A writer drawn to disaster and tragedy: Anthony Doerr

Book group meets tonight to discuss Anthony Doerr's collection "Memory Wall," and M and I got in an advance discussion yesterday, she noting that Doerr is interested in times (and places) of great human disaster and tragedy, notably the Holocaust (in Afterworld, probably the most interesting story in the book), Apartheid (in the title story - extremely unusual narrative), the Depression (the last story, an appendage to the collection), the flooding of the gorge for the Chinese dam - and yet I think that's true and that Doerr has a generally optimistic and positive view of our world and of people, though there is great suffering and endurance of pain in his stories the characters, generally, maintain a positive view of life and emerge better, stronger, more humane. Generally - but not always: in Village we end with the images of growing seeds, in the title story we see the young man donate funds from his sale of the fossil to care for the ailing boy - these are strong images, but a bit sentimental, reminding me at moments of complex fragmented movies such as Crash (which I felt was dishonest), but in the later stories in the collection there is a darkness an a shadow of death that makes the stories feel more real and more chilling - the woman in the last days of her life in Afterworld, and the sad and lonely young man in the final story missing out on the richness in life because of his ill health and the collapse of the economy all around him in Detroit in the 30s.