In Universally Adored and Other $1 Dollar Stories, D.C. author (and actor) Elizabeth Bruce gives nearly three dozen reasons why a dollar bill can enrich a story. Her 33 microstories, like those of Haruki Murakami and Ottessa Moshfegh, are brief, feature a resolved plot, and occasionally a plot twist or a surprise. Sometimes the dollar is a symbol of love or hope. In other stories, the currency represents loss of innocence and misfortune. In all instances, Bruce’s dollar bills serve as the fulcrum of her tales, centering readers in stories featuring flawed, ordinary, and innocent characters.
Bruce structures her book into five sections—Couples, Parents and Children, Brothers and Sisters, Known Associates, and Gathered Loved Ones.
The second story, “Universally Adored,” is a story of love lost. Right away, we learn about the two ex-lovers, Fran, an artist, and Janine, who was not happy with Fran’s indolent lifestyle. Janine moved to Las Vegas because of Fran’s idleness. When Janine sends a postcard featuring Santa and a dollar bill on the cover, Fran draws a decorative facsimile of it, “sketching out the contours of the bill, penciling in the circles and rectangles and arcs before drawing George Washington himself.” She sends it to Janine to win her back with the note: “One perfect dollar … A masterpiece, universally adored (like you, my love).”
“Ricky Steiner Was Supposed to Die in Prison” is a tender story about a wrongful murder conviction, and an unconditional love between a jailed father and his daughter. Bruce conveys the fact that a Sunday newspaper totals one dollar, but that paper just might contain information necessary for Steiner to get a second chance at life, so he can hug and dance with his daughter again.
“Exact Change Only” is a story about two thieves—one of whom has just been paroled and is angry because his friend arranged a botched robbery. As they approach a toll road in Virginia, a split-second decision involving a dollar toll, which must be paid in exact change, just may send the culprit back to prison.
In the intimate, one-page story “The Gutter,” a young girl’s silver dollar falls into the sewer. “Her life’s savings” may now be lost. She contemplates retrieving it.
At first, “Mashed Potatoes” seems like an innocent story about a $1 bet between two girls flinging mashed potatoes: “First one [who] finishes slinging their mashed potatoes wins the war.” But Bruce masterfully creates an unexpected turnaround of events, conveying just how precious and short life can be.
Bruce has a knack for writing about mundane events and people to whom we can instantly relate. Her simple sentences are laden with the imagery of both sentimental and painful life experiences. Her creation of the dollar bill as the hinge of the stories is impressive. To Bruce, it is more than a stock element, it becomes a plot device, accentuating the trajectory of the stories, traits of her characters, and the relationships they have with each other.
Elizabeth Bruce’s Universally Adored and Other $1 Dollar Stories, published by Vine Leaves Press on January 30, is now available. elizabethbrucedc.com.