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Stay Up With Me
A deeply humane, piercingly funny, and already widely acclaimed new short story collection that features men and women we all know or might be, navigating a world made unfamiliar by a lapse in judgment, a change of fortune, by loss, or by love.
The stories in Tom Barbash's evocative and often darkly funny collection explore the myriad ways we try to connect to one another and to the sometimes cruel world around us. The newly single mother in The Break interferes with her son's love life over his Christmas vacation from college. The anxious young man in Balloon Night persists in hosting his and his wife's annual watch-the-Macy's-Thanksgiving-Day-Parade-floats-be-inflated party, while trying to keep the myth of his marriage equally afloat. Somebody's Son, tells the story of a young man guiltily conning an elderly couple out of their home in the Adirondacks, and the young narrator in The Women watches his widowed father become the toast of Manhattan's mid-life dating scene, as he struggles to find his own footing.
The characters in Stay Up with Me find new truths when the old ones have given out or shifted course. In the tradition of classic story writer like John Cheever and Tobias Wolff, Barbash laces his narratives with sharp humor, psychological acuity, and pathos, creating deeply resonant and engaging stories that pierce the heart and linger in the imagination.
The stories in Tom Barbash's evocative and often darkly funny collection explore the myriad ways we try to connect to one another and to the sometimes cruel world around us. The newly single mother in The Break interferes with her son's love life over his Christmas vacation from college. The anxious young man in Balloon Night persists in hosting his and his wife's annual watch-the-Macy's-Thanksgiving-Day-Parade-floats-be-inflated party, while trying to keep the myth of his marriage equally afloat. Somebody's Son, tells the story of a young man guiltily conning an elderly couple out of their home in the Adirondacks, and the young narrator in The Women watches his widowed father become the toast of Manhattan's mid-life dating scene, as he struggles to find his own footing.
The characters in Stay Up with Me find new truths when the old ones have given out or shifted course. In the tradition of classic story writer like John Cheever and Tobias Wolff, Barbash laces his narratives with sharp humor, psychological acuity, and pathos, creating deeply resonant and engaging stories that pierce the heart and linger in the imagination.
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 10, 2013
115 people are currently reading
2239 people want to read
About the author
Tom Barbash
11 books88 followersTom Barbash is the author of the award-winning novel The Last Good Chance and the non-fiction book On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11; A Story of Loss and Renewal, which was a New York Times bestseller. His stories and articles have been published in Tin House, McSweeney's, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other publications, and have been performed on National Public Radio's Selected Shorts series. He currently teaches in the MFA program at California College of the Arts. He grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives in Marin County, California.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 180 reviews
June 15, 2018
Update: This is a $1.99 Kindle special today. I read these short stories years ago - and still own the book. It’s one of the favorite collection of short stories — not a bad story in the bunch. GREAT WRITER!!
Highly recommend...
I should read something else by Tom Barbash!!!
I LOVED these short stories!
The first story, "The Break" was so engaging & enjoyable, that when it ended, I knew I was in good hands. I could sit back and enjoy the rest of the ride.
I'm thrilled to have discovered Tom Barbash! I highly recommend reading him!
He writes with gentle humor --while his stories explore the complexities and consequences of every day lives....loss, loneliness, struggles with trust, failing marriage, regret, resentment, infidelity, and growing up. Many of the stories deal with parents and their adult children. The stories are written with wisdom --compassion when sensitive -- funny when funny -- outstanding always!
Tom's writing is a little addictive! You'll say to yourself, "I'll read just one more story before I, [fill in the blank], but you don't, you'll read another, then another, then another. **ADDICTIVE & DELICIOUS**!
YOU ARE IN THE HANDS of a MASTER STORYTELLER ----(THINK author, ROBIN BLACK).... YES, TOM BARBASH is a man to read if you want to read satisfying delights about the people whom we share our world with!
Highly recommend...
I should read something else by Tom Barbash!!!
I LOVED these short stories!
The first story, "The Break" was so engaging & enjoyable, that when it ended, I knew I was in good hands. I could sit back and enjoy the rest of the ride.
I'm thrilled to have discovered Tom Barbash! I highly recommend reading him!
He writes with gentle humor --while his stories explore the complexities and consequences of every day lives....loss, loneliness, struggles with trust, failing marriage, regret, resentment, infidelity, and growing up. Many of the stories deal with parents and their adult children. The stories are written with wisdom --compassion when sensitive -- funny when funny -- outstanding always!
Tom's writing is a little addictive! You'll say to yourself, "I'll read just one more story before I, [fill in the blank], but you don't, you'll read another, then another, then another. **ADDICTIVE & DELICIOUS**!
YOU ARE IN THE HANDS of a MASTER STORYTELLER ----(THINK author, ROBIN BLACK).... YES, TOM BARBASH is a man to read if you want to read satisfying delights about the people whom we share our world with!
October 23, 2013
The characters in Tom Barbash’s collection of 13 stories have a bad case of the “D’s: depression, dysfunction, disorder, divorce and even death. They are “regular folk” who you would likely meet on any given day, and not even be aware of what’s going on behind their façade. But Mr. Barbash masterfully reveals their inner life.
In a short story collection, every reader will gravitate toward his or her favorites, and so it is here. In The Break, a divorced writer obsessively interferes with her college-aged son’s love life…all the while knowing that she’s acting like a jealous wife. In the next story, Balloon Night, Timkin faces an onslaught of Thanksgiving partiers to watch the inflation of the cold-like cartoon characters for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, trying to hide the fact that his wife has just walked out on him.
In what might be my very favorite, Somebody’s Son, a young down-on-his-luck real estate guy with a fractured childhood guiltily tries to talk an elderly couple out of their home at a fraction of its worth, only to find they want something back from him as well.
And in The Women, a young man, on the threshold of adult life, stands by as his handsome father regains traction in the dating world with the loss of his mother hovering over his efforts.
Most of the stories shimmer. For me, the only one that didn’t quite live up to its potential was Letters From An Academy, an epistolary story that seemed as if it would be better crafted as a narrative (I never believed in the authenticity of the letters). Even that one, though, shows a writer in command.
These compelling stories often carry a sense of revelation or redemption, and certainly a sense of awareness. Tom Barbash makes short story writing seem effortless, when I know that the exact opposite is true. 4.5.
In a short story collection, every reader will gravitate toward his or her favorites, and so it is here. In The Break, a divorced writer obsessively interferes with her college-aged son’s love life…all the while knowing that she’s acting like a jealous wife. In the next story, Balloon Night, Timkin faces an onslaught of Thanksgiving partiers to watch the inflation of the cold-like cartoon characters for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, trying to hide the fact that his wife has just walked out on him.
In what might be my very favorite, Somebody’s Son, a young down-on-his-luck real estate guy with a fractured childhood guiltily tries to talk an elderly couple out of their home at a fraction of its worth, only to find they want something back from him as well.
And in The Women, a young man, on the threshold of adult life, stands by as his handsome father regains traction in the dating world with the loss of his mother hovering over his efforts.
Most of the stories shimmer. For me, the only one that didn’t quite live up to its potential was Letters From An Academy, an epistolary story that seemed as if it would be better crafted as a narrative (I never believed in the authenticity of the letters). Even that one, though, shows a writer in command.
These compelling stories often carry a sense of revelation or redemption, and certainly a sense of awareness. Tom Barbash makes short story writing seem effortless, when I know that the exact opposite is true. 4.5.
January 13, 2023
An incredible collection. I was worried that this book wouldn't live up to its beautiful cover, but almost every story got under my skin.
A series of emotional, bittersweet portraits of characters dealing with loss, grief, jealousy, resentment and preoccupation. We get just a taste of each character's story, and it's just enough each time.
These tales are of connection, sadness, distance, heartbreak, understandings and misunderstandings.
Heartfelt & devastating in an everyday way, I absolutely loved this book.
P.S. I have the UK cover, but the one pictured is also gorgeous.
A series of emotional, bittersweet portraits of characters dealing with loss, grief, jealousy, resentment and preoccupation. We get just a taste of each character's story, and it's just enough each time.
These tales are of connection, sadness, distance, heartbreak, understandings and misunderstandings.
Heartfelt & devastating in an everyday way, I absolutely loved this book.
P.S. I have the UK cover, but the one pictured is also gorgeous.
September 16, 2013
I was very impressed with this excellent collection of short stories by Tom Barbash. I had never heard of this author before but I read a review of this book somewhere (can't remember where) and I ordered it immediately. There isn't a bad story in the lot. All of them are great and thought-provoking. Mr. Barbash has a way of dealing with issues of intimacy and its dance of distance and pursuit that is evident in many of the stories. Most all the stories give the background of the characters' lives which I found very interesting. So not only do we have the present, but we get a look into the past.
I loved the first story, 'The Break'. Phillip is spending his Christmas vacation from college with his mother in New York city. He meets a waitress and begins seeing her despite his mother's disapproval. His mother starts acting intensely angry at the situation and things begin to escalate. What the mother really wants is someone better for her son, and to be closer with him herself.
In 'Balloon Night', Timikin's wife Amy leaves him two nights before their annual party. Timikin goes ahead with the party anyway, pretending that Amy is away on business. He keeps hoping, irrationally, that she will walk through the door.
'Howling at the Moon' is about Lou and his mother who are distanced by the tragic death of Lou's older brother in a car accident. Lou's mother blames him for the accident. She was driving and he let some balls roll to the front of the car on the driver's side. This is what caused the accident. His mother realizes, with time, that blaming Lou is wrong. "For a few months we both saw counselors but we did not talk about that day or my brother. It was as though we had lost our history, as if time started the day after the crash."
In 'Somebody's Son", Randall befriends an elderly couple who own 300 acres in the Adirondacks. His goal is to get them to sell their land to him for much less than its worth. The dynamics of their relationship, however, brings him an intimacy he's never expected.
'How to Fall' is a powerful story. A woman who has not gotten over the break-up with her ex-boyfriend tries, without much success, to begin a new relationship with a man she meets on a singles ski trip. She tries to ameliorate her emotional pain by cutting herself or skiing and sledding with reckless abandon.
I really loved 'Paris'. Kistler, a journalist, has had a hard time of it. He's been relegated to the regional section of his local newspaper and his girlfriend has broken up with him. He decides to do an investigative story about Paris, New York where half the adult population are unemployed, there is a high rate of teenage pregnancy, and the children get head lice. The article is very well-received by his editors but the people of Paris are incensed.
'Birthday Girl' is about a woman driving home after having too much to drink who hits a fourteen year old girl with her car. The girl had been walking her dog and the woman drives the girl to the hospital. Because it's a night with a lot of accidents, the police are lackadaisical and do not do a breathalizer on the woman. The woman's fate seems connected to the girl's.
All the stories are emotionally powerful. I've just highlighted some of them. For those readers who enjoy short stories, this is one of the best collections to have come out this year. I highly recommend it and have put Tom Barbash on my radar.
I loved the first story, 'The Break'. Phillip is spending his Christmas vacation from college with his mother in New York city. He meets a waitress and begins seeing her despite his mother's disapproval. His mother starts acting intensely angry at the situation and things begin to escalate. What the mother really wants is someone better for her son, and to be closer with him herself.
In 'Balloon Night', Timikin's wife Amy leaves him two nights before their annual party. Timikin goes ahead with the party anyway, pretending that Amy is away on business. He keeps hoping, irrationally, that she will walk through the door.
'Howling at the Moon' is about Lou and his mother who are distanced by the tragic death of Lou's older brother in a car accident. Lou's mother blames him for the accident. She was driving and he let some balls roll to the front of the car on the driver's side. This is what caused the accident. His mother realizes, with time, that blaming Lou is wrong. "For a few months we both saw counselors but we did not talk about that day or my brother. It was as though we had lost our history, as if time started the day after the crash."
In 'Somebody's Son", Randall befriends an elderly couple who own 300 acres in the Adirondacks. His goal is to get them to sell their land to him for much less than its worth. The dynamics of their relationship, however, brings him an intimacy he's never expected.
'How to Fall' is a powerful story. A woman who has not gotten over the break-up with her ex-boyfriend tries, without much success, to begin a new relationship with a man she meets on a singles ski trip. She tries to ameliorate her emotional pain by cutting herself or skiing and sledding with reckless abandon.
I really loved 'Paris'. Kistler, a journalist, has had a hard time of it. He's been relegated to the regional section of his local newspaper and his girlfriend has broken up with him. He decides to do an investigative story about Paris, New York where half the adult population are unemployed, there is a high rate of teenage pregnancy, and the children get head lice. The article is very well-received by his editors but the people of Paris are incensed.
'Birthday Girl' is about a woman driving home after having too much to drink who hits a fourteen year old girl with her car. The girl had been walking her dog and the woman drives the girl to the hospital. Because it's a night with a lot of accidents, the police are lackadaisical and do not do a breathalizer on the woman. The woman's fate seems connected to the girl's.
All the stories are emotionally powerful. I've just highlighted some of them. For those readers who enjoy short stories, this is one of the best collections to have come out this year. I highly recommend it and have put Tom Barbash on my radar.
August 23, 2020
I can't remember how I found my way to this collection of short stories, but I'm glad I did.
Each story focuses on everyday people just trying to make their way through this world, usually after some major catastrophe in their life, and usually not very successfully. But there are some darkly funny moments scattered throughout.
I was also surprised to see a few stories set in areas surrounding Central New York, where I grew up. But of course, what better setting for deep, dark disasters?? ;-)
Each story focuses on everyday people just trying to make their way through this world, usually after some major catastrophe in their life, and usually not very successfully. But there are some darkly funny moments scattered throughout.
I was also surprised to see a few stories set in areas surrounding Central New York, where I grew up. But of course, what better setting for deep, dark disasters?? ;-)
February 7, 2015
"The Break" A mother interferes with her son love life, thinking that he is too young to be dating. Despite the fact that he is an adult, she cannot fathom the thought of him falling love. While her husband does not see anything wrong with their child growing up, she still sees her son as the boy that she groomed and raised. The joy of motherhood stings her in more ways than one, eventually she would have to warm up to her son seeing girls. However her erratic behavior leads to her marriage falling apart, yet her son is nonchalant about her behavior, resulting their relationship to be peculiar. The son grows older before her eyes, but she will never get use to seeing him move on, at least not without her lurking in the shadows.
"Her words" Rajiv is a student in his Father's house. Rajiv is sleeping with one of his classmates,much to the dismay of his Father. Rachel Weisman is a smart and intelligent student that never had a problem getting good grades, but she is startled when she gets her first B. Assuming that she knows the reason, she confronts the teacher ( Rajiv Father),but his response makes her angry. Rajiv Father fantasies about Rachel is something that he tries to eliminate,especially since he has a professional job. Yet he feels that he is justified, putting a tremendous strain on his son's life.
"Balloon Night" Tinkins wife left him two nights before their annual Balloon Night. As far as he is concerned, the party is still on, but he tries to figure out how he is going to explain to his friends what happened to his wife. Reminiscing about the times he had with her, he is certain that he is going to pull off her disappearance without anyone asking. Does he manage to pull it off or would everything blow up in his face?
"The Women" A middle aged widowed Father steps back into the dating scene. Although his daughters are apprehensive about the whole idea, missing their mother memory. No woman is good enough for their Father, but they know that he deserves happiness. Recounting the good times that he shared with his deceased wife, they are put at ease, especially when they realize they share a lot of similarities with her.
Love, Hope and Redemption correlate together in this epic book on short stories! It was hard to narrow into down into four stories that I enjoyed the most, but these four spoke to me the most. The first story- "The Break" was extremely creepy, I felt that the mother was far too attached to her son. There was one scene when I actually got grossed out, but a memorable story! My second favorite will probably have to be- "Her Words.". It sorta reminded me of The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrota, the story was very similar in nature.
Needless to say, I was very impressed with this short story collection. As I mentioned before in a previous review on short stories, it is bittersweet rating it. If most stories are good, then it is fairly easy to get a high rating. In contrast if some are mediocre,then I take the best stories and average out the rating.
This book was terrific, absolutely love the writing style!
"Her words" Rajiv is a student in his Father's house. Rajiv is sleeping with one of his classmates,much to the dismay of his Father. Rachel Weisman is a smart and intelligent student that never had a problem getting good grades, but she is startled when she gets her first B. Assuming that she knows the reason, she confronts the teacher ( Rajiv Father),but his response makes her angry. Rajiv Father fantasies about Rachel is something that he tries to eliminate,especially since he has a professional job. Yet he feels that he is justified, putting a tremendous strain on his son's life.
"Balloon Night" Tinkins wife left him two nights before their annual Balloon Night. As far as he is concerned, the party is still on, but he tries to figure out how he is going to explain to his friends what happened to his wife. Reminiscing about the times he had with her, he is certain that he is going to pull off her disappearance without anyone asking. Does he manage to pull it off or would everything blow up in his face?
"The Women" A middle aged widowed Father steps back into the dating scene. Although his daughters are apprehensive about the whole idea, missing their mother memory. No woman is good enough for their Father, but they know that he deserves happiness. Recounting the good times that he shared with his deceased wife, they are put at ease, especially when they realize they share a lot of similarities with her.
Love, Hope and Redemption correlate together in this epic book on short stories! It was hard to narrow into down into four stories that I enjoyed the most, but these four spoke to me the most. The first story- "The Break" was extremely creepy, I felt that the mother was far too attached to her son. There was one scene when I actually got grossed out, but a memorable story! My second favorite will probably have to be- "Her Words.". It sorta reminded me of The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrota, the story was very similar in nature.
Needless to say, I was very impressed with this short story collection. As I mentioned before in a previous review on short stories, it is bittersweet rating it. If most stories are good, then it is fairly easy to get a high rating. In contrast if some are mediocre,then I take the best stories and average out the rating.
This book was terrific, absolutely love the writing style!
June 15, 2015
cool, clear, wonderful collection of stories, about family ties and connections and things going wrong. Set in New York and New York state mainly, they reminded me of Cheever and occasionally Carver - yes that good - although more academic/middle class than Carver. Occasionally you think 'first world problem' but so what? It's hard to pinpoint why they work so well, but maybe it's because of their accuracy and precision: pared back but still complex, moving but not manipulative. Highly recommended.
October 10, 2013
I'd rate this 4.5 stars.
I'm not honestly sure where I heard about this book, but wherever it was, I'd like to say thanks. Stay Up With Me was a pretty terrific short story collection, sometimes moving, sometimes humorous, tremendously well-written, and incredibly compelling. Each of the 13 stories in this collection hit me in a different place; they made me think and made me feel, and I think I would love to read a full-length novel about the characters in most of the stories.
My favorite in the collection, Howling at the Moon, told the story of a teenage boy wracked with guilt over the death of his older brother, who finds himself living in the home of his mother's boyfriend, and not really understanding his relationship with his mother anymore. In The Break, a middle-aged woman struggles when her college-aged son starts a relationship with an older woman while he's home on break, and she feels compelled to interfere for reasons she can't quite name. The main character in Somebody's Son is a guy trying to con an elderly couple into selling their lifelong home in the Adirondacks, but he finds himself drawn to them. In Balloon Night, a man holds the annual party to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons get inflated that he and his wife throw, but tries not to reveal his wife has left him.
Other moving stories included The Women, in which a young man deals with the feelings provoked by his widowed father dating again, as well as his unresolved feelings about his mother's death, and Birthday Girl, which follows a woman faced with the fact that she accidentally hit a young girl with her car. The quirkiest story in this collection was Letters from the Academy, a compilation of one-sided correspondence from an instructor at a tennis academy to the uncommunicative father of one the Academy's most promising students.
A few stories I thought were a bit weaker, but by and large this is a consistently strong collection. I was blown away by Tom Barbash's writing style and his use of language and emotion.
I love reading short stories that make you feel sad when you're finished, stories that keep you thinking about the characters after they've ended. This is a really strong collection of stories, and I hope that people take notice, because he's definitely an author worth reading, and enjoying.
I'm not honestly sure where I heard about this book, but wherever it was, I'd like to say thanks. Stay Up With Me was a pretty terrific short story collection, sometimes moving, sometimes humorous, tremendously well-written, and incredibly compelling. Each of the 13 stories in this collection hit me in a different place; they made me think and made me feel, and I think I would love to read a full-length novel about the characters in most of the stories.
My favorite in the collection, Howling at the Moon, told the story of a teenage boy wracked with guilt over the death of his older brother, who finds himself living in the home of his mother's boyfriend, and not really understanding his relationship with his mother anymore. In The Break, a middle-aged woman struggles when her college-aged son starts a relationship with an older woman while he's home on break, and she feels compelled to interfere for reasons she can't quite name. The main character in Somebody's Son is a guy trying to con an elderly couple into selling their lifelong home in the Adirondacks, but he finds himself drawn to them. In Balloon Night, a man holds the annual party to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons get inflated that he and his wife throw, but tries not to reveal his wife has left him.
Other moving stories included The Women, in which a young man deals with the feelings provoked by his widowed father dating again, as well as his unresolved feelings about his mother's death, and Birthday Girl, which follows a woman faced with the fact that she accidentally hit a young girl with her car. The quirkiest story in this collection was Letters from the Academy, a compilation of one-sided correspondence from an instructor at a tennis academy to the uncommunicative father of one the Academy's most promising students.
A few stories I thought were a bit weaker, but by and large this is a consistently strong collection. I was blown away by Tom Barbash's writing style and his use of language and emotion.
I love reading short stories that make you feel sad when you're finished, stories that keep you thinking about the characters after they've ended. This is a really strong collection of stories, and I hope that people take notice, because he's definitely an author worth reading, and enjoying.
January 23, 2014
In and out of being brilliant, these short stories vaguely recall Raymond Carver.
The characters examine the fault lines in their most intimate relationships revealing unhealthy attachments, jealousies and a simmering, quiet desperation. I don't like the characters one iota, but they can be uncomfortably relatable and it should be mentioned that this author writes beautifully.
I'm not rating this one high simply because there was a real disconnect with the bourgeois characters, the skiing and respectable NY parties etc. It made me miss the wilderness, the dirty south and just about any other place not there.
"This is completely crazy," he said, with a reasonable, kind smile that I wanted to love. I wanted this. I allowed myself to believe it was possible. I could crash into a tree, or a rock, or a bank of snow, and land hard enough so that something inside me would break. I would stay out here, burning down the steep dark hill until it happened.
The characters examine the fault lines in their most intimate relationships revealing unhealthy attachments, jealousies and a simmering, quiet desperation. I don't like the characters one iota, but they can be uncomfortably relatable and it should be mentioned that this author writes beautifully.
I'm not rating this one high simply because there was a real disconnect with the bourgeois characters, the skiing and respectable NY parties etc. It made me miss the wilderness, the dirty south and just about any other place not there.
"This is completely crazy," he said, with a reasonable, kind smile that I wanted to love. I wanted this. I allowed myself to believe it was possible. I could crash into a tree, or a rock, or a bank of snow, and land hard enough so that something inside me would break. I would stay out here, burning down the steep dark hill until it happened.
July 26, 2013
This is a really rich and varied collection, masterful in its restraint. It allows the reader the insights, and the characters' misapprehensions and misunderstandings make them seem so human. Some of these stories could be in a Cheever collection--"Balloon Day," for instance--while others (e.g. "Birthday Girl") demonstrate Barbash's technical daring. And amid all these car crashes and breakdowns and delusions, there's the sweet, funny "Letters from the Academy," which almost killed me. These are clearly the stories of a mature writer well-versed in the history and the craft. Check it out.
October 9, 2018
Overall really liked a couple of stories
January 10, 2015
Tom Barbash is a familiar name in most of the top literary journals "Stay Up With Me" is a great representation of his work. Barbash's style is minimalist he relies on nuanced characters to drive his stories rather than action or plot. He is more concerned with how people manage the aftermath of big events rather than the events themselves. The familiar theme in many of the stories in this collection is self-deception and Barbash returns to that again and again, but from all sorts of different angles. There are a few weaker pieces in the second half of the book and his focus on wealthy upper west side Manhattanites is tiresome (though the fact the he can make these people so relatable is a testament to his skill). One of the stand out pieces "Letters From the Academy" is a series of letters from a tennis coach to the parent of a student. It's dark humor but you'll still find yourself laughing out loud. It's presence in the middle helps punctuate what otherwise might have felt like a progression of all too similar stories.
September 8, 2014
I can't remember the last time I found a story collection so readable.
August 31, 2019
I loved that I randomly picked this book in a bookstore 2 years ago. No one from my GR friend list has read it (or at least reviewed or rated it) so I knew nothing about it, other than what’s on the back of the cover.
These stories are so... random. And beautiful. They are all set in NY state, most of them in NYC. I loved, loved, loved every single one of them. They cover all kinds of relationships and most of the characters are going through some hard times. The writing style is simple and beautiful, I keep saying this for books that I love, but it’s true! Read it!
These stories are so... random. And beautiful. They are all set in NY state, most of them in NYC. I loved, loved, loved every single one of them. They cover all kinds of relationships and most of the characters are going through some hard times. The writing style is simple and beautiful, I keep saying this for books that I love, but it’s true! Read it!
February 20, 2021
I really liked this collection. It took me a bit to find find the connection between the stories but these stories do fit together well, despite a broad spectrum of themes. Some I enjoyed much more than others and the standouts for me were "Somebody's Son"and "Birthday Girl." I will say the last story "The Women" was dazzling too.
December 3, 2013
These finely polished stories explore the awkwardness between parents and their adult children.
August 15, 2020
In this 13-story collection, there is pain, confusion, broken relationships, the death of a parent, of a sibling, over-consuming love, bad behavior, parents seeing their children becoming sexual beings, and with the exception of one story ("Letters from the Academy"), all are immensely compelling. Some of the stories are set in NYC, among the educated and well-off or well-enough-off, money is not the issue, nor is it the solution, other stories are set in upstate NY, where the money is missing - and all of these people are suffering pain of the heart, soul, and psyche, and money insulates no one from that kind of pain. These are people who often can't help their self-absorption, and their self-absorption is fascinating. Not always are they able to find a way out. The heartbreak in these stories is real - and I kept turning pages very quickly, and the writing is fluid and interesting.
November 13, 2018
The jacket copy said these were "in the tradition of classic story writers like John Cheever and Tobias Wolff," and I think I would agree. My favorites were Balloon Night and the devastating The Birthday Girl.
January 30, 2015
A good collection...
Tom Barbash's collection of 13 stories has been nominated for the 2015 Folio Prize. Each of the stories has one central viewpoint, sometimes given in third person and sometimes first. The main characters vary in age and gender but in almost every case they tend to be dealing with some form of loss - sometimes romantic loss, but often grief over the loss of a parent or a child. However that makes the collection sound more downbeat than it is. While some of the stories are quite moving, many of them are lifted by a touch of humour in the telling.
Although I've been reading a lot of short stories recently, it's still a form I struggle with. I'm aware of the fact that I like stories to have a plot – a beginning, middle and end – and that this isn't always the case with shorts. Barbash's stories are more in the form of character studies for the most part, and often seem to stop rather than end. This left me feeling dissatisfied with many of them, though my dissatisfaction was usually caused by the fact that the characters and situations had interested me and I wanted to see them taken through to a resolution. On the few occasions that the story came to some kind of firm conclusion, I found I enjoyed them a good deal, but with the rest I was left feeling a little let down – a clash between author's style and reader's preference, I think, rather than a real criticism of Barbash's skill.
There is a theme in many of them of dysfunctional relationships between parents and children, often with sexual jealousy thrown into the mix. So we have the mother who becomes obsessively jealous of her son's relationship with a waitress, and the father who finds himself having sexual feelings for his son's girlfriend. But there is always an added layer of depth, an examination of the cause behind these feelings, and this is the real interest of the story.
Here are a few that I particularly enjoyed – individually each of these would get a five-star rating from me:
Howling at the Moon – a tale of a young boy who had been the accidental cause of the death of his brother some years before, and the emotional distance this has caused between himself and his mother. Barbash leaves the guilt and grief skilfully understated, which I felt actually added to the emotional impact of this one.
Letters from the Academy – this is written as a series of letters from a tennis coach to the father of a young player about whom he has become obsessed. This is the most overtly humorous of the stories as we have to read between the lines of this man who clearly thinks his increasingly crazed behaviour is normal. Pete Sampras puts in a cameo appearance, which added a nice touch. And beneath the humour is a layer of pathos that gives the story some depth.
Paris – a tale of a newspaper man who does an expose of the poverty-ridden lives of the people of the run-down town of Paris (somewhere in America - not Paris, France). This one looks at how the journalist's own worthy motivations to highlight the blight that poverty causes blinded him to the effect of his article on the people he used. Quite different from the other stories in the book, very well written, and it made me wish that Barbash had tackled subjects like this more often.
The Women – told from the perspective of a teenage boy whose mother has died, this is the story of the different ways in which the boy and his father come to terms with their loss, and of the boy coming slowly to an adult realisation of why his father has dealt with it as he has. Again this story has a more complete resolution, and the characterisation of both father and son is excellent.
On the whole, the storytelling is done quite conventionally, but Barbash mixes it up stylistically occasionally by, for example, giving us one story written in the form of letters, and another written in the second person. I'm not a huge fan of stylistic tricks, but these worked well for the subject matter of each. The characterisation throughout is the main strength of the collection, ringing true even when the circumstances might easily have led to them becoming unbelievable or caricatured. The scenarios are more variable, some excellent but others too slight or too contrived to satisfy. However the majority of the stories are either good or excellent, with only a few that I would rate as no more than average. A good collection overall, then, and I would be interested to read one of Barbash's novels, since I suspect his writing would work better for me within the longer format.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Simon & Schuster.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Tom Barbash's collection of 13 stories has been nominated for the 2015 Folio Prize. Each of the stories has one central viewpoint, sometimes given in third person and sometimes first. The main characters vary in age and gender but in almost every case they tend to be dealing with some form of loss - sometimes romantic loss, but often grief over the loss of a parent or a child. However that makes the collection sound more downbeat than it is. While some of the stories are quite moving, many of them are lifted by a touch of humour in the telling.
Although I've been reading a lot of short stories recently, it's still a form I struggle with. I'm aware of the fact that I like stories to have a plot – a beginning, middle and end – and that this isn't always the case with shorts. Barbash's stories are more in the form of character studies for the most part, and often seem to stop rather than end. This left me feeling dissatisfied with many of them, though my dissatisfaction was usually caused by the fact that the characters and situations had interested me and I wanted to see them taken through to a resolution. On the few occasions that the story came to some kind of firm conclusion, I found I enjoyed them a good deal, but with the rest I was left feeling a little let down – a clash between author's style and reader's preference, I think, rather than a real criticism of Barbash's skill.
There is a theme in many of them of dysfunctional relationships between parents and children, often with sexual jealousy thrown into the mix. So we have the mother who becomes obsessively jealous of her son's relationship with a waitress, and the father who finds himself having sexual feelings for his son's girlfriend. But there is always an added layer of depth, an examination of the cause behind these feelings, and this is the real interest of the story.
Here are a few that I particularly enjoyed – individually each of these would get a five-star rating from me:
Howling at the Moon – a tale of a young boy who had been the accidental cause of the death of his brother some years before, and the emotional distance this has caused between himself and his mother. Barbash leaves the guilt and grief skilfully understated, which I felt actually added to the emotional impact of this one.
Letters from the Academy – this is written as a series of letters from a tennis coach to the father of a young player about whom he has become obsessed. This is the most overtly humorous of the stories as we have to read between the lines of this man who clearly thinks his increasingly crazed behaviour is normal. Pete Sampras puts in a cameo appearance, which added a nice touch. And beneath the humour is a layer of pathos that gives the story some depth.
Paris – a tale of a newspaper man who does an expose of the poverty-ridden lives of the people of the run-down town of Paris (somewhere in America - not Paris, France). This one looks at how the journalist's own worthy motivations to highlight the blight that poverty causes blinded him to the effect of his article on the people he used. Quite different from the other stories in the book, very well written, and it made me wish that Barbash had tackled subjects like this more often.
The Women – told from the perspective of a teenage boy whose mother has died, this is the story of the different ways in which the boy and his father come to terms with their loss, and of the boy coming slowly to an adult realisation of why his father has dealt with it as he has. Again this story has a more complete resolution, and the characterisation of both father and son is excellent.
On the whole, the storytelling is done quite conventionally, but Barbash mixes it up stylistically occasionally by, for example, giving us one story written in the form of letters, and another written in the second person. I'm not a huge fan of stylistic tricks, but these worked well for the subject matter of each. The characterisation throughout is the main strength of the collection, ringing true even when the circumstances might easily have led to them becoming unbelievable or caricatured. The scenarios are more variable, some excellent but others too slight or too contrived to satisfy. However the majority of the stories are either good or excellent, with only a few that I would rate as no more than average. A good collection overall, then, and I would be interested to read one of Barbash's novels, since I suspect his writing would work better for me within the longer format.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Simon & Schuster.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
November 4, 2015
I’m really mixed about this. Individually, quite a few stories in this collection really worked for me – actually, all except maybe two. Yet I didn’t feel wowed by the collection as a whole.
Interestingly, my gut reaction to the collection was to assume that Barbash was an early 20-something who was in or who just completed a creative writing program. But then, when I looked into his bio, I was obviously way off base. He’s an experienced journalist and one who has shown himself quite able to dive head first into really big topics. Yet the stories in the collection seemed mostly one-note; breaking up sucks. I get it. I did need it to be rehashed again and again. I’m not sure why Barbash didn’t bring the full range of his life and professional experience to bear on this collection. Were these lying around from his rookie days? Was he making a self-conscious effort to separate from his journalistic and world-wise sensibility in favor of something more purely emotional? I don’t know.
Still, what he did he did incredibly well at times. But the repetition!
For example, I really loved the first story, “The Break,” about a divorced mother having difficulties accepting her son’s love life. I wish, however, he didn’t repeat the same theme in “Her Words,” a story about a college professor’s discomfort with his son’s romance with a female student in his class. Yes, there are lots of different details, but the similarities struck me as more prominent. And then, he sort of touched these bases again in “Spectator,” where a middle-aged art teacher (another teacher!) gets freaky when his teenage student-girlfriend shows attention to a down-on-his-luck classmate.
In another repeated theme, we find “Howling at the Moon,” told from the perspective of a young boy coping with a deep hurt in his relationship with mom and trying to come to terms with her new significant other and his family, followed later in the collection by “January,” where a son is taking pleasure in the screw-ups of his mother’s new significant other and then by “The Women,” about a boy struggling to come to grips with his father’s lean-mean-dating-machine lifestyle shortly after the death of his mother (but he feels rejuvenated when he himself gets laid by a fantasy-like chick who just so happened to be bummed out by her mom’s social activates just after her father died).
In another pairing, we find “Somebody’s Son,” about a youthful ethically-challenged real estate guy who discovers his heart by the end of the story, and “Paris,” a slash and burn journalist who discovers his heart at the end of the story.
Some of these stories were really terrific individually and I’d have probably been all-in five stars had I read them one at a time and well spaced apart in the New Yorker or someplace like that; “The Break,” “Her Words,” “Spectator,” “January,” and some I hadn’t mentioned like “Balloon Night,” “Letters From the Academy” (I usually hate epistolary stories, which this was, but this one was so out there, so irresistibly and delightfully creepy) and “Birthday Girl.”
On the whole, I’ll say 4 stars for most of the individual stories, 1 star for an abysmally curated collection; averaging 2.5 and rounding to 3.
By the way, I’ve seen some reviews comparing Barbash to Raymond Carver. I hadn’t read Carvber in many years so before writing this review, I picked a Carver at random for a quick re-read. Yeah, both use language simply or even sparingly. But when it comes to building a complex multi-level story through deceptively simple language, Carver is in a completely different class.
Interestingly, my gut reaction to the collection was to assume that Barbash was an early 20-something who was in or who just completed a creative writing program. But then, when I looked into his bio, I was obviously way off base. He’s an experienced journalist and one who has shown himself quite able to dive head first into really big topics. Yet the stories in the collection seemed mostly one-note; breaking up sucks. I get it. I did need it to be rehashed again and again. I’m not sure why Barbash didn’t bring the full range of his life and professional experience to bear on this collection. Were these lying around from his rookie days? Was he making a self-conscious effort to separate from his journalistic and world-wise sensibility in favor of something more purely emotional? I don’t know.
Still, what he did he did incredibly well at times. But the repetition!
For example, I really loved the first story, “The Break,” about a divorced mother having difficulties accepting her son’s love life. I wish, however, he didn’t repeat the same theme in “Her Words,” a story about a college professor’s discomfort with his son’s romance with a female student in his class. Yes, there are lots of different details, but the similarities struck me as more prominent. And then, he sort of touched these bases again in “Spectator,” where a middle-aged art teacher (another teacher!) gets freaky when his teenage student-girlfriend shows attention to a down-on-his-luck classmate.
In another repeated theme, we find “Howling at the Moon,” told from the perspective of a young boy coping with a deep hurt in his relationship with mom and trying to come to terms with her new significant other and his family, followed later in the collection by “January,” where a son is taking pleasure in the screw-ups of his mother’s new significant other and then by “The Women,” about a boy struggling to come to grips with his father’s lean-mean-dating-machine lifestyle shortly after the death of his mother (but he feels rejuvenated when he himself gets laid by a fantasy-like chick who just so happened to be bummed out by her mom’s social activates just after her father died).
In another pairing, we find “Somebody’s Son,” about a youthful ethically-challenged real estate guy who discovers his heart by the end of the story, and “Paris,” a slash and burn journalist who discovers his heart at the end of the story.
Some of these stories were really terrific individually and I’d have probably been all-in five stars had I read them one at a time and well spaced apart in the New Yorker or someplace like that; “The Break,” “Her Words,” “Spectator,” “January,” and some I hadn’t mentioned like “Balloon Night,” “Letters From the Academy” (I usually hate epistolary stories, which this was, but this one was so out there, so irresistibly and delightfully creepy) and “Birthday Girl.”
On the whole, I’ll say 4 stars for most of the individual stories, 1 star for an abysmally curated collection; averaging 2.5 and rounding to 3.
By the way, I’ve seen some reviews comparing Barbash to Raymond Carver. I hadn’t read Carvber in many years so before writing this review, I picked a Carver at random for a quick re-read. Yeah, both use language simply or even sparingly. But when it comes to building a complex multi-level story through deceptively simple language, Carver is in a completely different class.
October 18, 2015
I admit that usually short stories are not for me. Even so, I like to give it a try from time to time and I tend to find authors that make me fall in love with their work. For that reason and since Tom Barbash is so much praised, I wanted to give a try to the Stay Up With Me collection.
Unfortunately, I didn't find any connection with the stories and the characters. All of them all started with good premises that made me curious and anxious to keep reading but then there was always something missing to make them fully attractive and interesting to the reader.
In stories of this length, authors tend to go with open endings, specially because they mostly tell moments that are insert on daily basis lives. They are windows to someone existence and when the reader goes away, they are suppose to continue in their minds and in perpetual continuity. But still the reader needs to feel some closure to that small moments presented to him. The reader needs to feel connected to at least a little bit part of the story and to create empathy with the characters. And I couldn't do it with any of them.
I thought the short story about the party could have been one of them if the ending hadn't had such abruptness and wasn't so empty.
Besides that I still think I have to rate the book as 2 stars because I liked the concept, the beginning of the stories, the creativity behind it and the connection between the title's book and all the different themes in each story. - Cláudia
Unfortunately, I didn't find any connection with the stories and the characters. All of them all started with good premises that made me curious and anxious to keep reading but then there was always something missing to make them fully attractive and interesting to the reader.
In stories of this length, authors tend to go with open endings, specially because they mostly tell moments that are insert on daily basis lives. They are windows to someone existence and when the reader goes away, they are suppose to continue in their minds and in perpetual continuity. But still the reader needs to feel some closure to that small moments presented to him. The reader needs to feel connected to at least a little bit part of the story and to create empathy with the characters. And I couldn't do it with any of them.
I thought the short story about the party could have been one of them if the ending hadn't had such abruptness and wasn't so empty.
Besides that I still think I have to rate the book as 2 stars because I liked the concept, the beginning of the stories, the creativity behind it and the connection between the title's book and all the different themes in each story. - Cláudia
December 17, 2014
I'd originally come upon this book from a list entitled "The Most Depressing Modern Fiction" or something to that effect, and being a downbeat guy with a mild obsession with the cynical and the depressive in modernity, I picked it up.
Now, it's a solid read. Barbash tells his stories well and the depressive dread is skillfully delineated. But he does have a few weaknesses, namely his propensity for ending his stories on the symbolic and the metaphorical. These aren't bad ways to end a story per se, symbolism can be shattering and deeply affecting, but only when used appropriately. There were a handful of times when Barbash would end a story with a piece of symbolism that left me saying "Well, that was nice, but what the hell does it have to do with anything other than reading and sounding nice and borderline deep?"
But overall it's a very good collection of short stories with a few real standouts of artistry that all describe adroitly the everyday sadness, miseries, and mild to major traumas that weigh us down but might define us just as much as anything else. It's not as horribly depressing as I was led to believe but there's a skill apparent here and I very much look forward to reading more of Barbash's creative output.
Now, it's a solid read. Barbash tells his stories well and the depressive dread is skillfully delineated. But he does have a few weaknesses, namely his propensity for ending his stories on the symbolic and the metaphorical. These aren't bad ways to end a story per se, symbolism can be shattering and deeply affecting, but only when used appropriately. There were a handful of times when Barbash would end a story with a piece of symbolism that left me saying "Well, that was nice, but what the hell does it have to do with anything other than reading and sounding nice and borderline deep?"
But overall it's a very good collection of short stories with a few real standouts of artistry that all describe adroitly the everyday sadness, miseries, and mild to major traumas that weigh us down but might define us just as much as anything else. It's not as horribly depressing as I was led to believe but there's a skill apparent here and I very much look forward to reading more of Barbash's creative output.
February 25, 2015
Quite often I like to start the day reading a short story. Even if I’m knee-deep in a good novel it’s enjoyable to get a taste of an entirely new perspective that can be consumed in one sitting before going about my day or plunging back into reading a longer narrative. Sometimes the results can feel slight and forgettable. At other times I’m left reeling at the profundity of what I’ve just read and wanting more. Reading through the stories in Tom Barbash’s “Stay Up With Me” made me greedy. I wanted to put off going to work and stay in bed reading through the whole book. The stories are fantastically entertaining and moving in the way they effectively delineate a character’s complex life in a few short pages. His fiction uses a variety of narrative styles capturing a range of perspectives from divorced parents to con artists to teenage boys. Each story empathizes with where that character is in their life at that point in time to give you a refreshingly new perspective.
Read my full review on LonesomeReader review of Stay Up With Me by Tom Barbash
Read my full review on LonesomeReader review of Stay Up With Me by Tom Barbash
October 18, 2013
I have to admit that my opinion of the collection was not very high when I was a couple of stories into the book. Neither of them had a spectacular or action-filled or poignant ending, and I found myself wondering what the point was.
A couple of more stories later, I began to understand that the author was illustrating the humanity and ongoing struggle of the characters in such a well-crafted manner that it was easy to miss. In my opinion, each story is about life in a different way, and each of the characters in each of the stories approaches life in a different way. Though many of the characters (and all of us) are flawed, Tom Barbash is a genius when it comes to highlighting the basic goodness of humanity. He captures the subtle nuances of human emotion in a way I have rarely experienced in a book. The underlying passive tone of the prose adds a feeling that life continues and is often indifferent to our individual struggles.
Superbly written!
A couple of more stories later, I began to understand that the author was illustrating the humanity and ongoing struggle of the characters in such a well-crafted manner that it was easy to miss. In my opinion, each story is about life in a different way, and each of the characters in each of the stories approaches life in a different way. Though many of the characters (and all of us) are flawed, Tom Barbash is a genius when it comes to highlighting the basic goodness of humanity. He captures the subtle nuances of human emotion in a way I have rarely experienced in a book. The underlying passive tone of the prose adds a feeling that life continues and is often indifferent to our individual struggles.
Superbly written!
September 27, 2014
It's rare for a collection of this many stories with a consistent theme to maintain quality throughout. In each, there is an element of varying degrees of PTSD, with central characters dealing with traumatic loss or upheaval. There is usually another close relative or friend, the catalyst of the pain, but these are inwardly constructed. New Yorkers are prominent, with outwardly enviable lives. There are no economic or social disasters for any of them -- their struggles are emotional. Very fine.
December 27, 2013
Highly recommend. Short stories (or at least the ones I read) tend to be populated with lost, sad characters. Barbash's collection has no shortage of these, but most of them are struggling, moving forward, and you leave them with some hope. Many of the stories touch on themes of intentions; "Paris" stands out as a unique exploration in this vein and a story I'll want to re-read.
December 17, 2014
3.75. I really enjoyed most of these stories. I think the collection deserves more attention from me, though, as I am certain these stories are deeper than they seem at face value. There were clearly themes that were threaded throughout, so I'm looking forward to book club discussion .
July 17, 2019
Short intimate stories of unsettled characters you'll find yourself rooting for, all treading water, lost in their own way, and all beautifully told. This is the second time I've read this. A very strong 4 stars.
July 3, 2016
Wonderful stories from beginning to end. I might dare to use the word 'classic'. Barbash's psychological insight and ability to create pathos is impressive. These tales reach deeply into the reader's heart.
July 14, 2018
Seeing as it's been nearly a year since I read this collection and even though I've read many books since then, this one still lingers on my mind, well that's a sign of great writing.
Will check if Barbash has come out with anything new since the release of Stay Up With Me.
Will check if Barbash has come out with anything new since the release of Stay Up With Me.
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