A review by jasonfurman
Break It Down by Lydia Davis
4.0
A really fascinating collection of short stories. Most of them are very short -- a few pages or in some cases even a paragraph (one of these is pasted below). They are all impeccably written, mostly odd, invariably disorienting with their psychological shifts. Most of them are about relationships, many of them failed. All of them are economical with only a minimum of necessary detail.
But better than a description is to read one of them entitled "What She Knew":
"People did not know what she knew, that she was not really a woman but a man, often a fat man, but more often, probably, an old man. The fact that she was an old man made it hard for her to be a young woman. It was hard for her to talk to a young man, for instance, though the young man was clearly interested in her. She had to ask herself, Why is this young man flirting with this old man?"
But better than a description is to read one of them entitled "What She Knew":
"People did not know what she knew, that she was not really a woman but a man, often a fat man, but more often, probably, an old man. The fact that she was an old man made it hard for her to be a young woman. It was hard for her to talk to a young man, for instance, though the young man was clearly interested in her. She had to ask herself, Why is this young man flirting with this old man?"