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A review by spenkevich
Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E. Kirby
4.0
‘I regret that it took me this long to learn to use my body for its own sake.’
Something I love about literature is how often the zaniest stories can carry a lot of insight and commentary into real life and society. Satire has always been a powerful and subversive critical vessel because through laughing at absurdities we see how many we’ve tolerated disguised in daily life. Shit Cassandra Saw, the debut short story collection from Gwen E. Kirby, has a lot to laugh about and enjoy as we read of people finding avenues to have a voice and agency, be comfortable living in their own bodies, or be allowed to be the central figure in their own story. Many of these stories focus on empowerment, from getting supernatural powers to learning to be okay with oneself without guilt or shame. Kirby often flips society on it’s head with playful plots and narrative structures in this humorous collection of stories that take aim at convention for maximum effect.
‘People die in fires, cities are laid waste, and yet so little is as flammable as you hope.’
Kirby has a gift for humor paired with insight, and this is a loud, boisterous collection. It looks at obdurate social norms, particularly patriarchal ones, and asks if there is a better way. This is even extended to men, with several stories featuring a male narrator feeling oppressed by strict gender or social roles. Kirby acknowledges that these are problems many face and have spoken up about for centuries—there is a wide range of settings here from Helenic times to our own—but how much can we change if those who seek progress are pushed out from their own narratives or silenced? One story features the ghost of an 18th-century preacher following a woman around insulting her, and Kirby reminds us that so much of the rigidity in society is encased in a culture that never wanted to give women a voice to begin with (as you could expect, there is definitely a story about witch burning here).
The title comes from the opening story, written in full as Shit Cassandra Saw That She Didn't Tell the Trojans Because at That Point Fuck Them Anyway, which should more or less cue you in for the sly and raucous good time you are about to have with these stories. It also sets up a major theme that threads through a good portion of the book with women sick of patriarchal society and having their own insights. The punchline is swift and deadly, with Cassandra laughing at her vision that in the future ‘Trojan will not be synonymous with bravery or failure, betrayal or endurance’ but instead merely a brand of condoms. There is a sense of taking the power away from men here that carries joyously into the following story about with supernatural powers of defense. A woman told to smile more reveals her fangs and eats the man’s hand, getting indigestion from his wedding ring; another uses laser eyes to transform a man into bus fare; and a string of radioactive cockroaches are turning women into powerful roach-women who can shatter eardrums with their hiss. Soon ‘Men carry small cans of Raid in their pockets when they go out at night’ as Kirby invents this comical alternate reality where men feel they aren’t safe from strange women.
‘Our daughter loved that cat. It didn’t make Jelly a good cat. Jelly was a terrible cat. Our daughter loves me,and you wouldn’t say that made me a good husband.’
Beyond playful stories, Kirby has fun using narrative structures such as a how-to-guide or a Yelp review to frame her stories. A man writes a negative Yelp review about a restaurant that quickly reveals itself to be an examination of his failing marriage and an interesting commentary on how people who don’t feel they have a voice have turned to social media instead of a therapist. These stories often get surreal and 4th-wall breaking, and Kirby handles it very well.
Even the less fantastical stories have great social insights, such as one about a taxidermied wallaby becoming a contemplative look at friendship dynamics and the struggles young women have finding space to be allowed to become themselves. ‘He regards us from the shore in that way we are learning to expect from a certain kind of man,’ the narrator writes in the final story, We Handle It, and Kirby often looks at how socialized women are to view themselves, their bodies, and their worth, through the (often threatening) male gaze.
In an interview with NPR, Kirby is asked if her collection is about empowered women. She responds:
This truly captures the spirit of Shit Cassandra Saw letting women exist beautifully and imperfectly. A favorite in the collection is Midwestern Girl Is Tired Of Appearing In Your Short Stories, which reads like an ode to the nameless women that prop up the peripheries or only serve as a lens to better focus on the central character’s (typically male) emotional journey. Here Midwestern Girl realizes she is sick of the sidelines and figures her way into the center of the narrative in this comically metafictional story that is as much a satire on society as it is on literature in general.
Shit Cassandra Saw is a riot of a collection. While not every story hits, I suspect there will be a rotating list of favorites for everyone who reads it, particularly when she touches on historical aspects. Still, this is a solid debut and I definitely could not put it down, breezing through each of the short stories—and they are fairly short—with a smile on my face. Sharp, comically cynical and full of glorious rage, this is a good time.
3.75/5
Something I love about literature is how often the zaniest stories can carry a lot of insight and commentary into real life and society. Satire has always been a powerful and subversive critical vessel because through laughing at absurdities we see how many we’ve tolerated disguised in daily life. Shit Cassandra Saw, the debut short story collection from Gwen E. Kirby, has a lot to laugh about and enjoy as we read of people finding avenues to have a voice and agency, be comfortable living in their own bodies, or be allowed to be the central figure in their own story. Many of these stories focus on empowerment, from getting supernatural powers to learning to be okay with oneself without guilt or shame. Kirby often flips society on it’s head with playful plots and narrative structures in this humorous collection of stories that take aim at convention for maximum effect.
‘People die in fires, cities are laid waste, and yet so little is as flammable as you hope.’
Kirby has a gift for humor paired with insight, and this is a loud, boisterous collection. It looks at obdurate social norms, particularly patriarchal ones, and asks if there is a better way. This is even extended to men, with several stories featuring a male narrator feeling oppressed by strict gender or social roles. Kirby acknowledges that these are problems many face and have spoken up about for centuries—there is a wide range of settings here from Helenic times to our own—but how much can we change if those who seek progress are pushed out from their own narratives or silenced? One story features the ghost of an 18th-century preacher following a woman around insulting her, and Kirby reminds us that so much of the rigidity in society is encased in a culture that never wanted to give women a voice to begin with (as you could expect, there is definitely a story about witch burning here).
The title comes from the opening story, written in full as Shit Cassandra Saw That She Didn't Tell the Trojans Because at That Point Fuck Them Anyway, which should more or less cue you in for the sly and raucous good time you are about to have with these stories. It also sets up a major theme that threads through a good portion of the book with women sick of patriarchal society and having their own insights. The punchline is swift and deadly, with Cassandra laughing at her vision that in the future ‘Trojan will not be synonymous with bravery or failure, betrayal or endurance’ but instead merely a brand of condoms. There is a sense of taking the power away from men here that carries joyously into the following story about with supernatural powers of defense. A woman told to smile more reveals her fangs and eats the man’s hand, getting indigestion from his wedding ring; another uses laser eyes to transform a man into bus fare; and a string of radioactive cockroaches are turning women into powerful roach-women who can shatter eardrums with their hiss. Soon ‘Men carry small cans of Raid in their pockets when they go out at night’ as Kirby invents this comical alternate reality where men feel they aren’t safe from strange women.
‘Our daughter loved that cat. It didn’t make Jelly a good cat. Jelly was a terrible cat. Our daughter loves me,and you wouldn’t say that made me a good husband.’
Beyond playful stories, Kirby has fun using narrative structures such as a how-to-guide or a Yelp review to frame her stories. A man writes a negative Yelp review about a restaurant that quickly reveals itself to be an examination of his failing marriage and an interesting commentary on how people who don’t feel they have a voice have turned to social media instead of a therapist. These stories often get surreal and 4th-wall breaking, and Kirby handles it very well.
Even the less fantastical stories have great social insights, such as one about a taxidermied wallaby becoming a contemplative look at friendship dynamics and the struggles young women have finding space to be allowed to become themselves. ‘He regards us from the shore in that way we are learning to expect from a certain kind of man,’ the narrator writes in the final story, We Handle It, and Kirby often looks at how socialized women are to view themselves, their bodies, and their worth, through the (often threatening) male gaze.
In an interview with NPR, Kirby is asked if her collection is about empowered women. She responds:
‘I feel like the women in my book lie and cheat and fight and love and do everything that the male characters that I grew up reading got to do and I never thought about it. No one really ever called them an unlikable male narrator or something like that. So I think, yes, empowered women, but I just think - I don't know - alive women, just normal, real women.’
This truly captures the spirit of Shit Cassandra Saw letting women exist beautifully and imperfectly. A favorite in the collection is Midwestern Girl Is Tired Of Appearing In Your Short Stories, which reads like an ode to the nameless women that prop up the peripheries or only serve as a lens to better focus on the central character’s (typically male) emotional journey. Here Midwestern Girl realizes she is sick of the sidelines and figures her way into the center of the narrative in this comically metafictional story that is as much a satire on society as it is on literature in general.
Shit Cassandra Saw is a riot of a collection. While not every story hits, I suspect there will be a rotating list of favorites for everyone who reads it, particularly when she touches on historical aspects. Still, this is a solid debut and I definitely could not put it down, breezing through each of the short stories—and they are fairly short—with a smile on my face. Sharp, comically cynical and full of glorious rage, this is a good time.
3.75/5