Understudies

by Ravi Mangla

A high school teacher begins to question the course of his life after a famous young actress moves into town. In the starlet's shadow, his girlfriend, his mother, his neighbor, and his students take on strange new dimensions. Told in a series of snapshots, Understudies presents a sharp, funny, and heartbreaking study of beauty, celebrity, and everyday needs.

"Funny, moving, perceptive, artful--these are the first words that came to mind when I tried to describe Understudies to a friend. And then, to better capture its spirit, I began reading it aloud and marveled all over again at Ravi Mangla's ability to tell us, with precision and wit, what deserves to be known." - Joanna Scott (MacArthur Fellow, Pulitzer Prize Finalist, author of Follow Me)

"Ravi Mangla's delightingly tight, micro-chaptered Understudies is an unassumingly beautiful and moving debut. It's elegantly and hilariously precise about everything it touches, and it touches almost everything human." - Gary Lutz (author of Divorcer and Partial List of People to Bleach)

"Ravi Mangla's Understudies is a brilliant meditation on the private cost of celebrity, the longing to transcend the ordinary, and the seductive nature of performance. Darkly funny, sharply-observed, and terrifically moving, Understudies is an essential debut." - Laura van den Berg (author of The Isle of Youth)

"With the absurdist realism of A.M. Homes and the perverse randomness of Miranda July, Ravi Mangla's Understudies asks 'is the unacknowledged life worth living,' and--in a prose as original as the novel itself--answers, definitively, yes." - Courtney Maum (author of the novel I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You)

Genres: Fiction

141 pages, Paperback

First published November 3, 2013

About the author

Ravi Mangla is the author of the novels The Observant (Spuyten Duyvil, 2022) and Understudies (Outpost19, 2013). His writing has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Atlantic, Cincinnati Review, Paris Review Daily, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He lives in Rochester, NY.

Reviews

[Ravi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book I always wanted to write. Might as well quit while I'm ahead. Maybe I'll take up bass fishing.

[Peter Tieryas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ravi Mangla’s Understudies is a mosaic of stories, sketches almost, that read as a composite mixing humor, social commentary, and human foibles. In other words, it’s pretty damn hilarious. It’s also an understated take on the existential crisis that is wryly provocative without bashing you in the face with its message. A famous actress moves into town and her effect on those around him is both subtle and overtly absurd. His wife gets pregnant, his mother starts an advice column, and his friend starts stalking the actress. The humor is never mean-spirited and there’s a wry detachment that, fortunately, doesn’t force a false laugh track on you- you know, APPLAUSE. Instead, as a reader, we are allowed to experience, pause, then ponder.

http://tieryas.wordpress.com/2013/12/...

[Claudia Putnam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Updated: Adding a starred rating. Also--segmented fiction! That was the term I was trying to think of, and which I would say this book is.

The writing is lovely and delicate, with lots of pithy and amusing observations about our culture. Think Infinite Jest in digestible portions, and with fewer characters. I think this book more or less says the same thing, although Mangla does not struggle as Wallace does to find a way out of the shallow and dissociated lives we lead. It's more a view of ourselves in snapshots. But some sections are galvanizing.

There's a term for this type of novel, in which a story is told through a series of anecdotes that may not initially seem connected but that eventually build to a 3D story. I just read a blog post about it, but already I've forgotten what it's called... Anyway, think Jenny Offil. In Understudies, the sections are distinctly set apart (and are very short), whereas in Dept of Speculation, each paragraph is its own bit and you end up seeing the story through a kaleidoscope. But similar concept. So, I thought of Wallace and also Saramago (The Double) for the fascination with the actress (and in the case of both Mangla and Wallace, what she represents about us). (Also the relationship with the teacher colleague recalled the Saramago for me.)

What kept it from 5 stars for me was that I thought that sometimes the endings of the sections lacked punch. "I nodded and went home." It's a reaction to something that's taken place, but IMO kind of a wasted opportunity to really dig it into us. I suppose the understatement might go with the understudy theme. The narrator is not really connected to his story, or to anyone, so he's kind of reporting in stealth mode. Okay, but he's highly observant and I wanted more of a hit sometimes. Also there were some dangling modifiers--more than just one or two, but not a ton--which drives me nuts. And some clunky phrasing and strange word choices (I fawned over my coffee), which stood out given the overall beauty of the book.

It's interesting that I liked this book as much as I did, because alienated characters don't normally appeal to me. I think the narrator cares more than he knows he does, and this comes through in the way he observes. I objected to the girlfriend's name and lack of dimensionality--she's got some funny observations, too, and these give us a sense of her character, but we don't really *see* her, and, come on, Missy? That's kind of sexist, IMO. Also, why is she called that? A little detail such as this would have helped a lot.

And I wasn't sure why she came back to him. He didn't seem to contribute much to the relationship, though he missed her. Was it just that the actress had become unavailable even in the imagination?

The scene with the actress in the hospital was very moving.

Some samples:

"Midstream the guy at the neighboring urinal turned to me. 'I don't know why, but every time I stand at a urinal I have this weird feeling I've wandered into the wrong bathroom.... But then I remember that women's bathrooms have couches.'"

"For a long time I devoted myself to the conspiracy that some ruffian was siphoning gas from my tank, before conceding to the chilling truth: my truck was a guzzler. In a modern world, ten miles to the gallon was the rough equivalent of highway robbery."

"He had less a bowl than a casserole dish [hair] cut."

"'Question,' Palover prefaced. 'Would you rather have a rare blood disease named after you or nothing at all?' 'Nothing at all.' 'Answer honestly.""

"Her favorite novelists are Edith Wharton and James Patterson."

"There's an element of truth in every game. Except for Candy Land. That's simply a game of lies."

I could go on and on.... Lots of great stuff worth your time here. I'd recommend this book without reservation.

[John Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like short. I like concise. I like books that don't over-detail every setting, every character, every emotion and instead leave room for the reader to get involved. So it's not unexpected that I liked Ravi Mangla's book, Understudies.

This is a short novel broken into 200 bite-sized chapters and the end result is something of a meditation or a mood piece. The narrative covers the entire (but mostly recent) life of a high school teacher and his relationship with his girlfriend, mother, work colleague, rock band, and a neighbor who is obsessed with a famous actress who has moved to their suburb.

The many brief windows that open on the life of the unnamed narrator serve to show a man confronted by an often mystifying world. There are moments of humor throughout, but they are suppressed somehow, as if overly-medicated. To illustrate a life in snippet form like this is perhaps the most honest way. It is, after all, how life is experienced: randomly, largely without plot and navigated with maps as useless as the one sold by one of the characters who insists that squiggly lines and unnamed streets is enough. Rather than challenge the assumptions and opinions of people like this, the narrator tends to just accept and move on. It's as if he expects life to be strange (and it rarely fails to deliver) and he suspects that none of this may be real to begin with. If that's the case, why struggle?

[Isadora Paiva · Rating 1 out of 5]

Apparently I'm the cheese that stands alone on this one. It's honestly not as bad as a one star rating might imply, but seeing as goodreads understands one star as "did not like it" that's what I had to do. Honestly, this book just felt so lazy. I always thought that if I ever wrote a book I'd have a hard time writing all the "in between" scenes, the stuff between the scenes I really wanted to get into. Well, it seems like Ravi Mangla has the same problem, but he just decided to write the book anyway. So this book is a bunch of snippets that never get deep, even though the writer seems to think he's making a big point on the nature of celebrity and how we all just want to be famous. Or something. Overall, it seems like an attempt to disguise lack of depth by selling it as purposeful, using this stupid gimmick. Didn't buy it.

[Avital · Rating 5 out of 5]

This segmented book/book in flash or, in short, mosaic of complementary stories is extremely satisfying in the way it brings in the various aspect of being a celebrity and wanting to be one. The sadness of living to feel celebrated and the disappointing fleeting moments of a semi-breaking-through take the narrator and the reader to a world-not-worth -living where feelings depend on watching and being watched. Even the authenticity of emotion is tested in the light of centering around an actress who has "made it" and is "given" to the narrator's heartbreak when she is not conscious but in a coma.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved every last bit of this Ravi Mangla book. I loved the prose, the short, numbered sections the structure, the writing, the people, the humor, the heart, the ideas, the name Chudley, the heart, did I say that already? and that last beautiful paragraph I read over and over again.

[Amber Sparks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whenever I read something by Ravi Mangla, I spend hours after wondering how he did it. There don't seem to be tricks,no hidden mirrors or rabbits in hats - and yet my heart is broken and my funny bone hurts like hell. Read this book.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found myself having a surprisingly strong emotional connection to this book. Mangla does a marvelous job conveying the sense of a live lived without a completely solid handle on it, the way people manage to deal with a life they are never really prepared for and weren't probably the best choice to live. As is always the indicator of good writing, I repeatedly forgot as I read that the characters weren't real. There is some great humor here, and some really tender moments as well. All in all, it's a pretty fine book.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fascination with fame and celebrities is so unusual. Who decided that they should get the attention that they do? Why are some people obsessed with them, wanting to know every little thing about them? For Ravi Mangla’s unnamed narrator, the thought of being famous brings him a sense of purpose.

In his short novel Understudies, a famous actress moves into the narrator’s neighborhood, and the whole town gets so involved in her personal life that the supermarket “staked a sign immediately beyond the sliding doors: the actress’s face pasted on a caricatured body, and underneath a concise declaration in bold type: I was here” and marked certain products that she bought with her name and a silver sticker. Disappointed with his life as a high school teacher, he quickly gets roped into the fascination, putting a strain on his relationship with his girlfriend Missy. Not to mention, his mother and students also get caught up in their own quest for fame.

The story is told in mini chapters, and each one doesn’t always relate to the events of the previous chapter. It doesn’t completely follow the traditional linear progression most stories typically do, but the plot line is still distinguishable. Mangla’s style of telling the story in vignettes felt a little jarring to me at first since I’m so used to reading stories that have more of an organized progression of events. It left me confused as to why he chose specific moments that seem to be random, and since I had to read this book for my creative writing class, it wasn’t until we had a discussion that I understood more of what the story was about. I think part of that confusion had to do with the fact that I’m not always the best at putting the pieces together. However, this format worked well to capture and highlight the moments that are most important to understand the narrator’s behavior and actions. They work as seemingly arbitrary snapshots of the narrator’s lackluster life, giving the impression of how meaningless it is and painting him as an Average Joe with no distinguishable accomplishments.

Even though he makes some questionable decisions, like joining his student’s band, I found myself empathizing with the narrator once I understood why he was obsessed with the idea of fame. Mangla also creates interesting side characters, like the narrator’s coworker Palover, who’s transparent about the reality of fame, delivering the truth through sharp quips. When the narrator wonders why there’s a picture of the woman who is famous for having a lot of kids instead of an Olympic winner on the cereal box, Palover replies, “We needed a portrait of achievement within our reach.”

Overall, Mangla creates a clever take on the fascination and consequences of fame that’s filled with dry humor. But some of the emotional moments fall flat and don't deliver, like the climax with the actress and how the outcome of the narrator’s relationship with Missy plays out. While I felt that Understudies was interesting once I understood it, it probably could’ve been better if there was more depth to those key moments.

[Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

quick, funny, and insightful all at once; 200 chapters in 141 pages will do that. every range of emotion is compressed here, though the predominant sentiment is one of wry humor. whether the narrator is reckoning with the famous actress who moves in across the street, his pregnant girlfriend, his advice-columnist mother, or his high-school-student bandmates, we see so many different people and situations, many played to comic effect until, suddenly, serious reality rears its head. smart, witty, dry --- I didn't want to put it down.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ravi Mangla is one of my favorite writers, period, so it makes sense that I would love UNDERSTUDIES. It's a short novel, comprised of 200 very short chapters, some of which are just vignettes. But less is always more, and there is no greater example than this book. Could each chapter and scene be longer? Sure. Does each chapter and scene need to be longer? Not at all.

[Brad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic; read it in a day. I felt like I was an extra in the scenes watching the story unfold. It left me wanting more, like any great story should.

[Mel Bosworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

It warmed my heart.

[Edward Rathke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really dig this. Funny and very much resembling life, both in content and structure.

My interview with Ravi at Monkeybicycle.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my review online @ Necessary Fiction.

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting short novel, comprised of short snippets that serve as mini-chapters. Funny, creative, and perceptive.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. Mangla is exceptionally talented and I enjoyed the book’s style, which is different from what I usually read. Highly recommend!

[Larry H · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a funny, insightful, and touching little book! (And I mean "little" not in a derogatory sense—Understudies is billed as a "short novel," and it's just a little more than 120 or so pages.)

Our somewhat jaded (and unnamed) narrator is a high school teacher. Or, in his words, "It could be said I worked as a purveyor of worldly knowledge, a molder of young minds...It could also be said I supervised the next generation of disappointers in the intervening hours between bus rides." His life—and the lives of those around him—are changed when a Golden Globe-winning actress moves into his town.

His bizarre best friend Chudley becomes obsessed with the actress, and the narrator begins to worry that this obsession may cause Chudley to do something inappropriate. But what he doesn't realize is he is becoming increasingly focused on the actress' presence as well. But he's unable to ascertain whether he's actually interested in her, or if he's just using her as a distraction from his unsettled personal life, as his live-in girlfriend, Missy, is pressuring him for more permanence in their relationship.

As he tries to make sense of his life, and of his mother's new role as an advice columnist on the web (despite her own phobias), he finds himself hanging out with a group of high school students, including one of his own students, and they form a band, which reawakens his zeal to perform. And strangely, these high school students—even when stoned—are more insightful than he is about life.

Understudies is a humorous and moving story told in vignettes about a man in the throes of a mid-life crisis before he hits mid-life. But in addition, it's a commentary about our fame- and celebrity-obsessed culture, and how we find ourselves following the latest trends and searching for solutions to our problems anywhere we can find it. It's also a story about the need to feel loved and needed, to feel secure.

Ravi Mangla is a terrific writer. He has a great sense of humor, which was definitely reflected in so much of this book. Many sentences made me chuckle. And even as you shook your head at the ludicrousness of some of the situations and characters (including a student named Cuisinart), you realize that underneath all of the satire, it's a story that seems familiar and realistic. I look forward to seeing what's in store for Mangla's literary career.

[Matt Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Understudies' is an interesting look into the typical/atypical suburban life of a man, his girlfriend, mother, friends, and underage band mates. It's filled with the type of situations that riff on the existential absurdity of suburban life - finding hilarity in bored mediocrity, kind of like Fargo or Twin Peaks, and like these two examples is tinged with dark humor. Unexplained obsessions, contradictory logic, and observations of human foibles abound in the characters as they live - not grow or change much, just live. At times, the dry humor is taken to the kind of extreme where it could chafe on someone not fully on board with Mangla's sensibilities, but the bite-sized sections keep the reading light and unencumbered. At it's best, it resembles the irreverent mocking of mediocrity that George Saunders often uses, as well as Amelia Gray's 'Threats', although that example would be the characters of this book thrown into a nightmare dimension. Unlike these examples, 'Understudies' has a much more lukewarm tale to tell. Even though the story is resolved simply enough, it feels like there is an absence of extremes for any of the characters, and that negative space feels like it could have been filled by some sinister or upsetting resolutions. As it stands, the book is much like characters themselves: quirky, dry, and comical, but quick to pull back before any roots could be set down.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll admit it. As I read the first couple of (very short) chapters in Understudies, I wasn’t sold. Mangla’s style is unique, and it takes some getting used to. I'm glad I kept reading, though, because I ended up really enjoying the book.

My favorite part is how Mangla can capture moods, reactions, subtexts in just a few easy words. His style is astute, concise, and subtly clever. In fact, his writing has an almost poetic quality to it. Perhaps a bit of an acquired taste, but it didn’t take me long to acquire it.

Full thoughts are posted on Erin Reads.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I dig Mangla's way with words and he's a writer to watch, for sure. This book reminds me a bit, the more I think about it, as a slightly less weird cousin to Patrick deWitt's Ablutions - they both tap into a similar vein of nameless insecurity, but in an enjoyable fashion. It's a quick read and while you may not remember the book itself too long after reading it, I hope that you'll remember the author. May he have his own Sisters Brothers coming down the line (in terms of success, that is).

More at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-Sj

[Ben]

We want more, need more and we just want to believe that we can somehow change our lives.

[Nan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this as a free audiobook to review. It is a bunch of short chapters, which took some time to get use to, but overall I enjoyed it. It was a quick listen.

[Nicolepometti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Club- 8th Book- November 2021