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If I Would Leave Myself Behind: Stories
These flash fiction stories from one of today’s emerging literary stars grasp to determine whether life can "come with fewer qualifications and be less equivocal,” a world where friendships are negotiated, love is one-sided, imagined, absent, or discovered, and where “going crazy is more subtle than you'd think."
120 pages, Paperback
First published May 19, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 28, 2016
Highly recommend for flash and short story lovers. Becker has a unique voice. Her prose is simple, but packs a wallop of an intellectual and emotional punch. Beautiful stuff here. Update***Finally read the novella. Blown away. Wish I could even think to write like this. Her keen observations, her ability to tell truth through negation, her sentence construction is unique.
Some quotes from the novella:
"With every hurt word, I hid behind furniture, and nail polish and sweaters. I hid in lines, on buses, underwater. I hid in burritos and cookies big as hands and milkshakes topped with awful cherries. I let the cherries sink to the bottom with the melt. With every hurt word, I was less able to cause hurt. When I peeled a cucumber, I felt the sting of losing skin. I threw out the cucumber and ate the waxy rinds."
"I emptied the condom I found in the trash and made it irrelevant. " OMG, who ever wrote that about a condom?
Brilliant.
Some quotes from the novella:
"With every hurt word, I hid behind furniture, and nail polish and sweaters. I hid in lines, on buses, underwater. I hid in burritos and cookies big as hands and milkshakes topped with awful cherries. I let the cherries sink to the bottom with the melt. With every hurt word, I was less able to cause hurt. When I peeled a cucumber, I felt the sting of losing skin. I threw out the cucumber and ate the waxy rinds."
"I emptied the condom I found in the trash and made it irrelevant. " OMG, who ever wrote that about a condom?
Brilliant.
August 21, 2015
Cut with razor sharp precision this deceptively tiny book is one mighty and devastating gem.
September 21, 2014
The prose in this book is like a box cutter etching words into the glass of unwashed window panes. I definitely mean that in a good way, a wonderful way. There is a grace there, but it is definitely sharp and cutting. Marvelous voice and images. Evocative and haunting. Strong stuff.
December 30, 2014
This was far from what I expected this to be.
it's witty and full of dry, sarcastic humor. Becker has an incredible way of putting you in her shoes and putting you at the forefront of these situations. I loved every single story in this collection. Although at times I found myself asking, "what the heck?" after reading one of the stories, I also found myself wishing I had written the same thing.
it's witty and full of dry, sarcastic humor. Becker has an incredible way of putting you in her shoes and putting you at the forefront of these situations. I loved every single story in this collection. Although at times I found myself asking, "what the heck?" after reading one of the stories, I also found myself wishing I had written the same thing.
December 18, 2015
if i would leave myself behind by Lauren Becker is an astonishing collection of 28 stories and one novella. Get ready to be rearranged and turned inside out. The narrator climbs inside you and messes with your internal organs. My heart will never be the same. Every paragraph is its own brilliant landscape of relationships and how they move or stagnate as the narrator warns pursuers of a future she has already anticipated:
“You will disappoint me. Perhaps you must. I don’t know otherwise and will be confused at the absence of disappointment. You are just another and I am only me. I give you full permission to be everything I don’t want. In fact, I insist. And you don’t need my permission. It will only impel you to do the opposite and the opposite would be distressing to us both.”
“I climb into his beautiful mouth and I am his mouth and his pain and his words.”
But the true relationship is between reader and narrator. Moving from 1st person to 2nd person, Becker never leaves us behind. The door is open and we are in her thoughts, her fears, her hangovers, her refrigerator, on her couch, blasted face-on with her fierce honesty that makes this collection a life-long friend and necessity. It is a book that will never cease to inspire me. If you don’t have this collection, than you are truly missing out on writing at its best.
“You will disappoint me. Perhaps you must. I don’t know otherwise and will be confused at the absence of disappointment. You are just another and I am only me. I give you full permission to be everything I don’t want. In fact, I insist. And you don’t need my permission. It will only impel you to do the opposite and the opposite would be distressing to us both.”
“I climb into his beautiful mouth and I am his mouth and his pain and his words.”
But the true relationship is between reader and narrator. Moving from 1st person to 2nd person, Becker never leaves us behind. The door is open and we are in her thoughts, her fears, her hangovers, her refrigerator, on her couch, blasted face-on with her fierce honesty that makes this collection a life-long friend and necessity. It is a book that will never cease to inspire me. If you don’t have this collection, than you are truly missing out on writing at its best.
February 16, 2016
Lauren Becker's novella & short stories don't pull any punches. In fact, they release a barrage of punches, powered by the anger and frustration of years spent in shame, fury, embarrassment, and various other emotional prisons. She has a brilliance for illustrating social problems, particularly in gender roles, without explicitly stating them. Rather, as any good writer should, she simply creates heartbreaking, relatable stories that the reader can infer from subconsciously. It takes real talent to do this, and it still wouldn't be as impactful without the guts and heart that she puts into it. Comparing her work to that of Sylvia Plath or Flannery O'Conner does not seem overly generous, but appropriate. Becker is an exciting, unapologetic, and refreshing voice. Read this book and recommend it to everyone you know.
November 7, 2014
Solid collection. Incredible voice. I loved every bit of this.
May 13, 2014
Lauren Becker builds whole worlds out of tiny stories. She has such a commanding, distinct voice, and these stories are often both heartbreaking and hilarious.
April 13, 2016
Lauren Becker's book is quite tiny. I have to say right away, this is something I really enjoy--that ability to stick a book in my purse or pocket and go. The only thing I love more than the tiny book is the tiny book that comes with the ribbon bookmark attached to the binding (even though it looks like a book with a tampon). Those are the best! Though small, the quality of paper and binding of if i would leave myself behind is excellent. Curbside Splendor makes books that make you happy to hold in your hands.
The content of Becker's book is quite interesting. Rather than a novella + stories, really what we have here might be more aptly called a story + flash fictions. The longest piece, the title story, is 28 miniature pages. Such brevity makes it easy to ingest Becker's book in one sitting, as I did. This is not to say the collection is an easy read. Becker's lines often lean toward the poetic. Example: "We do not know safety. Though I should know, I look to him for guidance. He looks to a bottle and climbs into the bottle and becomes the bottle and comes out another boy." The rhythm and repetition lead the reader to a conclusion, one that need not so many words to reach, but would be boring and cliched if said in straightforward language. I admire this manipulation of simple ideas into lush images.
The title story can be difficult to get into. I read the first paragraph then reread it. I read 5 pages then went back and started over. Part of the confusion comes from the way the setting shifts. Is the speaker a girl, a young woman, an older woman? Clues tell me it changes. Sometimes names appear, though I am not sure I’ve met that person who might only exist in one scene. Sometimes the speaker refers to “we,” and other times “you” or “I.” Much like the boy who becomes the bottle, Becker leads us to conclusions using poetic language, but without more concrete setting indicators, the story becomes like a dream. This is not to say it is a poorly written story–far from it. It is a story that challenges readers. The speaker admits, “I know when I tipped to past tense. I sat on the toilet and broke in half, maybe more. I’ve rubber banded myself okay for now. The pieces don’t match up exactly, but close enough. This might be helpful information.” Rather than tell readers I am not okay, but I am trying to be okay. Beware, because I’m really not okay, the speaker describes in abstract images that she is broken and trying to fix herself. This was one of my favorite moments in the title story, one where I felt like the speaker was talking to me. Who else would the information be important to? To whom would she be speaking?
Becker’s flash pieces read like they are more straightforward prose, but are conceptual in nature. In “What Morning Is,” the electricity goes out. People in the area eat or sleep or clean to pass the time. When the lights do come on, there are those who forgot what light even looked like. The tiny flash piece felt like a conceptual bit on depression or loneliness.
Depression and loneliness are themes throughout if i would leave myself behind. Other repeated ideas are women who all look the same and therefore can be replaced easily. Many are described as broken, bent, snapped, or cracked. If one were to ask “What is in a name?,” Becker’s characters would say a lot. Individuals decide they hate their own name and change it, or hate someone else’s name (and mentally change it). Suicide appears more than once, making the collection hurt the heart more than it would have prior to Robin Williams’s death.
Becker’s style of prose that flows like water continues in her flashes, making some of the hardest punching I’ve read in the genre. It’s like she puts down a nice path and then throws pebbles in my way to trip on. Check out these lines: “My aunt and uncle were rich. My mother called my uncle a slumlord. Their family spent most winters in Florida. For two weeks, when school let out for Christmas, when my cousins were young. For weeks or months when their children left for college.” At first, readers are give nice subject + verb simple sentences. Then, Becker starts leaving out the subject and verb, making the sentences stutter. We start to stumble a little, as if the writer is asking us if we’re awake and paying attention. Good for her–keeps us on our toes, Lauren Becker!
I enjoyed if i would leave myself behind, which challenged me and asked me to leave my reading assumptions at the door. Though it wasn’t always easy, when it was banging on all cylinders, the collection felt like someone poking a bruise and asking me to address where it came from.
This review was originally published at Grab the Lapels!
The content of Becker's book is quite interesting. Rather than a novella + stories, really what we have here might be more aptly called a story + flash fictions. The longest piece, the title story, is 28 miniature pages. Such brevity makes it easy to ingest Becker's book in one sitting, as I did. This is not to say the collection is an easy read. Becker's lines often lean toward the poetic. Example: "We do not know safety. Though I should know, I look to him for guidance. He looks to a bottle and climbs into the bottle and becomes the bottle and comes out another boy." The rhythm and repetition lead the reader to a conclusion, one that need not so many words to reach, but would be boring and cliched if said in straightforward language. I admire this manipulation of simple ideas into lush images.
The title story can be difficult to get into. I read the first paragraph then reread it. I read 5 pages then went back and started over. Part of the confusion comes from the way the setting shifts. Is the speaker a girl, a young woman, an older woman? Clues tell me it changes. Sometimes names appear, though I am not sure I’ve met that person who might only exist in one scene. Sometimes the speaker refers to “we,” and other times “you” or “I.” Much like the boy who becomes the bottle, Becker leads us to conclusions using poetic language, but without more concrete setting indicators, the story becomes like a dream. This is not to say it is a poorly written story–far from it. It is a story that challenges readers. The speaker admits, “I know when I tipped to past tense. I sat on the toilet and broke in half, maybe more. I’ve rubber banded myself okay for now. The pieces don’t match up exactly, but close enough. This might be helpful information.” Rather than tell readers I am not okay, but I am trying to be okay. Beware, because I’m really not okay, the speaker describes in abstract images that she is broken and trying to fix herself. This was one of my favorite moments in the title story, one where I felt like the speaker was talking to me. Who else would the information be important to? To whom would she be speaking?
Becker’s flash pieces read like they are more straightforward prose, but are conceptual in nature. In “What Morning Is,” the electricity goes out. People in the area eat or sleep or clean to pass the time. When the lights do come on, there are those who forgot what light even looked like. The tiny flash piece felt like a conceptual bit on depression or loneliness.
Depression and loneliness are themes throughout if i would leave myself behind. Other repeated ideas are women who all look the same and therefore can be replaced easily. Many are described as broken, bent, snapped, or cracked. If one were to ask “What is in a name?,” Becker’s characters would say a lot. Individuals decide they hate their own name and change it, or hate someone else’s name (and mentally change it). Suicide appears more than once, making the collection hurt the heart more than it would have prior to Robin Williams’s death.
Becker’s style of prose that flows like water continues in her flashes, making some of the hardest punching I’ve read in the genre. It’s like she puts down a nice path and then throws pebbles in my way to trip on. Check out these lines: “My aunt and uncle were rich. My mother called my uncle a slumlord. Their family spent most winters in Florida. For two weeks, when school let out for Christmas, when my cousins were young. For weeks or months when their children left for college.” At first, readers are give nice subject + verb simple sentences. Then, Becker starts leaving out the subject and verb, making the sentences stutter. We start to stumble a little, as if the writer is asking us if we’re awake and paying attention. Good for her–keeps us on our toes, Lauren Becker!
I enjoyed if i would leave myself behind, which challenged me and asked me to leave my reading assumptions at the door. Though it wasn’t always easy, when it was banging on all cylinders, the collection felt like someone poking a bruise and asking me to address where it came from.
This review was originally published at Grab the Lapels!
December 2, 2014
When writing fiction that is empathetic to common, emotionally trodden persons, comparisons to Raymond Carver and Amy Hempel can sometimes be an unfortunate inevitability. However Becker’s pithy, cut-glass prose stylin’ and profilin’ is really all her own, and If I Would Leave Myself Behind is an artful reawakening of the short-story form. Becker owns it. She is a champion for unique characters who hold no title.
Full review at: http://www.gravelmag.com/brian-alan-e...
Full review at: http://www.gravelmag.com/brian-alan-e...
June 17, 2014
what i love about short short fiction, especially when written as brilliantly as Lauren Becker, is to see how much emotion, presence, mood, drama is packed into such tight yet dreamy prose. This is exactly what is accomplished in this beautiful little gem of a book. For those lovers of the short short form, or fiction in general, this is a must have.
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August 17, 2020All Splendor and Leave. It changed my life.
January 13, 2015
This is a lovely small book. I'm not a literary expert and I think I probably did not get everything that is in it, But I did get something very unusual. I have a fantasy sometimes that I would like to know how if feels to be someone else. To be in their body and hear their inner voice. This book have me that sort of feeling, particularly the novella. I felt the language inside myself and came away with a new and different perspective on seeing the world and other people. And that what art is supposed to be about right?
January 4, 2015
The writing in this collection of flash pieces captured me. I got so caught up in the moment by the oft-times brutal economy of language, of the images of despair, ferocity, hope, and survival that I was pretty breathless by the time I was done with it. So much so that when I try to sit down and wrote about the collection in aggregate, I feel like I somehow missed the forest for the trees and so I'd reopen the book, go back over a few pieces, only to find myself breathless again. I've done this three or four times now, so here--5 out of 5 already!
March 17, 2017
This is an incredibly powerful book of stories. Heartbreaking, weird, but profoundly real. I loved every page. These stories are brief, unusual, and quiet and loud at the same time. Such beautiful writing.
August 2, 2015
I received this book through Goodreads Firstreads. This is not the type of book I normally read, but I loved it. Very witty and clever, I couldn't put it down!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews