tonythep's review against another edition
3.0
Amy Hempel is obviously a masterful writer, but something kept me from connecting with these stories. Mostly they left me with a sense of sadness, but that doesn't usually keep me from relating to something. Perhaps it was because the stories were so grounded in reality while I have been craving escape. Some of the dog images have stuck with me: "Get me a meeting with Beagleton!"
whitesuede's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Every story in this collection is a masterclass in minimalist writing, though the writer demurs from such categorising of their work. Each sentence is painfully precise; notably for me, the story 'When It's Human Instead of When It's Dog' is impeccable in its depiction of grief. I would recommend this collection as an essential reading.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Addiction, Cursing, Infidelity, and Suicidal thoughts
teodomo's review against another edition
Escuchados los audiocuentos de "Celia ha vuelto" y "El cementerio donde está enterrado Al Jonson". Altamente ambiguos. Además, pareciera que mientras que un relato tradicional prioriza trama, tópicos y/o personajes, aquí todos esos están minimizados o directamente elididos. Se concentran en narrar las situaciones que se van dando, centrándose en el momento, aunque de forma distinta al stream of consciousness o al monólogo interior de Woolf, por ejemplo.
El primer cuento parece tratar de un hogar disfuncional y el segundo de una enfermedad terminal. Uso del humor para abordar estos temas oscuros.
El primer cuento parece tratar de un hogar disfuncional y el segundo de una enfermedad terminal. Uso del humor para abordar estos temas oscuros.
nekobobeko's review against another edition
4.0
Really just BRILLIANT storytelling. Aimless wandering. Perfect road-trip read.
quippy's review against another edition
5.0
I've given this book away several times, each of them following a discussion on writers who craft sentences so delicious you can't help but go back and read them again, sometimes even mid-story. Hempel is a true wordsmith, and regardless of subject matter, her craft is incredible and an utter joy to take in.
kinbote4zembla's review against another edition
5.0
“Here’s a trick I found for how to finally get some sleep. I sleep in my husband’s bed. That way the empty bed I look at is my own” (“Nashville Gone to Ashes”).
These stories cut.
Take the shortest story in this collection, “Housewife”: “She would always sleep with her husband and with another man in the course of the same day, and then the rest of the day, for whatever was left to her of that day, she would exploit by incanting, ‘French film, French film.’”
One sentence, flash fiction. But that is what is most important to Amy Hempel, it would seem: the primacy of a good sentence.
Hempel’s stories are consistently short – her four published collections, approximately fifty short stories, occupy four hundred pages, including one seventy-page novella. Each scenario is distilled to its most concentrated form.
I’ve loved “Nashville Gone to Ashes” and “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” for years, so I was very excited to acquaint myself with the author’s collected oeuvre. And those two stories were just from her debut collection back in 1985. Two decades worth of material existed that I hadn’t yet encountered.
The best work here, all in all, is probably “Tumble Home,” which, suggested by line-for-line repetition from “Tom-Rock through the Eels,” is a sequel, or at least a continuation. A woman writes to painter she may or may not know intimately from an institution where she is rehabilitating. The narrative – as vague as it was – was absolutely absorbing. And honestly, as with each of the stories in this collection, the writing is just so perfect. (This whole collection is essential for anyone who really appreciates good writing. Some of these sentences will knock you flat on your ass.)
And other stories like “Tonight Is a Favor to Holly,” “Today Will Be a Quiet Day,” “The Harvest,” “The Most Girl Part of You,” “Tom-Rock Through the Eels,” “Sportsman,” “The Annex,” “Jesus Is Waiting,” etc., are all stories that I loved. There isn’t even a story here that I didn’t like. I thought some stories, like “San Francisco” and “In the Animal Shelter,” were somewhat unfulfilling and abstruse, but I didn’t feel cheated by them. And I don’t even know if I would remove them from the collection. They were intriguing.
Certain things recur in these stories: failed marriages, miscarried or aborted pregnancies (and the envy of expectant mothers), dogs, travel, superstition, fear of flying, Jesus, California, and, strangely enough, in the later collections, living across from a graveyard. The repetition of themes, written in the voice of an intelligent, upper-middle class woman who seems to age with the author, suggests autobiography. And these stories are all the better for it, when taken together, since it makes the fragmented nature of short stories easier to digest in a single sitting, as though they were intentionally interconnected.
Fuck, this was a great read.
As Rick Moody says in his introduction, “It’s all about the sentences.”
