place within the course of a single year. “During that year, you get the backstory about how Gordon Mills, who’s the husband of the family, and Mabel Mills, who is the wife, you get the backstory about how they met and came to be engaged. By the end of the collection, within the same year, they’re celebrating their 25th anniversary and you get to see one or another of the children featured in different stories, and one or another of the three grandparents featured in one of the stories.”

Sanders noted that one part of the stories is about marriage. “Lots of marriages are miserable and break up for good reasons…but the fact is, there are actually a lot of durable marriages in the world. These don’t make it into movies or TV shows or novels very often…there are many marriages which are mutually supportive, and loving, and fulfilling, and durable, and Gordon Mills and Mabel Mills happen to have one such marriage, and so part of what the book is about is about that possibility.” Additionally, the stories are also about generational care, the problems and challenges of parenting, and elderly care. “The underlying love across those three generations is one of the themes of the book. It’s a reminder of what’s possible for humans.”

While some of the stories have touches of magical realism, others are ordinary and mundane, but serve as examples of humanity. Sanders remarked, “…I keep coming back to this idea of kindness because most human beings, most of the time, are considerate to one another, are helpful when they can be, are neighborly, and we forget that because the headlines are full of news about people who are exact opposite of all those things…but if most humans weren’t most of the time decent to those around them, including members of their own family, our species would’ve died out a long time ago.”