Ladykiller: Stories

by Charlotte Gill

Ladykiller is the astonishing debut collection of seven smart stories from an exciting new voice in Canadian literature. Charlotte Gill is a brilliant young writer who is not afraid to stare down the truth and shame the devil. She conjures compelling stories about escape, self-sabotage, and the power of unconscious desire. A couple plots against a crying baby in the apartment below as their dysfunctional relationship begins to veer off course. A hot-shot scuba-diving instructor falls for a teenaged girl in a perilous Lolita-like romance. Twin sisters travel to exotic lands in search of romance in order to rescue themselves from their own dark, intense bond. A woman reconnects with the son of her father's mistress, and together they begin an obsession with the past. A medical student embarks on an affair with a professor and discovers revolution in disastrous consequences.

Genres: Short Stories, Canada, Fiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published March 19, 2005

About the author

Charlotte Gill is the author of three books, including EATING DIRT, a tree-planting memoir, and LADYKILLER, a collection of short fiction. Her work has appeared in Vogue, Hazlitt, Best Canadian Stories, The Journey Prize Stories and elsewhere. Her latest title, ALMOST BROWN, a mixed-race family memoir, is published by Penguin Random House.

Reviews

[Jessica-Robyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm calling this one and marking it a DNF.

Charlotte Gill is an author I really wanted to like. In the Canadian literary scene her books are often very well praised so naturally I knew I had to read one of her books when given the chance. Unfortunately, the stories in this collection just didn't leave me feeling satisfied.

Although Gill can clearly write a good short story in a technical sense, the storytelling itself wasn't what I consider a good time. The characters and subject matter were often vapid and annoying to the point where reading the stories became an unpleasant experience (even with the knowledge that it would all soon come to an end with the start of another story in a few pages) Throughout the collection, of the stories I read, it felt like the same characters were being plopped into different lives. The collection lacked diversity in the stories being told and thus it felt like the same experience over and over again.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first story of this collection was the best: a story told in successive backwards vignettes so you got to know how the couples story ended before it began

The rest of the stories were either confusing, boring, unlikable, or all three. Dark themes were thrown in seemingly at random, and none of the endings were that good either. It felt very literary, and not in the fun way to read.

[chantelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know. Some parts were incredible and raw but I found that most of the story slipped into cliches and fluffy language.

[Elisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall the stories in this collection provided interesting reading in the form of intense characters, absurd obsessions, toxic relationships and extremely bad life choices. “You Drive,” “Homology,” and “Island of Flowers” were the most engaging and poignant for me personally but all of the stories had something. Honestly, I was expecting to like this collection more than I did and I can’t exactly put my finger on why I didn’t. I think it was the lack of difference in narrators and voice, every story sounded like it was told by the same person with the exact same personality as the last when each of the characters were very different from one another. Considering it’s a first book though it’s pretty fantastic and I look forward to reading Gill’s work in the future.

[Ruth Seeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm always delighted to discover a fresh voice, especially when it's a short story writer. Charlotte Gill is precisely that. Whether she's writing about a pot dealer with ambivalent feelings for his girlfriend (whom he seems to have acquired while in a bit of a fugue state, as if he were grocery shopping on autopilot), twins locked into a love/hate relationship with each other, or a woman who ends up having an affair with her professor and watching her life unravel as a result, this is great writing. "Here was Anne, washed up on the shore of her future, peering up at a narrow Victorian with windows like punched-out eyes."

[Terra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow. This was a horrible book. The characters were thin and unlikeable, the stories underdeveloped and stopped abruptly without making sense. Not entirely what drove me to read the book in its entirety other than a driving sense of "it must get better", which it doesn't.
Sadly, the potential of these stories falls short of being even flaccid. How depressing - Canadian books always seem to fall short.

[Jenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had 2.5 stories left and gave up. I found that they all had a really depressing tone to them and all ended fairly badly. I figured I'd never enjoy what was left and have decided to move on to something else.

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not a novel as I thought it was when I brought it home from the library. It was a series of short stories. I don't particularly like short stories, because they are too short. And they remind me of school.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first story was perfection, but then only one other story came close, in my opinion. I found the tone of each story a little too similar and too many of the protagonists were relatable for my liking.

[Ann Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written collection of short stories featuring intriguing, complex characters.

I particularly enjoyed "You Drive," which rolls out slices of narrative in reverse order, so that the reader is constantly moving backward in time.

[Tricia Dower · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seen stories that pack a punch with fresh prose and unusual characters. I especially liked "Open Water" and "Homotology." All but one was in present tense, however; I would have liked more variety.

[cStories eBook Singles]

Each story now offered as a cStories eBook Single! Check it out - http://win.cstories.ca !

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://librarianaut.com/2012/12/16/bo...

[Bridget · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bloody awesome.

[Georgiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like her writing style, but the sheer obnoxiousness of the characters got overwhelming about halfway through.