5 Talking Chimps out of 5
These stories cut.
Take the shortest story in this collection, “Housewife”: “She would always sleep with her husband and with another man in the course of the same day, and then the rest of the day, for whatever was left to her of that day, she would exploit by incanting, ‘French film, French film.’”
One sentence, flash fiction. But that is what is most important to Amy Hempel, it would seem: the primacy of a good sentence.
Hempel’s stories are consistently short – her four published collections, approximately fifty short stories, occupy four hundred pages, including one seventy-page novella. Each scenario is distilled to its most concentrated form.
I’ve loved “Nashville Gone to Ashes” and “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” for years, so I was very excited to acquaint myself with the author’s collected oeuvre. And those two stories were just from her debut collection back in 1985. Two decades worth of material existed that I hadn’t yet encountered.
The best work here, all in all, is probably “Tumble Home,” which, suggested by line-for-line repetition from “Tom-Rock through the Eels,” is a sequel, or at least a continuation. A woman writes to painter she may or may not know intimately from an institution where she is rehabilitating. The narrative – as vague as it was – was absolutely absorbing. And honestly, as with each of the stories in this collection, the writing is just so perfect. (This whole collection is essential for anyone who really appreciates good writing. Some of these sentences will knock you flat on your ass.)
And other stories like “Tonight Is a Favor to Holly,” “Today Will Be a Quiet Day,” “The Harvest,” “The Most Girl Part of You,” “Tom-Rock Through the Eels,” “Sportsman,” “The Annex,” “Jesus Is Waiting,” etc., are all stories that I loved. There isn’t even a story here that I didn’t like. I thought some stories, like “San Francisco” and “In the Animal Shelter,” were somewhat unfulfilling and abstruse, but I didn’t feel cheated by them. And I don’t even know if I would remove them from the collection. They were intriguing.
Certain things recur in these stories: failed marriages, miscarried or aborted pregnancies (and the envy of expectant mothers), dogs, travel, superstition, fear of flying, Jesus, California, and, strangely enough, in the later collections, living across from a graveyard. The repetition of themes, written in the voice of an intelligent, upper-middle class woman who seems to age with the author, suggests autobiography. And these stories are all the better for it, when taken together, since it makes the fragmented nature of short stories easier to digest in a single sitting, as though they were intentionally interconnected.
Fuck, this was a great read.
As Rick Moody says in his introduction, “It’s all about the sentences.”
5 Talking Chimps out of 5
chelseamartinez's review against another edition
5.0
I think when I was younger I resisted reading short stories because (1) I tried to read every single Flannery O' Connor short story in the interest of thoroughness in 9th grade, for a biography report, and I sort of bottomed out and (2) well, duh, I am on this website, so obviously I like keeping track and showing off what I read, and short stories are not as impressive a feat.
But more recently I still skip the short stories because if they're any good, they're not long enough, and if they're no good, you never want to read that writer again- but you feel you haven't given them a fair shake in deciding that (I couldn't finish that DeLillo short story in the New Yorker last week and am sure glad I made myself read 1000 pages of him before I tried to read 10).
What I learned from this book is Amy Hempel is amazing and even though she likes dogs a whole lot and I don't like dogs at all, she puts a lot of things the way I love for people to put them, and she is concise and conveys sadness in such a way that I know that it is a part of adulthood that I should get used to.
But more recently I still skip the short stories because if they're any good, they're not long enough, and if they're no good, you never want to read that writer again- but you feel you haven't given them a fair shake in deciding that (I couldn't finish that DeLillo short story in the New Yorker last week and am sure glad I made myself read 1000 pages of him before I tried to read 10).
What I learned from this book is Amy Hempel is amazing and even though she likes dogs a whole lot and I don't like dogs at all, she puts a lot of things the way I love for people to put them, and she is concise and conveys sadness in such a way that I know that it is a part of adulthood that I should get used to.
natesea's review against another edition
3.0
This collection gets 3.5 stars, but unfortunately Goodreads won't allow halves. Amy Hempel is a great story teller, and there are many 4-5 star stories within. The collection as a whole, however, didn't leave me wowed like Wells Tower's more recent Everything Ravaged Everything Burned, or Kelly Link's Magic For Beginners. But that isn't meant as a negative to Hempel. Her stories are wound tight with tension, humor, and incredible use of language. This large collection certainly wows in spots, but didn't leave a lasting impression. Maybe that's because I moved through it too quickly, and these stories are better digested a few at a time.