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Damn Sure Right
Damn Sure Right, the "wonderful, dark, unforgiving" (Frederick Barthelme) debut by Meg Pokrass, "conveys entire worlds that are touching, haunting, funny, moving, and strange in the most beautiful ways" (Jessica Anya Blau). "The brew master of flash" (Sean Lovelace), Pokrass writes "like a brain looking for a body" (Frederick Barthelme), making her the "new monarch of the delightful and enigmatic tiny kingdom of mirco- and flash fiction" (Brad Watson). This collection of eighty-four tales is sure to "ruin your waking hours the way you'll want them ruined" (Kyle Minor).
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
184 pages, Paperback
First published February 6, 2011
5 people are currently reading
122 people want to read
About the author
Meg Pokrass
24 books93 followersMEG POKRASS is the author of "Bird Envy" (bestseller at the Harvard Bookstore, April, 2014) "Here, Where We Live" a novella-in-flash (Rose Metal Press, 2014) and "Damn Sure Right (Press 53, 2011) about which Frederick Barthelme said "Meg Pokrass writes like a brain looking for a body. Wonderful, dark, unforgiving."
Her stories appear in over 200 literary journals and continue to be widely anthologized, most recently in "Flash Fiction International" (W.W.Norton, 2015).
Pokrass' publications include Green Mountains Review, McSweeney's, Green Mountains Review, The Rumpus, PANK, Smokelong Quarterly, Mississippi Review, MidAmerican Review, NANO Fiction, 100-Word Story, The Literarian, storySouth, Failbetter, Gigantic. Meg's humor pieces, co-written with author Bobbie Ann Mason, have recently been showcased in TNB Original Fiction.
She is a multiple Pushcart nominee and her stories have been showcased for Dzanc Books’ Short Story Month and nominated for Best of the Web, Best of the Net, and Wigleaf’s Top 50 [Very] Short Fictions. Meg currently serves as an associate editor for Frederick Barthelme’s New World Writing.
Her stories appear in over 200 literary journals and continue to be widely anthologized, most recently in "Flash Fiction International" (W.W.Norton, 2015).
Pokrass' publications include Green Mountains Review, McSweeney's, Green Mountains Review, The Rumpus, PANK, Smokelong Quarterly, Mississippi Review, MidAmerican Review, NANO Fiction, 100-Word Story, The Literarian, storySouth, Failbetter, Gigantic. Meg's humor pieces, co-written with author Bobbie Ann Mason, have recently been showcased in TNB Original Fiction.
She is a multiple Pushcart nominee and her stories have been showcased for Dzanc Books’ Short Story Month and nominated for Best of the Web, Best of the Net, and Wigleaf’s Top 50 [Very] Short Fictions. Meg currently serves as an associate editor for Frederick Barthelme’s New World Writing.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 27, 2011
Damn Sure Great. Truly. Pokrass has solidified her status as one of the best flash fiction writers around. It's a voluminous volume, about 100 flash stories, and I was continually astounded by their originality. I kept asking myself, how could so many different stories exist in one head? I love that they don't all have the same voice, either. She is able to match her writing to her characters. And many of the stories contain some of the best lines I've ever read in contemporary fiction. Hard-hitting lines. Poetic lines. "We swallowed bits of oceans each morning before opening the windows." Bam, that line hit me hard, as a final line she builds to in "Irina's Hair Shop." Open to any page, and you'll find something spectacular. Impossible to have favorites, but "The Chubb Illusion," about a woman with a special needs child, was handled so quietly and deftly, it broke my heart. In just two pages. Another winner from Press 53.
March 5, 2014
Meg's characters float through this world looking to reach out, but always somehow not quite getting the hang of it. This would be very sad if Pokgrass weren't also one of the funniest writers around. Then there are a few points in DSR where she gets the exact right balance of humor and pathos to grasp something bigger than me, you, or any of her characters. I'm talking about stories like "Pounds Across America" and "Them" that do that Chekhovian thing at the end where, just for a moment, everything suspends on the precipice where all hearts hover.
April 29, 2011
Pow! It's Meg Pokrass Flash Fiction!
DAMN SURE RIGHT is a collection of quickies that are better designed moments of fiction than most writers spend pages and pages developing. Each of this at times single page stories, at times 2-3 page stories find a fascinating little detail to explore, a snatch of a story told with carved sentences that create atmosphere not unlike those little snow scenes you shake and watch your own story develop until the mechanical snow settles at the bottom.
A lot of the themes (if that is what label we can use to dot the i and cross the t as fast as Pokrass can) involve little encounters - 'Brain Chemistry' floats a scene between two girls whose attractions can be quickly altered by Jim Beam before the truths come out; 'Freaky Forty' tersely defines a man who bakes, stands naked on his head for yoga exercises, and uses Botox; 'Foreign Accent Syndrome' revisits two girls after a year's absence; 'Scraps' gives in a few words an indescribably touching mother/daughter relationship. It just goes on and on. Pokrass is not only a genius for finding little atoms of life to poke but she does it with such dexterity that every now and then the reader has to look up form this terrific little book and simply say 'Wow!' More please.
Grady Harp
DAMN SURE RIGHT is a collection of quickies that are better designed moments of fiction than most writers spend pages and pages developing. Each of this at times single page stories, at times 2-3 page stories find a fascinating little detail to explore, a snatch of a story told with carved sentences that create atmosphere not unlike those little snow scenes you shake and watch your own story develop until the mechanical snow settles at the bottom.
A lot of the themes (if that is what label we can use to dot the i and cross the t as fast as Pokrass can) involve little encounters - 'Brain Chemistry' floats a scene between two girls whose attractions can be quickly altered by Jim Beam before the truths come out; 'Freaky Forty' tersely defines a man who bakes, stands naked on his head for yoga exercises, and uses Botox; 'Foreign Accent Syndrome' revisits two girls after a year's absence; 'Scraps' gives in a few words an indescribably touching mother/daughter relationship. It just goes on and on. Pokrass is not only a genius for finding little atoms of life to poke but she does it with such dexterity that every now and then the reader has to look up form this terrific little book and simply say 'Wow!' More please.
Grady Harp
March 15, 2011
I would recommend this book to just about anyone... The short fiction snipits in this book are moving, depressing, provacative, and often times abstract. The author vividly deomonstrates her characters' thoughts and actions in such an interesting and luring way. She does an excellent job of explaining the thoughts behind awkward situations and ups and downs that people go through in life. This is a fiction book but all these stories can very well be "real."
I was slightly skeptical when I began reading this book, but now I know why the reviews of this book were so great and the author has won so many awards. I was really pulled into these short stories and just as quickly, it was on to the next! The stories were intersting and risque at times.. great book!
I was slightly skeptical when I began reading this book, but now I know why the reviews of this book were so great and the author has won so many awards. I was really pulled into these short stories and just as quickly, it was on to the next! The stories were intersting and risque at times.. great book!
February 27, 2011
Damn sure good. Whiskey made of blood, cut with crushed thigh slap. It glow. IF you are serious about flash, read this book.
March 20, 2011
A master of flash, Pokrass never fails to excite with this collection. These stories always deliver - a huge punch.
March 20, 2011
Brilliant, brilliant stuff!
Want to read
March 23, 2011as it's got 0 pages i might read this pretty quickly
September 17, 2024
Damn Sure Right reads like a literary peep show—grimy, dark, libidinous, and occasionally hilarious. Whole worlds spring briefly into view and then vanish, leaving the reader scrambling to stuff more tokens into the slot. Your heart aches for these characters who emerge with such sharp focus in so few sentences. You root for them. You feel like you know them—or are them.
April 11, 2013
Meg Pokrass is the queen of flash fiction. Her stories are fresh, original, never clichéd, loaded with quiet symbolism that increases in significance on rereading. At her best, Meg has the uncanny ability to make you feel you've read a complete novel or memoir in a few hundred words. Some of her stories seem too lightweight to matter, but more often she nails an emotion, a mood, a character flaw, even a life, with startling pinpoint accuracy. Her stories "begin in the middle," as a character talking to the reader, and go places you'd never expect. She makes other flash fiction writers look like gimmicky showoffs, displaying their cleverness on their sleeves. Meg never does that. Her best stories go straight to the heart and stay there.
The only reason I gave Damn Sure Right four rather than five stars is that they all read like variations on the same character's life. This isn't necessarily bad; it can convey a richness absent in story collections that jump about among characters the writer is at pains to distinguish from one another. The only problem with Pokrass' method is it makes it difficult to read more than a few stories at a sitting. They tend to collapse into one another. Damn Sure Right can sometimes feel like too much of a good thing.
Who is this character? She's invariably female, from young (mid-teens) to that period in life between youth and middle age that has no definition - not quite young any more thirtiesish, one might say. She's a woman who often obsesses about her weight, sometimes lives with family members she finds difficult but for whom she feels affection, is always meeting men who come close to her ideal but somehow miss, either because they don't live up to the character's expectations or because the men themselves are flighty. Pokrass' everywoman has a tendency to fall back on pizza and pasta when things don't quite work out in romance, which is always. Sometimes this character is married, but that doesn't help. She finds her husband boring and tends to lust after the pizza delivery guy or the air conditioner repairman. Pokrass' protagonist can be summed up as forever hopeful even though she's sure nothing's going to work out.
Meg Pokrass teaches flash fiction on the Internet. I told her I'd take her course, and I intend to as soon as my own financial difficulties abate - much like a Meg Pokrass character. I know I can learn a great deal from her. Still, I'd like it to be a little bit two-way. I'd like to be able to coach Meg on how to broaden her range of characters. She seems to center everything she writes on some variation of herself. We all do that. But in her case that character functions in a very narrow range. Not that I think I can teach anything to a writer as accomplished as Meg Pokrass. Still, it might be fun to try...
The only reason I gave Damn Sure Right four rather than five stars is that they all read like variations on the same character's life. This isn't necessarily bad; it can convey a richness absent in story collections that jump about among characters the writer is at pains to distinguish from one another. The only problem with Pokrass' method is it makes it difficult to read more than a few stories at a sitting. They tend to collapse into one another. Damn Sure Right can sometimes feel like too much of a good thing.
Who is this character? She's invariably female, from young (mid-teens) to that period in life between youth and middle age that has no definition - not quite young any more thirtiesish, one might say. She's a woman who often obsesses about her weight, sometimes lives with family members she finds difficult but for whom she feels affection, is always meeting men who come close to her ideal but somehow miss, either because they don't live up to the character's expectations or because the men themselves are flighty. Pokrass' everywoman has a tendency to fall back on pizza and pasta when things don't quite work out in romance, which is always. Sometimes this character is married, but that doesn't help. She finds her husband boring and tends to lust after the pizza delivery guy or the air conditioner repairman. Pokrass' protagonist can be summed up as forever hopeful even though she's sure nothing's going to work out.
Meg Pokrass teaches flash fiction on the Internet. I told her I'd take her course, and I intend to as soon as my own financial difficulties abate - much like a Meg Pokrass character. I know I can learn a great deal from her. Still, I'd like it to be a little bit two-way. I'd like to be able to coach Meg on how to broaden her range of characters. She seems to center everything she writes on some variation of herself. We all do that. But in her case that character functions in a very narrow range. Not that I think I can teach anything to a writer as accomplished as Meg Pokrass. Still, it might be fun to try...
February 26, 2017
I just finished reading "Damn Sure Right," by Meg Pokrass--as is my habit, drawn from a tottering column of books on my night table, including something by Shirley Jackson and an abridged version of Robert Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy." Her stories are sheer delight etched on the page in crisp prose, snippets of sometimes poignant, sometimes painful reality expertly spliced together to elicit hilarity, hiccups, hijinx, healing and a frenetic enlightenment, i.e. wisdom with a giggle.
December 14, 2012
am going to write a longer review of this for something, somewhere. will holler back. (it's just too good not to and i want to make a list of my favorite stories/lines.) but quickly i will say that this book kinda made me feel like i was eating...like in a good way. devouring something delicious. and i'll also say that i love her ability to create these little stories...these snowglobes packed and packed with so many perfect little intimate details...insular...exciting and surprising. these stories are sad and peculiar and sweet and everything. and now i trust her.
July 24, 2012
Amazing little stories. The writing is inspiring, and inspired. These flash pieces will draw you in with an image, make you laugh with a turn of phrase, and then rip your heart out with a killer last line. Like really good dark chocolate, they're best savored in small bites, but I dare you to take just one.
March 17, 2014
it is a common conceit, this whole life, flashing before your eyes...when in fact it's a partial life that borrows heavily. the best flash fiction knows this. I've heard it leveled at, or lobbed in the vicinity of, flash fiction that anyone can do it. Pokrass makes one think that only one person can do it, and that the person in question, is. great book.
February 17, 2012
Meg Pokrass is the best flash fiction writer on the planet. No one comes close. This volume is a must read for any lover of short fiction.
July 11, 2012
There is a lot to learn from here--some very tight endings. Subtle details of character that do a lot of work.
September 11, 2012
I really dig this book. Press 53 is pretty solid.
December 24, 2012
Meg Pokrass is a master of flash fiction. Her insight is remarkably dead on and she imparts her understanding in spare, compelling prose.
July 31, 2013
This book is perfect.
July 22, 2013
See my review at Books at Fictionaut, 2012.
May 1, 2017
Oh boy, if you are thinking about reading this and you are new to Meg Pokrass' writing - you are in for a real treat.
I normally find a few favourite stories in any decent short stories collection. For this one - it was hard for me to find any that were not.
Each story is a gem, some of them I loved so much I had to re-read them and, now that I've finished the book, it looks like some of them will need to be re-read again.
I tried to drag out finishing this collection, to enjoy it just that little bit longer. Luckily, it looks like there are a few more out. So - The Dog Looks Happy Upside Down is in the post on its way to me!
Needless to say I am very much looking forward to reading it, now that I am completely and utterly hooked.
I normally find a few favourite stories in any decent short stories collection. For this one - it was hard for me to find any that were not.
Each story is a gem, some of them I loved so much I had to re-read them and, now that I've finished the book, it looks like some of them will need to be re-read again.
I tried to drag out finishing this collection, to enjoy it just that little bit longer. Luckily, it looks like there are a few more out. So - The Dog Looks Happy Upside Down is in the post on its way to me!
Needless to say I am very much looking forward to reading it, now that I am completely and utterly hooked.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews