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Baby Geisha
"Half ingenuous and half wily, winningly hard to pin down. The result is a kind of everyday fantastic. Dalton nails the Walserian trick of evincing a sincerity nearly indistinguishable from irony. The effect is a poised instability, more uncanny than the magic the stories sometimes describe."
- Bookforum
"Dalton handles her narratives with a deft skill and a keen, distinct, confident voice that never eases up, never ceases to surprise, leaving readers happy to experience her intriguing world up close. Just the way we like it."
- Brooklyn Rail
"[The stories] feel like brilliant sexual fairy tales on drugs. Dalton writes of self-discovery and sex with a knowing humility and humor."
- Interview Magazine
"'Pura Vida,' about an emotionally unavailable journalist on assignment to cover a sloth clinic in Costa Rica, is a standout, its final moment between woman and sloth arriving with breathtaking lightness, like the first flower of spring. Other memorable outings include trips to the Missouri Ozarks ("Wet Look"), the Alps ("Shrub of Emotion"), and the Painted Desert ("Baby Geisha"), with men and women on the verge of, but never quite reaching, psycho-sexual breakthroughs."
- Los Angeles Magazine Critic's Pick
"[ Baby Geisha ] pokes fun, it's satirical, there's an underlying delicious irony to it, and the telling parts are the ones where Dalton coins names, cuts down trees with her paragraphs, gives us just a touch of the absurd... Dalton's skill as a writer, and above all her expertise in choosing words that play into a darker cultural picture--an offsetting of America's natural high!--are not to be missed here."
- Fanzine
Baby Geisha is a collection of thirteen sexually-charged stories that roam from the Coney Island Ferris wheel to the Greek Isles.
True to Trinie Dalton's form, the stories in Baby Geisha are distinctly imagined while also representing a more grounded approach in the author's style. There's the Joan Didion-obsessed starving journalist of "Pura Vida," struggling to maintain a relationship with her performance artist sisters (or anyone, for that matter), on assignment in Costa Rica to write an article on sloth-hugging. "Millennium Chill" is about a woman who discovers that her body heat is mysteriously linked to that of an elderly beggar.
Baby Geisha serves to support Dalton's reputation as a remarkable stylist and a very original artist.
- Bookforum
"Dalton handles her narratives with a deft skill and a keen, distinct, confident voice that never eases up, never ceases to surprise, leaving readers happy to experience her intriguing world up close. Just the way we like it."
- Brooklyn Rail
"[The stories] feel like brilliant sexual fairy tales on drugs. Dalton writes of self-discovery and sex with a knowing humility and humor."
- Interview Magazine
"'Pura Vida,' about an emotionally unavailable journalist on assignment to cover a sloth clinic in Costa Rica, is a standout, its final moment between woman and sloth arriving with breathtaking lightness, like the first flower of spring. Other memorable outings include trips to the Missouri Ozarks ("Wet Look"), the Alps ("Shrub of Emotion"), and the Painted Desert ("Baby Geisha"), with men and women on the verge of, but never quite reaching, psycho-sexual breakthroughs."
- Los Angeles Magazine Critic's Pick
"[ Baby Geisha ] pokes fun, it's satirical, there's an underlying delicious irony to it, and the telling parts are the ones where Dalton coins names, cuts down trees with her paragraphs, gives us just a touch of the absurd... Dalton's skill as a writer, and above all her expertise in choosing words that play into a darker cultural picture--an offsetting of America's natural high!--are not to be missed here."
- Fanzine
Baby Geisha is a collection of thirteen sexually-charged stories that roam from the Coney Island Ferris wheel to the Greek Isles.
True to Trinie Dalton's form, the stories in Baby Geisha are distinctly imagined while also representing a more grounded approach in the author's style. There's the Joan Didion-obsessed starving journalist of "Pura Vida," struggling to maintain a relationship with her performance artist sisters (or anyone, for that matter), on assignment in Costa Rica to write an article on sloth-hugging. "Millennium Chill" is about a woman who discovers that her body heat is mysteriously linked to that of an elderly beggar.
Baby Geisha serves to support Dalton's reputation as a remarkable stylist and a very original artist.
162 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
2 people are currently reading
389 people want to read
About the author
Trinie Dalton
22 books26 followersTrinie Dalton is an author, editor, and curator based in Los Angeles. She teaches creative writing.
She received a BA in creative writing and poetry from University of Southern California and an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars. She has taught at Columbia University, Bard College, Milton Avery Graduate School, Vermont College of Fine Arts, University of Southern California, Dornsife School of Liberal Arts, English Department Art Center College of Design, NYU, Steinhardt Department of Art and Art Professions, and Pratt Institute, Writing for Performance, Publication, and Media Department.
Trinie Dalton is the editor of “Mythtym,” a new anthology of essays, fiction and artwork which includes the writing of Dodie Bellamy, Amy Gerstler, and Rachel Kushner among others.
Trinie Dalton is known for making handmade publications of her books and including participatory elements of her projects.
Her book Wide Eyed (Akashic) was a finalist for the Believer Magazine book award.
She received a BA in creative writing and poetry from University of Southern California and an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars. She has taught at Columbia University, Bard College, Milton Avery Graduate School, Vermont College of Fine Arts, University of Southern California, Dornsife School of Liberal Arts, English Department Art Center College of Design, NYU, Steinhardt Department of Art and Art Professions, and Pratt Institute, Writing for Performance, Publication, and Media Department.
Trinie Dalton is the editor of “Mythtym,” a new anthology of essays, fiction and artwork which includes the writing of Dodie Bellamy, Amy Gerstler, and Rachel Kushner among others.
Trinie Dalton is known for making handmade publications of her books and including participatory elements of her projects.
Her book Wide Eyed (Akashic) was a finalist for the Believer Magazine book award.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
April 12, 2013
from NOÖ [14]:
Read this mostly waiting for buses in Baltimore. A man came up and said he was going to vomit. I told him there was a hospital up the street. He said “Yeah, there’s a CVS too and a motherfucking baseball stadi—” and then he vomited. Reading Baby Geisha is like meeting two people in bathing suits high on peyote at an In-And-Burger in Laurel Canyon, and you become best friends with them for one night until you realize they’ve been lying to you the whole time. These stories flip a panel under the world and adjust the RGB levels. I can’t tell the difference between the way reading “Scarlet Gilia” feels (“If it doesn’t hurt, I’m lost”) and the way it feels to learn to sing exactly like someone you love.
Read this mostly waiting for buses in Baltimore. A man came up and said he was going to vomit. I told him there was a hospital up the street. He said “Yeah, there’s a CVS too and a motherfucking baseball stadi—” and then he vomited. Reading Baby Geisha is like meeting two people in bathing suits high on peyote at an In-And-Burger in Laurel Canyon, and you become best friends with them for one night until you realize they’ve been lying to you the whole time. These stories flip a panel under the world and adjust the RGB levels. I can’t tell the difference between the way reading “Scarlet Gilia” feels (“If it doesn’t hurt, I’m lost”) and the way it feels to learn to sing exactly like someone you love.
December 26, 2011
Review copy from publisher
Read 12/10/11 - 12/26/11
3 Stars - Recommended to established fans of Indie Short Stories / Not as an intro book to Two Dollar Radio
Pgs: 144
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio
Release Date: Jan 2012
As a fan of independent literature, I find myself interestingly torn when it comes to the indie short story collection. Not one to sway undecided on the boundary of love or hate, I tend to have extremely strong feelings one way or the other once I finish reading them.
Baby Geisha, of course, refused to be a love it or hate it collection. It merrily bounced me back and forth over the fence, enticing me one moment - "oh, I love this!" - and turning me off the next - "wtf was that?!". I had the impression that Trinie Dalton's story collection actually enjoyed twisting my emotions like that. What a tease!
When I think about the book as a whole, certain moments within the collection pop into my head. The turtle kicking incident that takes place in the opening story Wet Look. Or the trip a woman and her terminally ill dog take up to Rip Van Winkle's residence in Escape Mushroom Style. Or the algae infested waters of a river where the self titled Perverted Hobo decorates the trees and bushes with women's panties. But these moments are disembodied... seemingly unattached to the stories they belong to. They float somewhere above the collection, tethered to it loosely, as if those moments are trying to outrun the stories they live in... to leave the rest of their words behind. Or perhaps, those moments I recall most clearly are simply too big to remain within the stories in which they were born?
Many of the stories have this elusive, slippery quality to them. They seem to dance just out of reach. Their meanings sit right on the periphery of your vision, you can sense it... you catch sidelong glances of it... but if you attempt to look at it head-on, it escapes you. Like the bodies of water that find themselves in the background of many of Trinie's stories, there is a sort of ebb and flow that lives within her words.
While Baby Geisha may have failed to make me love it completely, there were moments of sheer beauty within its stories that will stick with me for a long time to come.
Read 12/10/11 - 12/26/11
3 Stars - Recommended to established fans of Indie Short Stories / Not as an intro book to Two Dollar Radio
Pgs: 144
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio
Release Date: Jan 2012
As a fan of independent literature, I find myself interestingly torn when it comes to the indie short story collection. Not one to sway undecided on the boundary of love or hate, I tend to have extremely strong feelings one way or the other once I finish reading them.
Baby Geisha, of course, refused to be a love it or hate it collection. It merrily bounced me back and forth over the fence, enticing me one moment - "oh, I love this!" - and turning me off the next - "wtf was that?!". I had the impression that Trinie Dalton's story collection actually enjoyed twisting my emotions like that. What a tease!
When I think about the book as a whole, certain moments within the collection pop into my head. The turtle kicking incident that takes place in the opening story Wet Look. Or the trip a woman and her terminally ill dog take up to Rip Van Winkle's residence in Escape Mushroom Style. Or the algae infested waters of a river where the self titled Perverted Hobo decorates the trees and bushes with women's panties. But these moments are disembodied... seemingly unattached to the stories they belong to. They float somewhere above the collection, tethered to it loosely, as if those moments are trying to outrun the stories they live in... to leave the rest of their words behind. Or perhaps, those moments I recall most clearly are simply too big to remain within the stories in which they were born?
Many of the stories have this elusive, slippery quality to them. They seem to dance just out of reach. Their meanings sit right on the periphery of your vision, you can sense it... you catch sidelong glances of it... but if you attempt to look at it head-on, it escapes you. Like the bodies of water that find themselves in the background of many of Trinie's stories, there is a sort of ebb and flow that lives within her words.
While Baby Geisha may have failed to make me love it completely, there were moments of sheer beauty within its stories that will stick with me for a long time to come.
November 27, 2019
The best dive into magical fiction out there.
July 21, 2024
Lost me at the end.
April 25, 2020
A collection of short stories that range from the bizarre to the even more bizarre. Never boring. Well crafted in language and detail. Each story is different; humorous, tragic, quirky, and insightful. Even the mundane occurrences evoke interest. Baby Geisha is your "go to" book during these days of COVID-19 quarantine.
Read
March 25, 2017I liked the story about Joan Didion-idolizing reporter on assignment communing with South American sloths that soothe humans.
August 5, 2019
3.5 and hard to rate because it was a mix of 4-5 star and 1-2 star pieces.
A sort of fun, kitschy, feminist, eccentric, ironic, pop culture-drug-&-sex-fueled, highly self-aware and brilliant book.
Top pieces were:
Jackpot (I) - honeymoon jealousy
Word Salad - vignettes made of sharp and wonderful lines
Instead of letting the landscape blur into green hilly strips, I focus my eyes on specific bloomers, following them the whole split second they're in my view. This is how I hunt flowers while driving. (46)
I have the urge to walk slowly back and forth through this rainbow tunnel of textiles, huffing colour. (49)
Hairpin Scorpion - camping while high
Baby Geisha - on sex, relationships, and the desire for children
Shrub of Emotion - about a marijuana plant that speaks
Wet Look, Millenium Chill, and The Sad Drag Monologues in their entirety (though some, like Orange and Scarlet Gilia, were better than others) were worth reading. The rest kind of sucked, or and least, didn't work for me.
A sort of fun, kitschy, feminist, eccentric, ironic, pop culture-drug-&-sex-fueled, highly self-aware and brilliant book.
Top pieces were:
Jackpot (I) - honeymoon jealousy
Word Salad - vignettes made of sharp and wonderful lines
Instead of letting the landscape blur into green hilly strips, I focus my eyes on specific bloomers, following them the whole split second they're in my view. This is how I hunt flowers while driving. (46)
I have the urge to walk slowly back and forth through this rainbow tunnel of textiles, huffing colour. (49)
Hairpin Scorpion - camping while high
Baby Geisha - on sex, relationships, and the desire for children
Shrub of Emotion - about a marijuana plant that speaks
Wet Look, Millenium Chill, and The Sad Drag Monologues in their entirety (though some, like Orange and Scarlet Gilia, were better than others) were worth reading. The rest kind of sucked, or and least, didn't work for me.
July 30, 2017
"I've spent this last year apologizing and confessing. Just like how I write stories now, in poetic free verse, as if sentences are too decadent. All those words. Parse it down; you talk too much. I hope I have the flesh left to tidy these sentences up in the future, so I can call myself a storywriter instead of a poser poet, so I can call myself an author instead of a skeleton."
Some of these stories were pretty weird, but overall, I think Trinie Dalton has strong control the short story/flash fiction form. She has a way of twisting the story in unexpected directions, transforming your understanding of it and undermining your expectations from start to finish. Short stories aren't usually my thing, but I enjoyed this collection.
Some of these stories were pretty weird, but overall, I think Trinie Dalton has strong control the short story/flash fiction form. She has a way of twisting the story in unexpected directions, transforming your understanding of it and undermining your expectations from start to finish. Short stories aren't usually my thing, but I enjoyed this collection.
March 6, 2022
3.5 stars
“Fake fiction is fiction that’s forgotten fiction and poetry are siblings.”
Reading this book, my first foray into Two Dollar Radio’s catalogue, definitely challenged my preconceived notions of fiction. Even the final “Sad Drag Monologues,” which I did not enjoy, at least had some merit in that they playfully tugged my imagination in ways I do not expect it to go. Overall, I enjoyed this book for the most part; my only complaint is that Dalton seemed to wrap up her stories a bit too nicely, explaining away endings rather than putting in more work to show rather than tell. Then again, perhaps this book works by subverting the traditional writing rules rather than adhering to them. Who am I to say?
FAVORITE STORY: “Wet Look”
“Fake fiction is fiction that’s forgotten fiction and poetry are siblings.”
Reading this book, my first foray into Two Dollar Radio’s catalogue, definitely challenged my preconceived notions of fiction. Even the final “Sad Drag Monologues,” which I did not enjoy, at least had some merit in that they playfully tugged my imagination in ways I do not expect it to go. Overall, I enjoyed this book for the most part; my only complaint is that Dalton seemed to wrap up her stories a bit too nicely, explaining away endings rather than putting in more work to show rather than tell. Then again, perhaps this book works by subverting the traditional writing rules rather than adhering to them. Who am I to say?
FAVORITE STORY: “Wet Look”
July 6, 2025
collection of short stories, i was intrigued by the cover and the title. It was provocative and strange but fascinating. they were all written with very intentional wording choices and phrases that were very descriptive (in untraditional ways)
February 21, 2022
Two stars for the overall book, but I really loved the story Pura Vida, about the wanna-be Didion journalist who does a story about sloths. That story is 4 stars.
March 16, 2025
I enjoyed the varying lengths of the short stories in this collection. Some pieces like "Word Salad" really pushed the boundaries of what a short story is, which was frustrating for me at first but which I grew to appreciate as I continued reading. My favorites were "War Foods" and "Pura Vida" which both felt very relevant at the moment, with an honorable mention to "Orange."
May 1, 2012
such teasing sexy stories that slip away just as you think you see them, on to the next, and next. one group is even illustrated, in the set "the sad drag monologues". here is the first lines of the first story in that "the sad drag monologues", "small time spender":
"Ive noticed a new austerity floating around town like the ghost cocaine left behind. Austerity: eat the organic raw honey sparingly! Don't overdo that boutique goat cheese that roars at you like a lion from the fridge, Cheese up in here, bitch, eat me! Like what, you don't have an unlimited cheese budget? You don't drive around in your Porsche macking cave-aged gruyere? I'm over it. I'll live in the cave without cheese. I subsist on stardust now. Oh yeah, I lived on stardust back in the day. Wait, specify stardust: uppers or enlightened matter? In my new austere world I'm referring to the holy stuff, that which we consist of even though we think we're separate entities.........."
"Ive noticed a new austerity floating around town like the ghost cocaine left behind. Austerity: eat the organic raw honey sparingly! Don't overdo that boutique goat cheese that roars at you like a lion from the fridge, Cheese up in here, bitch, eat me! Like what, you don't have an unlimited cheese budget? You don't drive around in your Porsche macking cave-aged gruyere? I'm over it. I'll live in the cave without cheese. I subsist on stardust now. Oh yeah, I lived on stardust back in the day. Wait, specify stardust: uppers or enlightened matter? In my new austere world I'm referring to the holy stuff, that which we consist of even though we think we're separate entities.........."
September 25, 2016
I gave this a 4 instead of a 5 because I didn't like the monologues at the end. I don't know why it just didn't do anything for me. But the short stories are stellar – quirky and humorous in some areas, grounded and heartbreaking in others.
October 10, 2012
two stars sounds negative. but i really thought what the pop-up says when you hover over it: it was ok.
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July 20, 2012Check out a free preview of a story from Baby Geisha in the Bookslinger app!
September 19, 2015
I love short stories but collections always vary widely in their appeal. Some of these stories were charming, funny and strange, and some just didn't hold my interest at all.
February 22, 2015
My favorites were 'Pura Vida' and the series of monologues at the end.
July 18, 2016
I found myself saying "What the fuck?" - aloud- while reading several of these stories. But sometimes you need that.
September 10, 2014
Ms Dalton is a great genius.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews