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Tell Me One Thing: Stories
A collection of unforgettable short stories that explores the wondrous transformation between grief and hope, a journey often marked by moments of unexpected grace.
Set in California, Tell Me One Thing is an uplifting and poignant book about people finding their way toward happiness. In "Get Your Dead Man's Clothes," "Irish Twins," and "Aftermath," Jamie O'Connor finally reckons with his tumultuous childhood, which propels him to an unexpected awakening. In "Tell Me One Thing," Lucia's decision to leave her loveless marriage has unintended consequences for her young daughter. In "Sweet Peas," "What We Give," and "The Neighbor," the sudden death of librarian Trudy Dugan's beloved husband forces her out of isolation and prompts her to become more engaged with her community. And in "Wishing," Anna finds an unusual kind of love. Tell Me One Thing is about the life we can create despite the grief we carry and, sometimes, even because of the grief we have experienced.
Set in California, Tell Me One Thing is an uplifting and poignant book about people finding their way toward happiness. In "Get Your Dead Man's Clothes," "Irish Twins," and "Aftermath," Jamie O'Connor finally reckons with his tumultuous childhood, which propels him to an unexpected awakening. In "Tell Me One Thing," Lucia's decision to leave her loveless marriage has unintended consequences for her young daughter. In "Sweet Peas," "What We Give," and "The Neighbor," the sudden death of librarian Trudy Dugan's beloved husband forces her out of isolation and prompts her to become more engaged with her community. And in "Wishing," Anna finds an unusual kind of love. Tell Me One Thing is about the life we can create despite the grief we carry and, sometimes, even because of the grief we have experienced.
- GenresShort Stories
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
7 people are currently reading
399 people want to read
About the author
Deena Goldstone
2 books21 followersDEENA GOLDSTONE is a screenwriter whose films include A Bunny's Tale, a dramatization of Gloria Steinem's undercover investigation of the Playboy Clubs, starring Kirstie Alley, and Safe Passage, starring Susan Sarandon. She graduated from UC Berkeley and has a master's in theater arts from NYU.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 28, 2023
Read this book! If you're a fan of short stories, you will be amazed at what Deena Goldstone can do. Tell Me One Thing consists of two story cycles and two stand-alone stories. Jamie O'Connor has his story cycle: "Get Your Dead Man's Clothes", "Irish Twins", and "Aftermath". We follow Jamie's journey from his abusive, abrasive life as a child in a family dominated by his father to the sterile existence he carves out for himself until his sister Ellen intervenes and then to the connection he makes that looks to be his salvation afterward. "Tell Me One True Thing" introduces us to a family in crisis and how Maggie, who is not yet in kindergarten, forces a group of adults to realize what they truly want out of life. In the second story cycle: "Sweet Peas", "What We Give", and "The Neighbor" we meet Trudy Dugan. Trudy is every woman who depends on her primary relationship for all her emotional needs and is lost when that relationship is gone. We have cause to cheer as Trudy navigates withdrawal from the world and step-by-step ventures from her cocoon to care about the people she finds herself living and working with. "Wishing" rounds out the collection with a bittersweet story of a brief love that was never meant to continue. This is such a wonderfully satisfying book. Highly recommended.
May 3, 2021
I've never been a fan of short stories but these I like, a lot! Goldstone has crafted beautifully rendered slices of life, capturing those defining life experiences that shape one's next chapters. So good I'm re-reading a second time.
June 24, 2018
Denna Goldstone writes like Alice Munro. This is a wonderful collection of short stories. Several of them string together to form a longer story. I loved the collection.
April 19, 2014
Tell Me One Thing by Deena Goldstone is a very highly recommended collection of eight short stories. I loved this collection.
Several of the short stories are interconnected through the characters in Tell Me One Thing. All eight of the stories focus on interpersonal relationships and how people struggle to connect with each other while overcoming their own issues and burdens. Goldstone show how people bear the burdens of their past and how that load becomes heavier over time, crushing them until they can find a way to deal with the burdensome past. Though the characters all face a loss of some kind and are grieving, they manage to transcend their pasts and pain to eventually find peace, contentment, and even love.
Contents:
Get Your Dead Man’s Clothes
Irish Twins
Aftermath
Tell Me One Thing
Sweet Peas
What We Give
The Neighbor
Wishing
Jamie O'Connor is the main character in "Get Your Dead Man's Clothes," "Irish Twins," and "Aftermath." He is dealing with the death of his abusive father, his haunting past in his family, his mother's failure to even try to protect him. A year after the funeral his sister Ellen visits with a plan to force Jamie to confront his feelings but causes a catastrophic event of her own making. Then Jaime is left to continue to deal with his past as well as the damage Ellen has caused.
The titular story concerns a woman who has left her husband and how that is affecting her daughter.
Librarian Trudy Dugan must teach herself how to continue living and connecting with the world after the death of her husband Brian in "Sweet Peas," "What We Give," and "The Neighbor."
Anna finds love in "Wishing."
The quality of the writing in Tell Me One Thing is exquisite. Goldstone manages to capture the complex psychological state of her characters as they struggle with their emotions and overcoming the visceral burdens of grief, hope, despair, and anger. Sometimes family, friends, and acquaintances have imposed the burden on a character but often it is of their own making or simply a result of living.
I can't recommend this collection enough.
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Knopf Doubleday for review purposes.
Quotes:
Sitting in St. Timothy’s Cathedral during his father’s funeral Mass, Jamie has no idea how the rest of his brothers and sisters feel about their father’s death, but he knows what he is feeling—nothing. Of that he is sure. Over the forty-two years of his life he has cultivated nothingness when it comes to his father, assiduously. Location 51
When do you stop loving a parent? Jamie wonders. How much can a child take before that stubborn flame of necessary love sputters and dies? Location 119
as an adult now, starting his forties, he’s come to realize that it is his mother who never, not once, stepped in to protect him against his father’s assaults. He’s certain now that Carrie O’Connor’s crime was the greater one. Location 319
So all eight of the O’Connor siblings have their own version of what life was like growing up in that narrow brick house in Buffalo, but no one has compared notes. Until now. Ellen has come halfway around the world for just that purpose. Location 325
Aftermath Having spent most of his forty-three years intimately acquainted with the notion that the sins of the father are visited upon the son, Jamie O’Connor now contemplates the sins of the sister. Deep in the middle of the night, as he drives from his home to University Hospital, he tries to determine what his responsibility is to carry those. Location 906
They were an oddly matched pair, Trudy short and round, Brian resembling a whooping crane with all the angles and odd posturing that those birds employ. They never saw the mismatch. Trudy found in Brian an unusual grace, and Brian was always reassured that Trudy fit so easily into his embrace. They were the sort of couple that most people didn’t understand—the attraction, the connection, the longevity. She’s so caustic, it was often said, such a brusque sort of person. He was so quiet, that’s the first thing people noticed. Location 2230
Peggy Coopersmith, walking her chocolate Lab before work, found Brian sprawled across Madia Lane. Dead before the paramedics could get there and ascertain that his aorta had ruptured. Dead before Trudy could tell him she loved him one last time. Dead, alone. That last part—that he died without her there to comfort him—never stopped tormenting her. Location 2433
On that March afternoon, as Armando helped Trudy plant her tomato seedling, kneeling by her side, he felt something shift within her, something tiny to be sure, but he heard a small sigh escape from her body, and with it, he was certain, came some measure of the sadness that seemed to weigh her down so. For all that he was grateful and very pleased with himself that he had thought to bring the tomatoes. Location 2464
Several of the short stories are interconnected through the characters in Tell Me One Thing. All eight of the stories focus on interpersonal relationships and how people struggle to connect with each other while overcoming their own issues and burdens. Goldstone show how people bear the burdens of their past and how that load becomes heavier over time, crushing them until they can find a way to deal with the burdensome past. Though the characters all face a loss of some kind and are grieving, they manage to transcend their pasts and pain to eventually find peace, contentment, and even love.
Contents:
Get Your Dead Man’s Clothes
Irish Twins
Aftermath
Tell Me One Thing
Sweet Peas
What We Give
The Neighbor
Wishing
Jamie O'Connor is the main character in "Get Your Dead Man's Clothes," "Irish Twins," and "Aftermath." He is dealing with the death of his abusive father, his haunting past in his family, his mother's failure to even try to protect him. A year after the funeral his sister Ellen visits with a plan to force Jamie to confront his feelings but causes a catastrophic event of her own making. Then Jaime is left to continue to deal with his past as well as the damage Ellen has caused.
The titular story concerns a woman who has left her husband and how that is affecting her daughter.
Librarian Trudy Dugan must teach herself how to continue living and connecting with the world after the death of her husband Brian in "Sweet Peas," "What We Give," and "The Neighbor."
Anna finds love in "Wishing."
The quality of the writing in Tell Me One Thing is exquisite. Goldstone manages to capture the complex psychological state of her characters as they struggle with their emotions and overcoming the visceral burdens of grief, hope, despair, and anger. Sometimes family, friends, and acquaintances have imposed the burden on a character but often it is of their own making or simply a result of living.
I can't recommend this collection enough.
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Knopf Doubleday for review purposes.
Quotes:
Sitting in St. Timothy’s Cathedral during his father’s funeral Mass, Jamie has no idea how the rest of his brothers and sisters feel about their father’s death, but he knows what he is feeling—nothing. Of that he is sure. Over the forty-two years of his life he has cultivated nothingness when it comes to his father, assiduously. Location 51
When do you stop loving a parent? Jamie wonders. How much can a child take before that stubborn flame of necessary love sputters and dies? Location 119
as an adult now, starting his forties, he’s come to realize that it is his mother who never, not once, stepped in to protect him against his father’s assaults. He’s certain now that Carrie O’Connor’s crime was the greater one. Location 319
So all eight of the O’Connor siblings have their own version of what life was like growing up in that narrow brick house in Buffalo, but no one has compared notes. Until now. Ellen has come halfway around the world for just that purpose. Location 325
Aftermath Having spent most of his forty-three years intimately acquainted with the notion that the sins of the father are visited upon the son, Jamie O’Connor now contemplates the sins of the sister. Deep in the middle of the night, as he drives from his home to University Hospital, he tries to determine what his responsibility is to carry those. Location 906
They were an oddly matched pair, Trudy short and round, Brian resembling a whooping crane with all the angles and odd posturing that those birds employ. They never saw the mismatch. Trudy found in Brian an unusual grace, and Brian was always reassured that Trudy fit so easily into his embrace. They were the sort of couple that most people didn’t understand—the attraction, the connection, the longevity. She’s so caustic, it was often said, such a brusque sort of person. He was so quiet, that’s the first thing people noticed. Location 2230
Peggy Coopersmith, walking her chocolate Lab before work, found Brian sprawled across Madia Lane. Dead before the paramedics could get there and ascertain that his aorta had ruptured. Dead before Trudy could tell him she loved him one last time. Dead, alone. That last part—that he died without her there to comfort him—never stopped tormenting her. Location 2433
On that March afternoon, as Armando helped Trudy plant her tomato seedling, kneeling by her side, he felt something shift within her, something tiny to be sure, but he heard a small sigh escape from her body, and with it, he was certain, came some measure of the sadness that seemed to weigh her down so. For all that he was grateful and very pleased with himself that he had thought to bring the tomatoes. Location 2464
March 16, 2017
Generally not a short story fan, but these were well told.
August 6, 2014
While reading the short stories in Deena Goldstone's Tell Me One Thing, I kept thinking of Maya Angelou's notion of people doing what they know and doing better when they know better. Each of the characters in Goldstone's eight stories are notable for their portrayal of human vulnerability as they struggle to do their best in maintaining a sense of stasis in handling the arbitrariness of daily life. They strive to do the best they can in within the lives they have been handed.
Through Goldstone's fluid prose we are able to empathize with the heartfelt pain, joy, and trepidation of change demanded by the dynamics of daily life. She gifts her characters with a strong sense of integrity as they negotiate the best way to cope with loss, dysfunction, death, anger, friendship and love. In "Aftermath," the third of three Jamie stories, Goldstone expertly guides us through the character's unwitting metamorphosis from isolation and guilt as he reaches out in comfort and develops a friendship to the victim of his sister Ellen's actions.
In "Sweet Peas," the first of three Trudy stories, Goldstone introduces us to the newly widowed character. She details the co-dependent relationship of Trudy and her husband, revealing an almost palpable pain of Trudy's attempts to adjust to singular life. Goldstone's narrative renders Trudy's terse comments and curt behavior reasonable and sincere. Her character successfully evokes the sympathies of the reader as she endeavors to do better.
In the third of the Trudy stories, Goldstone transforms Trudy's grief and mourning, directing her energies toward her community in the form of an almost obsessive anger at her next-door neighbors as well as the threat of the demise of her beloved library park. The spiral of anger is quelled through Trudy's actions to build a fence, initiate a petition, and allow herself to respond to the slowly emerging support of friendship with a widowed neighbor. Goldstone's words carry us through this wide range of emotions in this character driven testament to self-actualization.
There are three Jamie stories and three Trudy stories in this collection, but each of the eight stories successfully stands alone for individual reading pleasure. If you are looking for short fiction that taps a range of emotions or just make you feel good, add this book to your must read list.
by Diane Stanton
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
Through Goldstone's fluid prose we are able to empathize with the heartfelt pain, joy, and trepidation of change demanded by the dynamics of daily life. She gifts her characters with a strong sense of integrity as they negotiate the best way to cope with loss, dysfunction, death, anger, friendship and love. In "Aftermath," the third of three Jamie stories, Goldstone expertly guides us through the character's unwitting metamorphosis from isolation and guilt as he reaches out in comfort and develops a friendship to the victim of his sister Ellen's actions.
In "Sweet Peas," the first of three Trudy stories, Goldstone introduces us to the newly widowed character. She details the co-dependent relationship of Trudy and her husband, revealing an almost palpable pain of Trudy's attempts to adjust to singular life. Goldstone's narrative renders Trudy's terse comments and curt behavior reasonable and sincere. Her character successfully evokes the sympathies of the reader as she endeavors to do better.
In the third of the Trudy stories, Goldstone transforms Trudy's grief and mourning, directing her energies toward her community in the form of an almost obsessive anger at her next-door neighbors as well as the threat of the demise of her beloved library park. The spiral of anger is quelled through Trudy's actions to build a fence, initiate a petition, and allow herself to respond to the slowly emerging support of friendship with a widowed neighbor. Goldstone's words carry us through this wide range of emotions in this character driven testament to self-actualization.
There are three Jamie stories and three Trudy stories in this collection, but each of the eight stories successfully stands alone for individual reading pleasure. If you are looking for short fiction that taps a range of emotions or just make you feel good, add this book to your must read list.
by Diane Stanton
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
June 11, 2016
TELL ME ONE THING
Deena Goldstone
ISBN # 978-0385538756
Nan A. Talese, Publisher
Counteracting Loss
I misunderstood the title of Deena Goldstone’s TELL ME ONE THING. I expected it to be about writers telling their stories. Instead I found a fascinating collection of characters engaged in their own tragedies and triumphs. I was glad to be along for the ride.
Whether we expect it to or not, loss and tragedy alter how we view the world and how we relate to it. Deena Goldstone makes a thorough exploration of how grief affects individuals and how they move past it in her linked short stories.
In "Get Your Dead Man's Clothes," "Irish Twins," and "Aftermath," Jamie O'Connor faces up to the influence of his tumultuous childhood. His father was drunk and abusive, and Jamie grew up surrounded by secrets and shame. Burying those emotions doesn’t work, and we are with him as he moves out of grief and into growth.
In the title story, "Tell Me One Thing," Lucia's leaves her loveless marriage, but the move has unintended consequences for her young daughter. Is there a solution that is right for both of them? This rich story deals with complex issues. It could easily be expanded into a novel.
"Sweet Peas," "What We Give," and "The Neighbor," show how librarian Trudy Dugan’s stubborn streak protects her until a cause and a neighbor prompt her to rejoin her community.
In "Wishing," the only story in first person, Anna falls into a relationship that will haunt her for the rest of her life.
All of Goldstein’s finely honed characters are vulnerable yet strong. The author’s skilled use of language combined with her insight into people and their needs, makes the situations simultaneously troubling and reassuring. This book will give you insights into what others face and how important everyone’s story is.
Deena Goldstone
ISBN # 978-0385538756
Nan A. Talese, Publisher
Counteracting Loss
I misunderstood the title of Deena Goldstone’s TELL ME ONE THING. I expected it to be about writers telling their stories. Instead I found a fascinating collection of characters engaged in their own tragedies and triumphs. I was glad to be along for the ride.
Whether we expect it to or not, loss and tragedy alter how we view the world and how we relate to it. Deena Goldstone makes a thorough exploration of how grief affects individuals and how they move past it in her linked short stories.
In "Get Your Dead Man's Clothes," "Irish Twins," and "Aftermath," Jamie O'Connor faces up to the influence of his tumultuous childhood. His father was drunk and abusive, and Jamie grew up surrounded by secrets and shame. Burying those emotions doesn’t work, and we are with him as he moves out of grief and into growth.
In the title story, "Tell Me One Thing," Lucia's leaves her loveless marriage, but the move has unintended consequences for her young daughter. Is there a solution that is right for both of them? This rich story deals with complex issues. It could easily be expanded into a novel.
"Sweet Peas," "What We Give," and "The Neighbor," show how librarian Trudy Dugan’s stubborn streak protects her until a cause and a neighbor prompt her to rejoin her community.
In "Wishing," the only story in first person, Anna falls into a relationship that will haunt her for the rest of her life.
All of Goldstein’s finely honed characters are vulnerable yet strong. The author’s skilled use of language combined with her insight into people and their needs, makes the situations simultaneously troubling and reassuring. This book will give you insights into what others face and how important everyone’s story is.
May 13, 2014
A collection of 8 short stories dealing with loss. Flailing in the obsidian of grief this collection serves as a beacon of hope. Underlying theme - life goes on, like a Phoenix the ones left behind rise from the ashes.
Fragile subject matter approached with forthright cultivated prose.
In "Get Your Dead Man's Clothes," "Irish Twins," and "Aftermath," Jamie O'Connor finally let's go of his painful childhood and welcomes a new awakening.
In "Wishing," Anna stumbles upon a very unique type of love.
The stories delicately weave together but are nonetheless poignant individually.
Marvelous collection.
A copy was provided in exchange for an honest review
Fragile subject matter approached with forthright cultivated prose.
In "Get Your Dead Man's Clothes," "Irish Twins," and "Aftermath," Jamie O'Connor finally let's go of his painful childhood and welcomes a new awakening.
In "Wishing," Anna stumbles upon a very unique type of love.
The stories delicately weave together but are nonetheless poignant individually.
Marvelous collection.
A copy was provided in exchange for an honest review
July 29, 2014
Four and a half stars for these short stories. Blurb from the back of the book that captures it well: "Tell Me One Thing is a staggeringly honest portrait of people reaching for the courage to connect." And from the inside cover: "explores the wondrous transformation of grief into hope."
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews