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The Whore's Child and Other Stories
With a fluency of tone that will surprise even his devoted readers these short stories capture both bewildering horror and heartrending tenderness with an absorbing, compassionate authority.
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling Empire Falls—also named the year's best novel by Time—Richard Russo now focuses, in his first book of short fiction, on a fresh and fascinating range of human behavior. With a fluency of tone that will surprise even his devoted readers, he captures both bewildering horror and heartrending tenderness with an absorbing, compassionate authority.
We warm to these newcomers—as to all Russo's characters—almost despite ourselves. A jaded Hollywood moviemaker uncovers a decades-old flame he never knew he'd harbored. A precocious fifth grader puzzles over life, love and baseball as he watches his parents' marriage dissolve. Another child is forced into a harrowing cross-country escape whose actual purpose he learns only after the fact. An elderly couple rediscovers the power, and the misery, of their relationship during a long-awaited retreat to a resort island. And in the title story, a septuagenarian nun invades the narrator's college writing workshop with an incredible saga.
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling Empire Falls—also named the year's best novel by Time—Richard Russo now focuses, in his first book of short fiction, on a fresh and fascinating range of human behavior. With a fluency of tone that will surprise even his devoted readers, he captures both bewildering horror and heartrending tenderness with an absorbing, compassionate authority.
We warm to these newcomers—as to all Russo's characters—almost despite ourselves. A jaded Hollywood moviemaker uncovers a decades-old flame he never knew he'd harbored. A precocious fifth grader puzzles over life, love and baseball as he watches his parents' marriage dissolve. Another child is forced into a harrowing cross-country escape whose actual purpose he learns only after the fact. An elderly couple rediscovers the power, and the misery, of their relationship during a long-awaited retreat to a resort island. And in the title story, a septuagenarian nun invades the narrator's college writing workshop with an incredible saga.
240 pages, Paperback
First published July 9, 2002
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About the author
Richard Russo
64 books4,788 followersRICHARD RUSSO is the author of seven previous novels; two collections of stories; and Elsewhere, a memoir. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody’s Fool was adapted to film, in a multiple-award-winning HBO miniseries.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 392 reviews
December 20, 2020
Russo es uno de esos escritores, Yates sería otro ejemplo, que consigue sacar oro de la anodina vida de personas sin atractivo, que gusta de indagar en las vidas corrientes de la gente que en algún momento descubre lo fuerte que era el vendaval que les empujó al puerto en el que ahora se encuentran, al que nunca posiblemente habrían pensado dirigirse y al que quizás era inevitable que se dirigieran.
“Posiblemente”, “quizás”, sí, porque estamos ante unos relatos, unos trocitos de vida, con personajes a los que no acabamos de abarcar del todo, abiertos, lo que para nada quiere decir difusos. Relatos que nos muestran cómo también en la realidad, y en palabras de uno de los protagonistas de estas historias, es del todo punto absurdo pretender conocer la vida de cualquier persona, a lo que yo añado: incluida la de nosotros mismos.
A todos los personajes que protagonizan los siete fantásticos cuentos que componen este libro… bueno, fantásticos 6, o 5 si me apuran un poco, se les revela alguna verdad importante sobre sus vidas o sobre la vida de alguien cercano a ellos o ambas cosas al tiempo. Desde esa monja del primero de los relatos que en un taller de escritura descubre lo que hasta entonces se había negado a sí misma y que condicionó su vida entera, pasando por el viudo que revive a su mujer en los ojos de aquel que fue el amante de ella durante años, o de ese hijo que confronta con su madre versiones muy distintas de lo que fue la escapada que hicieron juntos cuando él era todavía un niño, o aquel que vuelve con su pareja a aquella isla después de que por todos ellos pasara un huracán, o hasta ese otro niño, a punto de dejar de serlo, que se enfrenta a la sospecha de que el mundo sigue girando, de que la vida de los demás continúa, aun cuando él no esté presente. Y en todos los cuentos nos quedamos con enormes ganas de saber qué pasa después, como continúa esa nueva vida o esa que seguirá siendo sin remedio una vida antigua. No se puede decir nada mejor acerca de un cuento, creo yo.
“Posiblemente”, “quizás”, sí, porque estamos ante unos relatos, unos trocitos de vida, con personajes a los que no acabamos de abarcar del todo, abiertos, lo que para nada quiere decir difusos. Relatos que nos muestran cómo también en la realidad, y en palabras de uno de los protagonistas de estas historias, es del todo punto absurdo pretender conocer la vida de cualquier persona, a lo que yo añado: incluida la de nosotros mismos.
A todos los personajes que protagonizan los siete fantásticos cuentos que componen este libro… bueno, fantásticos 6, o 5 si me apuran un poco, se les revela alguna verdad importante sobre sus vidas o sobre la vida de alguien cercano a ellos o ambas cosas al tiempo. Desde esa monja del primero de los relatos que en un taller de escritura descubre lo que hasta entonces se había negado a sí misma y que condicionó su vida entera, pasando por el viudo que revive a su mujer en los ojos de aquel que fue el amante de ella durante años, o de ese hijo que confronta con su madre versiones muy distintas de lo que fue la escapada que hicieron juntos cuando él era todavía un niño, o aquel que vuelve con su pareja a aquella isla después de que por todos ellos pasara un huracán, o hasta ese otro niño, a punto de dejar de serlo, que se enfrenta a la sospecha de que el mundo sigue girando, de que la vida de los demás continúa, aun cuando él no esté presente. Y en todos los cuentos nos quedamos con enormes ganas de saber qué pasa después, como continúa esa nueva vida o esa que seguirá siendo sin remedio una vida antigua. No se puede decir nada mejor acerca de un cuento, creo yo.
January 31, 2021
Short story collection consisted of 7 stories. Some of the stories were good, some were meh, and one was very good. Fortunately, that very good story was the last one I read, so that l closed off the book on a high note. I want to read his ‘Empire Falls’ which garnered Russo a Pulitzer Prize in 2002. Sometimes it takes me a while to get to a book…like 19 years. 🙃
As for this collection the one I liked to the most was ‘The Mysteries of Linwood Hart’ [5 stars]. About a 10-year-old boy being aware of the world around him and at the beginning of the story he was very egocentric as if the world revolved around him, and at the end of the story he was aware that the world got along fine with or without him. Throughout it all he seemed like a good kid.
There were some stories where I felt the writing was contrived…anyhoo here are the stories and where they were originally published. The story above appears to have been first published in this collection, while the others had been published previously, mostly in periodicals.
• The Whore’s Child—Harpers, February 1998 [3.5 stars]
• Monhegan Light—Esquire, August 2001 [2.5 stars]
• The Farther You Go—Shenandoah [3 stars], Russo later developed the characters into the 1997 novel Straight Man.
• Joy Ride—Meridian, Fall 1998 [3 stars]
• Buoyancy, High infidelity 24 Great Short Stories About Adultery by Some of Our Best Contemporary Authors. Publisher: William Morrow & Company, 1998) [2.5 stars]
• Poison, Kiosk, xx [1 star]
• The Mysteries of Linwood Hart [5 stars]
Reviews:
• Good review to read! https://www.irishtimes.com/news/from-...
• https://story366blog.wordpress.com/20...
• https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/14/bo...
As for this collection the one I liked to the most was ‘The Mysteries of Linwood Hart’ [5 stars]. About a 10-year-old boy being aware of the world around him and at the beginning of the story he was very egocentric as if the world revolved around him, and at the end of the story he was aware that the world got along fine with or without him. Throughout it all he seemed like a good kid.
There were some stories where I felt the writing was contrived…anyhoo here are the stories and where they were originally published. The story above appears to have been first published in this collection, while the others had been published previously, mostly in periodicals.
• The Whore’s Child—Harpers, February 1998 [3.5 stars]
• Monhegan Light—Esquire, August 2001 [2.5 stars]
• The Farther You Go—Shenandoah [3 stars], Russo later developed the characters into the 1997 novel Straight Man.
• Joy Ride—Meridian, Fall 1998 [3 stars]
• Buoyancy, High infidelity 24 Great Short Stories About Adultery by Some of Our Best Contemporary Authors. Publisher: William Morrow & Company, 1998) [2.5 stars]
• Poison, Kiosk, xx [1 star]
• The Mysteries of Linwood Hart [5 stars]
Reviews:
• Good review to read! https://www.irishtimes.com/news/from-...
• https://story366blog.wordpress.com/20...
• https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/14/bo...
April 5, 2022
After starting this collection, I breathed a sigh of relief. So wonderful to be in Russo's skilled hands! There are no writerly blunders or experiments here. These are solid stories about everyday life that are pure enjoyment to read.
November 1, 2016
Richard Russo, once a teacher of writing himself, opens his debut collection of short stories, The Whore’s Child, in familiar territory: the classroom. Sister Ursula, who is “nearly as big as a linebacker,” deposits herself in the narrator’s advanced writing workshop, uninvited and unregistered. Despite the professor’s insistence that she write fiction -- “In this class we actually prefer a well-told lie,” he tells her -- she submits for the class’s consideration several hefty installments of rock-pure memoir.
She patted my hand, as you might the hand of a child. “Never you mind,” she then assured me, adjusting her wimple for the journey home. “My whole life has been a lie.”
“I’m sure you don’t mean that,” I told her.
But of course she did. Sister Ursula is constitutionally incapable of writing what is not true. On the other hand, she is equally incapable of seeing clearly what she writes—and this is what provides Russo’s story, if not the nun’s, the thrum of good fiction.
In a post-modern and un-Russo-like twist, “The Whore’s Child” is both the perfect short story and the blueprint for such a story. As the professor summarizes Sister Ursula’s bitter and lonely take (he provides only her knife-edged first lines, like “It was my hatred that drew me deeper into the Church”), we also hear the class’s response. It is in this unlikely arena, marked by PC angst and academic jargon, that Sister Ursula discovers a secret she has been hiding from herself her entire life.
Sister Ursula, we come to understand, is the ideal practitioner of the “well-told lie.”
Russo’s regular beat, it should be said, is men, not nuns, sons, not sisters. Through five fat, summer-perfect novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Empire Falls, the author has explored, with wonderful humor and pathos, that great American, impotent male. From the down-and-out Sully in Nobody’s Fool to the hapless but good-hearted Miles in Empire Falls, Russo’s protagonists are mere skeletons of the 1950s ideal they were weaned on. Where their fathers lived in an age of straightforward, powerful men, they have reached middle age in a time of ironic self-contempt.
Read my full review here: http://bit.ly/2ekvxeA
She patted my hand, as you might the hand of a child. “Never you mind,” she then assured me, adjusting her wimple for the journey home. “My whole life has been a lie.”
“I’m sure you don’t mean that,” I told her.
But of course she did. Sister Ursula is constitutionally incapable of writing what is not true. On the other hand, she is equally incapable of seeing clearly what she writes—and this is what provides Russo’s story, if not the nun’s, the thrum of good fiction.
In a post-modern and un-Russo-like twist, “The Whore’s Child” is both the perfect short story and the blueprint for such a story. As the professor summarizes Sister Ursula’s bitter and lonely take (he provides only her knife-edged first lines, like “It was my hatred that drew me deeper into the Church”), we also hear the class’s response. It is in this unlikely arena, marked by PC angst and academic jargon, that Sister Ursula discovers a secret she has been hiding from herself her entire life.
Sister Ursula, we come to understand, is the ideal practitioner of the “well-told lie.”
Russo’s regular beat, it should be said, is men, not nuns, sons, not sisters. Through five fat, summer-perfect novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Empire Falls, the author has explored, with wonderful humor and pathos, that great American, impotent male. From the down-and-out Sully in Nobody’s Fool to the hapless but good-hearted Miles in Empire Falls, Russo’s protagonists are mere skeletons of the 1950s ideal they were weaned on. Where their fathers lived in an age of straightforward, powerful men, they have reached middle age in a time of ironic self-contempt.
Read my full review here: http://bit.ly/2ekvxeA
July 17, 2016
Someday I want to write this well.
January 13, 2018
Entertaining short stories in Russo's dependable prose. The first two stories are the best of the set. While the writing lacks the continuous stylistic punch of, say, Foer, Russo has his good moments
November 22, 2017
This book of short stories did not live up to my expectations. Although I did find some of the events in some of the stories amusing they were all a little depressing.
All of the characters in the stories were either dissatisfied with their lives, had big regrets, were trying to escape their boredom or were just plain bitter. With every story I was hoping for a twist in the tail, a resolution of the problem or even a happy ending.
I waded through it but found myself looking forward to the end which is never a good thing with a book!
The stories may even be true to life I suppose, we cannot all be happy or have what we want in life but happy things happen and there is always hope, I think that is what was missing from these stories.
May 19, 2019
A great collection of short stories. As always there are some that are better than others but looking at the collection as a whole I think it's great. Russo is great at writing small town America and he writes his characters like actual humans. I could imagine every character very easily and I loved how flawed some of the characters were.
I need to read more of his novels now as I've only read Empire Fall's.
I need to read more of his novels now as I've only read Empire Fall's.
December 6, 2017
Onvan : The Whore's Child and Other Stories - Nevisande : Richard Russo - ISBN : 009943752X - ISBN13 : 9780099437529 - Dar 240 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2002
May 18, 2016
This is an enjoyable collection of stories. I admit I didn't especially care for the title story, which comes first, and made me wonder how the rest of it would go. It involves a bitter, mean-spirited old nun who made me happy I'd never been Catholic. In Monhegan Light is a California couple who visits an island in Maine, where the man's now-deceased wife has summered for years. The Farther You go seems to have been taken from (or was the inspiration for?) his novel Straight Man, and perhaps my favorite of the seven stories.
Joy Ride was told from the viewpoint of a boy (12-year old?) whose mother is leaving his father. They leave early one morning from the east coast and take the small highways west - for her, a "joy" ride. Buoyancy is a retired professor this time and his wife who are now able to visit Martha's Vineyard. I was struck by this one because part of the action takes place near Gay's Head and the Lighthouse. We had just watched a Nova episode about their moving that lighthouse, and I could picture the setting in the story - something I'm often unable to do having lived west of the Mississippi all my life.
The final two stories were about as different from each other as could be. Poison is about two men, now in their 50s, who grew up in a mill town. It's not clear to me where in Russo's background he draws his knowledge/experience of mill towns, but I noted that similarity to his Pulitzer winner, Empire Falls. This story and the novel are alike only in reference to the mill town, but I couldn't help but notice it. The final story is another one of boyhood: the Mysteries of Linwood Hart. Lin Hart is a 10-year old, trying to figure out adults, and life in general, while playing American Legion baseball.
All of these stories have at least some of Russo's particular brand of wit and humor. I don't know if Russo has other short stories tucked away in his files somewhere, but if he does, I wish he'd haul them out.
Joy Ride was told from the viewpoint of a boy (12-year old?) whose mother is leaving his father. They leave early one morning from the east coast and take the small highways west - for her, a "joy" ride. Buoyancy is a retired professor this time and his wife who are now able to visit Martha's Vineyard. I was struck by this one because part of the action takes place near Gay's Head and the Lighthouse. We had just watched a Nova episode about their moving that lighthouse, and I could picture the setting in the story - something I'm often unable to do having lived west of the Mississippi all my life.
The final two stories were about as different from each other as could be. Poison is about two men, now in their 50s, who grew up in a mill town. It's not clear to me where in Russo's background he draws his knowledge/experience of mill towns, but I noted that similarity to his Pulitzer winner, Empire Falls. This story and the novel are alike only in reference to the mill town, but I couldn't help but notice it. The final story is another one of boyhood: the Mysteries of Linwood Hart. Lin Hart is a 10-year old, trying to figure out adults, and life in general, while playing American Legion baseball.
All of these stories have at least some of Russo's particular brand of wit and humor. I don't know if Russo has other short stories tucked away in his files somewhere, but if he does, I wish he'd haul them out.
January 30, 2009
I started to read this book and thought, why does anyone write short stories? why not write a whole novel? Isn't this copping out? And then, in the penultimate story of the book, a character chastises another - isn't writing short stories just cowardice? Isn't it copping out?
I laughed, and enjoyed the dialogue, and realized how utterly playful these short stories were, not only because they played with me.
Russo's a wonderful wordsmith, and he captures characters and places with what appears to be incredible ease. (I'm sure it's actually a long and diffcult process.) The stories share an interest in writing - someone's always writing something, or a writer, or an ex-writer, or a critic of writers - but the stories had great enough variation within them that they didn't feel overly autobiographical. Each story has a different take on love, also - marriages gone sour, marriages made in haste, marriages that are whole and solid and warm, marriages made to God - and since many of the couples in the book are of an age, it makes for a set of fascinating comparisons as a whole.
My favorite story was, I think, the last one, told from the perspective of a ten-year-old boy. Russo gets inside his head so thoroughly, describes a ten-year-old's philosophy of life so well, that I was absolutely enchanted. I could read that story over and over and over again, and still love as well as I did the first time, I think.
I laughed, and enjoyed the dialogue, and realized how utterly playful these short stories were, not only because they played with me.
Russo's a wonderful wordsmith, and he captures characters and places with what appears to be incredible ease. (I'm sure it's actually a long and diffcult process.) The stories share an interest in writing - someone's always writing something, or a writer, or an ex-writer, or a critic of writers - but the stories had great enough variation within them that they didn't feel overly autobiographical. Each story has a different take on love, also - marriages gone sour, marriages made in haste, marriages that are whole and solid and warm, marriages made to God - and since many of the couples in the book are of an age, it makes for a set of fascinating comparisons as a whole.
My favorite story was, I think, the last one, told from the perspective of a ten-year-old boy. Russo gets inside his head so thoroughly, describes a ten-year-old's philosophy of life so well, that I was absolutely enchanted. I could read that story over and over and over again, and still love as well as I did the first time, I think.
December 30, 2017
Mixed bag, a couple of excellent stories between the average ones.
The whore’s child, 4.5 stars
Monhegan Light 3 stars
The Farther You Go 2 stars
Joy Ride 4.5 stars
Buoyancy 1.5 stars
Poison 2 stars
The Mysteries of Linwood Hart 2.5 stars
The whore’s child, 4.5 stars
Monhegan Light 3 stars
The Farther You Go 2 stars
Joy Ride 4.5 stars
Buoyancy 1.5 stars
Poison 2 stars
The Mysteries of Linwood Hart 2.5 stars
January 4, 2009
Wham Bam, another book read in two days. I must say this reading pace is quite satisfying. The book, eh. The first (title story) and last story were both unique and engaging. In between those the stories all seemed to be about middle aged professors and islands. Most of these men don't relate to the women they are with and almost all of them have some scene that involves the male lead character being shocked or worried about their female companion taking off their clothes in public. This was an odd mantra to have repeated over and over and in the end it's quite irritating. She can take her clothes off if she wants to is all I kept thinking.
August 16, 2009
I don't find books - books find me. This book, in fact, is a prime example of the process. I was in BooksAMillion looking through the used library books ($3 each) and saw the name Richard Russo, who I thought (accurately) had won a Pulitzer, so I purchased the book, even though the title had stickers covering it. It was only later, halfway into the book, that I glanced at the spine and realized the title "The Whore's Child" seems designed to titillate... a kind of marketing oversell which, had I known the title, would have put me off from reading the book - the theory being that books (like movies) which depend on special effects or rave reviews (or trick titles) aren't blessed with much substance. I'm glad I hadn't seen the title because I enjoyed this book more than many I've read recently.
A short story, for many writers, is to novels like sketching is to painting for artists. It is a rare master of the craft that can draw a sketch that is a work of art (Picasso and da Vinci come to mind), and it is a very rare writer that can elevate the short story to an art form. I think of Tolstoy, and Raymond Carver, Andre Dubus (the elder) and Faulkner as maestros of the short story. It is sad to realize that these men all share an obvious common property: they're all dead, thus the odds of them producing a new short story are very slim.
It is with much delight that I introduce Richard Russo to the ranks of the Short Story Masters. His published collection of short stories, The Whore's Child, is as excellent as those works produced by the writers previously mentioned, and the fact that he's still writing offers great hope for more great short fiction.
I despise reviews that reveal plot twists and endings, so I'll skip the "wow" moments and assure you that each of the seven short stories has a "swish-conk" moment where the flash of insight strikes you in the forehead like the proverbial can of V8 juice. These moments are so well done that you can't anticipate them; they occur naturally, embedded as they are in the lines of the story. Each story is so well-crafted that I wondered if the "moment" was the inspiration for the story, as a grain of sand lies at the heart of a pearl, or if the "moment" arose organically during the writing of the story, the subconscious revelation of an artist whose hand seemingly has a mind of its own.
"The Whore's Child" is a rare book for me, in that as soon as I finished it I wanted to immediately go back and re-read it. It reminded me of what short fiction is supposed to be, and for that I owe Mr. Russo a great debt of gratitude.
A short story, for many writers, is to novels like sketching is to painting for artists. It is a rare master of the craft that can draw a sketch that is a work of art (Picasso and da Vinci come to mind), and it is a very rare writer that can elevate the short story to an art form. I think of Tolstoy, and Raymond Carver, Andre Dubus (the elder) and Faulkner as maestros of the short story. It is sad to realize that these men all share an obvious common property: they're all dead, thus the odds of them producing a new short story are very slim.
It is with much delight that I introduce Richard Russo to the ranks of the Short Story Masters. His published collection of short stories, The Whore's Child, is as excellent as those works produced by the writers previously mentioned, and the fact that he's still writing offers great hope for more great short fiction.
I despise reviews that reveal plot twists and endings, so I'll skip the "wow" moments and assure you that each of the seven short stories has a "swish-conk" moment where the flash of insight strikes you in the forehead like the proverbial can of V8 juice. These moments are so well done that you can't anticipate them; they occur naturally, embedded as they are in the lines of the story. Each story is so well-crafted that I wondered if the "moment" was the inspiration for the story, as a grain of sand lies at the heart of a pearl, or if the "moment" arose organically during the writing of the story, the subconscious revelation of an artist whose hand seemingly has a mind of its own.
"The Whore's Child" is a rare book for me, in that as soon as I finished it I wanted to immediately go back and re-read it. It reminded me of what short fiction is supposed to be, and for that I owe Mr. Russo a great debt of gratitude.
October 16, 2013
Although I generally do not like short stories (simply for their brevity), being a Russo book I had to buy it. And I was not disappointed. Russo writes with his wonderful insight into both men and women, fashioning stories set in provincial towns. A nun in a writer's workshop, a retired professor and his wife on holiday, a boy of recently separated parents, a small town pianist with a mother who is a prostitute, two men whose boyhood friendship is really the only thing connecting them in the present, a joyride by a mother and son across country; each told with Russo's thoughtfulness, perception and charm. A resounding 4★
April 17, 2015
Love it! Except for the last story. Not sure why!
July 23, 2014
4.5 These short stories will stand out in my experiences equally and caused me to contemplate the complex motivations, reactions, consequences, and feelings behind and within the simplest of human experiences.
Russo excels at creating characters who are so real that later you find yourself saying, "I know this guy once who....." and you realize, "No I didn't--that was a character in a book!"
This reading experience even had a perfect ending. I intended to finish it on the airplane so that I could leave it in the seat-back pocket for another traveler's serendipitous find. Better yet, a passenger next to me peeked at the cover of my engaging read and said, "Russo? Is this a new one? I've read everything he's written and I've never even heard of this one. I love Russo.... I saw him speak in Syracuse...." I finished this collection within 4 minutes of landing and handed it to her. So satisfying.
Russo excels at creating characters who are so real that later you find yourself saying, "I know this guy once who....." and you realize, "No I didn't--that was a character in a book!"
This reading experience even had a perfect ending. I intended to finish it on the airplane so that I could leave it in the seat-back pocket for another traveler's serendipitous find. Better yet, a passenger next to me peeked at the cover of my engaging read and said, "Russo? Is this a new one? I've read everything he's written and I've never even heard of this one. I love Russo.... I saw him speak in Syracuse...." I finished this collection within 4 minutes of landing and handed it to her. So satisfying.
May 25, 2019
Very enjoyable collection of short stories, especially if you like stories set in Maine and its environs. I loved Empire Falls, so I looked forward to reading his stories. "The Whore's Child" is the best of the lot in my opinion and certainly stands out as unique in this collection.
June 24, 2011
I always love Russo's novels, so I'm not surprised to find I also enjoy his short stories. Many set in Maine, many featuring middle aged characters or older, but I think Russo thinks those are the people with the best stories. My two favorites were Monhegan Light and Joy Ride.
September 26, 2012
It would be tough to ask much more from a collection of short stories. My only "frustration" was that the better stories weren't actually the beginnings to novels. I just connect with Russo's work so well. Now I'm re-reading THE RISK POOL.
December 14, 2019
Good read. Russo is great at writing characters. Nothing much happens in these stories - they are just about regular people living their lives - but I found them compelling because I fell into them so easily.
October 12, 2014
I don't usually read short story collections but I've enjoyed his other books so much, I gave it a go and ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️,
February 23, 2020
I am not usually a fan of short stories. I found these quite interesting---if a little dark. Except the last one---very good. Quick read.
October 4, 2020
The aching desire for connection depicted with all the ways we get in the way of ourselves. But those few moments when it all works shine like grace through Russo’s writing.
November 11, 2021
A collection of exceptional short stories written in Richard Russo's lyrical descriptive prose. Most of the stories were quite good but, by far, the best was the title story "The Whore's Child". It's about an elderly nun who takes a fiction writing class but instead of writing a fictional story she writes the story of her life. When the instructor tries to explain this to her she says " My whole life has been a lie", so she tells her tale in weekly installments. She was born to a prostitute and at an early age was put into a convent school where she was abused and mistreated by both the other students and the nuns because of her status as a whore's child. It's a dismaying, but all too often told, tale of abuse by the very people who are expected to protect the children put into their care. What is even more disturbing is that these people are often priests and nuns. An exceptional story that, by itself, makes this a book to be read.
June 8, 2018
Russo's writing is meant to be savored. I forget that sometimes, and try to rush things along. And then I remember and go back and take my time with each word and phrase and I am moved.
As I was making my way through this collection of stories, some short, some not-so-short, I was becoming overwhelmed with the morose and beleaguered sensibility that Russo's work is often steeped in. And then I remembered.... "slow down, you move too fast." While these stories are not generally imbued with the slapstick observational humor I so adore in his writing (and which serves to leaven the woebegotten nature of some of his observations), they are full of wistfulness. And they are lovely gems. But if you read them, slower is better. Savor.
And, of course, the last story made me weep. As your guitar gently does....or young boys and baseball. A few comments on each, with some lengthy quotes:
1. The Whore's Child - an ancient nun joins a creative writing class, and pretends she is writing fiction. Russo's introduction to the story, humor and despair paired together: "Sister Ursula belonged to an all but extinct order of Belgian nuns who conducted what little spiritual business remained to them in a decrepit old house purchased by the diocese seemingly because it was unlikely to outlast them."
2. Monhegan Light - Many years after his wife's death, Martin sees her through the eyes of her former lover, and finally understands how much he squandered. But first, a slice of that wicked observational humor regarding his wife's sister, whom he loathes: "Of all the things that Joyce's sort of woman said about men, Martin disliked the he-just-doesn't-get-it riff most of all. For one thing it presupposed there was something to get, usually something obvious, something you'd have to be blind not to see. And of course the reason you couldn't see it -- as women were happy to explain -- was that you had a dick, as if that poor, maligned appendage were constantly in a man's line of sight, blocking his view of what women, who were not similarly encumbered, wanted him to take notice of, something subtle or delicate or beautiful, at least to their way of thinking. If you didn't agree that it was subtle or delicate or beautiful, it was because you had a dick. You just didn't get it."
3. The Farther You Go - A man finally realizes the true depth of his wife's understanding of him. A strange, but ultimately beautiful, trip. Literally.
4. Joy Ride - The most depressing of the lot. A child's first person experience with his parents' dysfunctional relationship.
5. Buoyancy - A sad, confused tale of a long and passionless marriage that ends with sunshine and unicorns. And you are made happy. But only after a lot of confusion and sadness.
6. Poison - if you have read much of Russo, you probably know about his rage at the poisoning of the rivers and streams in his home town by a chemical company with the usual corporate greed. While all of Russo's writing never seems too far from his own experiences, this one is particularly and sadly close to the bone. The poison of the title is both for the actual poisoning of the town he grew up in, and the poisoning of his relationship with a boyhood friend who is also a writer, whose rage exceeds his own. I suspect Russo is both characters....
7. The Mysteries of Linwood Hart - Ten-year old Linwood Hart, who has been described by school personnel as "possessing an active interior life", which as all who have been trained in edu-speak, correctly translate as "he doesn't pay attention." His father is a jerk ("Slick" is his nick name), but sadly, his mother can't quit him. A lengthy passage, but one that puts you into Linwood's first person, and one, I have to admit, I greatly identified with...
Someone asks him, what do you think you are? Special?
"Lin understood that this was a rhetorical question whose answer was supposed to be "No," even though most of the time, he thought it might be "yes." It was hard to imagine that all of his personal thoughts had already been thought. When he lay on his stomach in the grass and watched an ant climb up one side of a blade and then down the other, his truest sense of things was that in the world's long history, no one had ever witnessed this exact event, and he couldn't help feeling special to have done so. Why shouldn't his thoughts be special, too? What if he was right to think them, even if no one else had?
For instance, why shouldn't inanimate objects be capable of desire? Take leaves. They wanted to dance, didn't they? He understood that it was caused by wind, of course, but this didn't explain why they didn't all get up and dance with each new gust, instead of just certain ones. Leaf A would rise and do its jig while Leaf B, right next to it, wouldn't even stir. The ones dancing in this gust might rest during the next, and to Lin, this meant they were expressing a desire. And Wiffle balls. Their frantic wiggle after leaping off a plastic bat suggested a similar desire, though his father, who at the moment wasn't living with Lin and his mother, explained that the symmetrical holes cut into the plastic sphere were responsible for the ball's erratic and exciting flight. Okay, but to Lin's way of thinking, the holes merely set free the inner spirit of the ball."
Having spent a lot of my elementary school days in such contemplation, I was all in with Linwood.
As I was making my way through this collection of stories, some short, some not-so-short, I was becoming overwhelmed with the morose and beleaguered sensibility that Russo's work is often steeped in. And then I remembered.... "slow down, you move too fast." While these stories are not generally imbued with the slapstick observational humor I so adore in his writing (and which serves to leaven the woebegotten nature of some of his observations), they are full of wistfulness. And they are lovely gems. But if you read them, slower is better. Savor.
And, of course, the last story made me weep. As your guitar gently does....or young boys and baseball. A few comments on each, with some lengthy quotes:
1. The Whore's Child - an ancient nun joins a creative writing class, and pretends she is writing fiction. Russo's introduction to the story, humor and despair paired together: "Sister Ursula belonged to an all but extinct order of Belgian nuns who conducted what little spiritual business remained to them in a decrepit old house purchased by the diocese seemingly because it was unlikely to outlast them."
2. Monhegan Light - Many years after his wife's death, Martin sees her through the eyes of her former lover, and finally understands how much he squandered. But first, a slice of that wicked observational humor regarding his wife's sister, whom he loathes: "Of all the things that Joyce's sort of woman said about men, Martin disliked the he-just-doesn't-get-it riff most of all. For one thing it presupposed there was something to get, usually something obvious, something you'd have to be blind not to see. And of course the reason you couldn't see it -- as women were happy to explain -- was that you had a dick, as if that poor, maligned appendage were constantly in a man's line of sight, blocking his view of what women, who were not similarly encumbered, wanted him to take notice of, something subtle or delicate or beautiful, at least to their way of thinking. If you didn't agree that it was subtle or delicate or beautiful, it was because you had a dick. You just didn't get it."
3. The Farther You Go - A man finally realizes the true depth of his wife's understanding of him. A strange, but ultimately beautiful, trip. Literally.
4. Joy Ride - The most depressing of the lot. A child's first person experience with his parents' dysfunctional relationship.
5. Buoyancy - A sad, confused tale of a long and passionless marriage that ends with sunshine and unicorns. And you are made happy. But only after a lot of confusion and sadness.
6. Poison - if you have read much of Russo, you probably know about his rage at the poisoning of the rivers and streams in his home town by a chemical company with the usual corporate greed. While all of Russo's writing never seems too far from his own experiences, this one is particularly and sadly close to the bone. The poison of the title is both for the actual poisoning of the town he grew up in, and the poisoning of his relationship with a boyhood friend who is also a writer, whose rage exceeds his own. I suspect Russo is both characters....
7. The Mysteries of Linwood Hart - Ten-year old Linwood Hart, who has been described by school personnel as "possessing an active interior life", which as all who have been trained in edu-speak, correctly translate as "he doesn't pay attention." His father is a jerk ("Slick" is his nick name), but sadly, his mother can't quit him. A lengthy passage, but one that puts you into Linwood's first person, and one, I have to admit, I greatly identified with...
Someone asks him, what do you think you are? Special?
"Lin understood that this was a rhetorical question whose answer was supposed to be "No," even though most of the time, he thought it might be "yes." It was hard to imagine that all of his personal thoughts had already been thought. When he lay on his stomach in the grass and watched an ant climb up one side of a blade and then down the other, his truest sense of things was that in the world's long history, no one had ever witnessed this exact event, and he couldn't help feeling special to have done so. Why shouldn't his thoughts be special, too? What if he was right to think them, even if no one else had?
For instance, why shouldn't inanimate objects be capable of desire? Take leaves. They wanted to dance, didn't they? He understood that it was caused by wind, of course, but this didn't explain why they didn't all get up and dance with each new gust, instead of just certain ones. Leaf A would rise and do its jig while Leaf B, right next to it, wouldn't even stir. The ones dancing in this gust might rest during the next, and to Lin, this meant they were expressing a desire. And Wiffle balls. Their frantic wiggle after leaping off a plastic bat suggested a similar desire, though his father, who at the moment wasn't living with Lin and his mother, explained that the symmetrical holes cut into the plastic sphere were responsible for the ball's erratic and exciting flight. Okay, but to Lin's way of thinking, the holes merely set free the inner spirit of the ball."
Having spent a lot of my elementary school days in such contemplation, I was all in with Linwood.
September 2, 2025
Husband chose this to listen to during our road trip. It was a great choice.
February 2, 2021
I read this book as it was passed on to me and had pretty good reviews online. The author is critically acclaimed and the blurb looked intriguing, if not the sort of thing I would normally pick up. Sadly, I was pretty disappointed with this collection of short stories and won't be seeking out more by this author.
The main thing that lingers with me is that you could really tell that the collection was written by a man. Now, I'm not saying that I only like books that feel like they're written by a woman - far from it - I think that unless the book is in the first person it should feel pretty neutral in terms of author gender. For example Hilary Mantel - couldn't tell she's a woman. Mike Gayle - can't tell he's a man. Both of those authors write about male characters but it feels like they're describing the character as they are rather than writing about the character from their own female/male perspective. Does that make sense? (Probably not!)
As a result, this book felt like a set of stories in the main about slightly bitter, middle aged men who hadn't quite got what they wanted in life and therefore gave off a miserable attitude to the rest of the world - and because all of the characters of this type were so similar deep down, that's how I imagine the author to be, which is probably unfair. Three of the seven stories have a different 'type' as their lead character - an elderly nun (seen through the eyes of middle aged male lecturer), a ten year old boy (with a dubious father figure) and a twelve year (with another dubious father figure and a mother who whisks him away on a road trip to escape said father, encountering other dubious middle aged men along the way). The women in most of the stories are peripheral, shallow and seen only through the eyes of the men. When they take the lead they are not in anyway likable or sympathetic. Most of the stories were pretty depressing as well - even the 'happy ending' of The Mysteries of Linwood Hart didn't feel like it would be happy in the long term.
I didn't really enjoy this much at all - quite a negative book and not one character I felt I could relate to.
The main thing that lingers with me is that you could really tell that the collection was written by a man. Now, I'm not saying that I only like books that feel like they're written by a woman - far from it - I think that unless the book is in the first person it should feel pretty neutral in terms of author gender. For example Hilary Mantel - couldn't tell she's a woman. Mike Gayle - can't tell he's a man. Both of those authors write about male characters but it feels like they're describing the character as they are rather than writing about the character from their own female/male perspective. Does that make sense? (Probably not!)
As a result, this book felt like a set of stories in the main about slightly bitter, middle aged men who hadn't quite got what they wanted in life and therefore gave off a miserable attitude to the rest of the world - and because all of the characters of this type were so similar deep down, that's how I imagine the author to be, which is probably unfair. Three of the seven stories have a different 'type' as their lead character - an elderly nun (seen through the eyes of middle aged male lecturer), a ten year old boy (with a dubious father figure) and a twelve year (with another dubious father figure and a mother who whisks him away on a road trip to escape said father, encountering other dubious middle aged men along the way). The women in most of the stories are peripheral, shallow and seen only through the eyes of the men. When they take the lead they are not in anyway likable or sympathetic. Most of the stories were pretty depressing as well - even the 'happy ending' of The Mysteries of Linwood Hart didn't feel like it would be happy in the long term.
I didn't really enjoy this much at all - quite a negative book and not one character I felt I could relate to.
February 7, 2017
This collection of Russo's short stories isn't as well know or as well received as his novels. I found them to be entertaining and well-crafted. As always, Russo seems to focus on family relationships and is skilled at understatement when dealing with angst and pathos. The title story is a bit of a departure as he usually focuses on men who are down-on-their-luck. This is a Belgian nun "nearly as big as a linebacker" who joins the narrator's advanced fiction class and tells her story in a series of assignments for the class. The other stories focus more on marriage and family and two are told from the viewpoint of pre-adolescent boys. I never tire of Russo's writing but I admit to a preference for his novels.
September 25, 2018
It seems to me that when a detail oriented and prolific writer of in-depth characters and settings comes out with a selection of short stories, that the reader should be skeptical. The reason for this is that usually these stories were ideas for a lengthy novel, that just never quite got there. These are also usually lacking that usual depth of setting and character that one expects from that kind of author, which is exactly the problem here. There is just a general lack of detail and depth here and honestly a number of the stories really don't seem to get anywhere. This isn't all bad, the story about the child playing baseball stands out as decent, but overall it and the title story are the only two that I can recall the day after finishing the selection.
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