Amor and Psycho: Stories

by Carolyn Cooke

From the author of Daughters of the Revolution and The Bostons (winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for fiction) come eleven stories about sex and death, violence and desire, love and madness, set in a vast American landscape that ranges from the largest private residence in Manhattan to the lush rain forests and marijuana farms of Northern California. In “Francis Bacon,” an aspiring writer learns essential lessons from an aging pornographer. In “The Snake,” a restless Jungian analyst sheds one existence after another. In “The Boundary,” a muralist falls in love with a troubled boy from the rez. In the surreal “She Bites,” a man builds an architecturally distinguished doghouse as his wife slowly transforms. And in the transcendent, three-part title story, two best friends face their strange fates, linked by a determination to wrest meaning and coherence from lives spiraling out of control. At once philosophical and compulsively readable, Amor and Psycho dives into our darkest spaces, confronting the absurdity, poetry and brutality of human existence. This ebook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.  

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, Adult Fiction

194 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

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Reviews

[Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a little surprised at the reviews of this book that say the author was "trying to be edgy." I have read books meant to shock, I have read schlock, and this was nothing like that. This was showing, this was telling, this was very, very real. If you think the contents of this book are shocking, your life has probably been a little bit boring (read: slightly untragic). I loved all the women characters in this book. Everything was so complicated & masterful. Excellent short story book.

[Margit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cooke isn't afraid to write about edgy or painful subjects such as cancer, suicide, sexual abuse, pornography, and misogyny. Her writing is authentic; her characters are real. I found myself relating to characters I never would think of relating to in "real life". If you're not afraid of reading about these subjects, pick up a copy of this book.

"The Boundary" is going to stick with me for a long time. I liked the comparison between Native Americans and Jews. It reminded me of my own search for identity. The way she sprinkled in sentences of backstory about her ex-husband was expertly done. The voice was powerful, authentic, and poignant. At the ending, I physically felt what the character felt, and was left sitting in my living room for minutes, unable to move myself to continue to the next story. I don't remember the last time I was so physically impacted by words (or have I ever been?), and I think that's about the highest compliment I can offer. I think Cooke captured the way teenagers behave perfectly, and that powerful feeling of rejection and loss that makes your chest constrict: boom, out of nowhere.

The language in "Swing" really resonated with me.
"During the season Riva thought of as the autumn of her divorce, life became so quiet that she heard fog drip. Big spongy porcini pushed up under the orange pine needles and hissed as they grew..."
And a little later, "She thought about the atmosphere she and Roberto made together those five hears, about mushrooms and butter and wine and bare feet and West African music, as if happiness were a country where she'd once owned a house."

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amor and Psycho is a collection of edgy, absurd short stories. I think they were, in fact, too edgy and absurd for their own good, and lacked any depth. I only read the first three stories, but they gave me a good idea of what the rest were going to be like: drab, shallow and trying too hard to be catchy. I could easily imagine Palahniuk lovers enjoying this book.

[Delmy · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst short story compilations that i have ever wasted my time reading. It has absolutely no depth, no point and the characters are so shallow and unconvincing. The author tries so hard to be edgy and I don't know man, I read better stories from classmates in highschool. Really truly pedestrian and just...bad. I am very angry...at myself for not taking the reviews into consideration. I mean...

[Elliot Chalom · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read about half of the stories, putting the book down for good after finishing the longest, the titular story. I could not waste my time any longer. The sex, desire, and love was bland; the death, violence, and madness unaffecting. Even as I was reading the book I quickly forgot nearly everything from the weak stories I absentmindedly read. When one picks up a book like this the point is to be left trembling, or titillated, or in a perfect world, both. Here I was neither, not for a single story. If you want psycho, look to Norman Bates or Patrick Bateman. The poorly drawn characters in this book are utterly forgettable and charmless.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cooke's writing is honest, specific and illuminating - not to mention wickedly funny. I gladly followed her down every dark alley and around every foreboding corner. The through line connecting the varied characters and themes in this collection is Cooke's blend of heartbreak, humor and scalpel-sharp language. It's a signature wholly her own, and with it she conjures a wholly human range of emotion.

[Valerie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wat.

I love short story anthologies, so I saw this at the library and was like "hey, cool." These don't really read like short stories though; at best you could call them snapshots. At worst you can call them half-assed absurdism. I would've rated it lower, but I actually liked the last story in the book, even though it ended ridiculously abruptly like everything else.

Oh, and trigger warning for those who might need them: there's a lot of women dying of cancer in this book.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

My Selling Pitch:
Do you like to critically read edgy short stories? Are you willing to sit through some sleaze and incoherent writing for stories that don’t ultimately say anything?

Pre-reading:
Went to borrow American Psycho on Libby, and the cover for this stopped me in my tracks. I'm a slut for perverted classics.

Thick of it:
I am a Capricorn unicorn.

Dog metaphor is a little heavy-handed.

I googled. I like the Bacon paintings.

Detritus. Grr.

3/5. Musey and sensuous but no real substance.

——————
Pasta puttanesca again. While I like the alliteration, and there is something sleazy and perverse about the phrase, I don’t like it used in the next piece of writing too. You get one use. Then it cheapens. Be expensive. Be rare. Savor it.

Take the money. Ask for more.

Clerestory is a new word.

Peignoir-new word

Lugubrious-new word

4/5. I want what’s next for her. I want to see her exist separate from him.

—————
Do not fuck the snake.

Astrotrashhhhh.

2/5 interesting to read but nothing’s said.

——————
Locavores is a new word.

4/5 Interesting character studies. I like Psycho the most.

——-
4/5
Interesting character studies again. I don’t think I like the rape commentary. It comes across as a little snide.

———
Cisplatin is a new word.

Shut up with the eating disorder.

Ell is a new word.

1/5. Don’t like. Lots of these stories involve cancer, huh?

——————
Lugubrious again.

It’s giving Nightbitch.

3/5

—————-
I have no idea what I just read. It was incoherent to me. 1/5

————-
This book loves dogs for rape.

Talus is a semi-new word.

2/5 none of these stories say anything.

————-
1/5 don’t understand this one at all.

——-
2/5 interesting to read, but for what? The resolution makes it meaningless, and that’s probably the point of fleeting, impactful connections being rendered meaningless so easily, but I don’t ~like~ that. I don’t think connections are really meaningless.

Post-reading:
I like the cover so much, but I think I actively dislike this book. It feels like it’s so caught up in trying to be edgy that it’s forgotten whatever it set out to say. Very much a “look how much I don’t care” book. Like, you care, or you wouldn’t be writing this. It doesn’t feel honest. I wouldn’t recommend anyone go out of their way to read a single one of these short stories. That feels like a failure to me. It also blows my mind that, in such a short collection, the author reuses phrases and “unique” words. It’s only impactful once. It feels like a cheap trick. Most of the stories don’t have anything to say, and that’s so irritating to me. Don’t be words for the sake of being words. Have a point. For a book themed around death and sex, it doesn’t make you feel ~anything.~ How can that possibly be good?

Who should read this:
Edgy short story fans, but critical readers.

Do I want to reread this:
No

Similar books:
* The Seaplane on Final Approach by Rebecca Rukeyser-sleaze as observations
* Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder-magical realism, commentary on the ugly side of motherhood
* Bad Thoughts by Nada Alic-edgy short stories with problematic views
* You Have a Friend in 10A by Maggie Shipstead-read this if you want edgy short stories with range

[Julie Way · Rating 3 out of 5]

I typically like books of short stories and I really wanted to like this one, but overall, I just didn't. I liked some stories better than others, of course, and some stories seemed weirdly intertwined, which I also liked. But I kept wanting to get to the end of the story rather than enjoying it (and none of the stories really have a conclusion, so you can draw your own). I gave this book a 3-star rating because it had a lot of vocabulary I didn't know and I really appreciate that.

[Mae Dragoni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book, interesting but not my cup of tea. I enjoyed the writing and the stories, but sometimes the stories were vague. I liked how it made you think but I think I’m just a person that likes resolution. All in all not bad.

[Madison Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this as part of a personal 24-hour read-a-thon and that is the only reason I finished this book. It really was just boring and pointless, and there were maybe 2 characters total that compelled me even slightly. 1.5

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great writing.

[Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF on page 106 because it was pure torture to read this book.

Watch me complain about this book for 6 minutes...

[Alice Gomis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smart. Cultured. Cathartic.

[Jaxon Ostrer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poor reviews of this book will say that it is “trying to be edgy” or “has no substance”

Can’t people enjoy something that isn’t trying to tackle huge life issues of human experiences?

The stories are immensely entertaining and Cooke has such a strong narrative voice.

It’s a book of stories that exist for the sake of just existing and I loved it.

[Jeff Kohmstedt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Admittedly, I do not read short stories often, let alone an entire collection of them. I read one review of the book that focused on the cover. After finishing the book, I see why he/she did. The cover suggested to me that the stories would be a bit lighter, less cerebral than they were. In that respect, it was a bit misleading.

More importantly, because you can't always judge a book by its cover, few of the stories truly stood out as uniquely memorable. The two that did stand out were "She Bites," a story about a guy who builds an elaborate dog house and his wife who turns animal like and "The Boundry" about a woman who (supposedly) falls in love with a teen named Scarface. In those two stories, the author did a solid job.

The other stories seemed less than memorable. The narrator, which was in theory different from one story to the next, was too similar in each story. The author seemed unable to differentiate (or maybe it was just me as the reader) between the stories such that the narrator seemed to be the same character, saying similarly phrased sentences, from one story to the next. I'd put the book down and come back to it an hour later wholly forgetting what story I had just read. The book includes a "questions for discussion" for reading groups. I can't imagine what reading group would take this up.

[Scarlett Futch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having the interest to begin reading more short stories, I entered in the free early review contest and was awarded this book. I was very pleased with the first story. The writing was edgy yet eloquent. The topics were far from the norm, but nothing to the point that made you feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately by the third story I noticed that each new short seemed to be merely altered versions of the first.

The plot failed to differ from one-story to the next. Even in the short stories I noticed that there never seems to actually be a true climax. The heroines merged with the villains and left you feeling confused to the point you forgot what you read mere hours before.

Although it is clear that the writer has incredible skill at diverse topics and superb figurative language, it wasn't enough to mask the shallow plot of each story. I wonder if this would've actually been better as an actual novel as a majority of the short stories were really one long story with intertwined plots and characters.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loving short story collections, I entered and won a giveaway for this book. The pages inside hide a variety of human experiences including love, lust, pain, longing, sorrow and much more. Each one of the stories was filled with both darkness and enough reality to draw the reader into the character's worlds.

Right from the start, the author lets the reader know that nothing is off limits. Whether it's the carefree audacity of a cancer-stricken woman or a young writer finally finding the courage to strike out on her own thanks to an aging pornographer, Carolyn Cooke writes without barriers and limits. She allows the madness that is sex, love and relationships to live both on the page and in the mind of the reader.

Each story has its own pacing but overall, the book is a page-turner. I enjoyed how some of the stories were interwoven while others stood well on their own. Really an intriguing, strange yet fun to read collection of short stories.

[Moira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before everything, let me praise the design of the first edition hardcover. That cartoon BLAT for the "o" of Psycho? A brilliant echo of the punch some of these stories have in store for the reader.

Which is not to say that I think this is Carolyn Cooke's best work. She adopts a cool tone here, as if this is reportage instead of fiction. I was reminded of The Children's Hospital and of May We Be Forgiven, though these stories lack of hallucinatory flatness of the former and are far superior to the latter. But that tone! It was as if she wanted to lull us, divert our attention from the magic and myth she is playing with. I would have followed her into this world more readily if she had given it to me with more heat, more urgency. As it is, I am left tepid.

[Laura K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, and would have given it a higher rating, except for a couple stories at the end of the book ("The Antiheroes", "Opal is Evidence") that I didn't like. The other stories were quite interesting, not only for what they did say, but the interconnection of themes and of characters (some only implied). Like visual art, both the obvious plot and the implied subtext of these stories are open to various interpretations, so a lot of the "meaning" is in the eye of the beholder/reader.

"The Antiheroes, however, was very boring to me and "Opal" was just plain strange. These two stories probably had as much to give as the rest of them, but, I just didn't care enough to try. I probably will read other works by this author.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first starting reading this book, I was struck by the beauty of the language. And strongly reminded of Sam Shepard's writing. But by the third story, I had to change my assessment.

Sam Shepard writes beautiful and deep. He paints scenes tangible and mysterious. He connects the seemingly unconnected. But there is a purpose to his writing. When I set down one of his books, his stories remain with me. I feel enriched by his beautiful writing. Carolyn Cooke writes beautifully about nothing. When I set down this book, there was nothing. Neither the stories nor the characters lived on for me. I felt cheated by her beautiful writing.

[Dustin Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book captures some of the weirdness of Northern California, which is really difficult. I swear it's like living in the Wizard of Oz here, and Carolyn Cooke does a great job parceling out the weirdness in the confines of well-crafted, reality based, short stories without resorting to magical realism. As a side note, I show up in this book, a brief cameo, in the story "antiheroes" as the character of Neville. it's a bit unflattering, but I don't mind at all. Let the chips fall where they may. Anyway, that doesn't bias my opinion of this book, I hope.cheers to Carolyn. I think it's her best work yet.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book tried far too hard to be shocking, edgy, and provocative. The stories were told with such a cold and distant tone that I didn't feel any sympathy for the characters, just alienation. The only story I enjoyed was the one with the girl sleeping with the artist with the eccentric family that lived on the surface. That one was almost beautiful, and made me think. The others were faux-disturbing and borderline uninteresting. Sorry, Carolyn Cooke, but I won't be returning to read more of your work anytime soon.

[Ann G. Daniels · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the first three or four stories. I quit before the title story - perhaps I'd have liked that better? I didn't want to stick around to find out. The plots are strange, with disturbing undercurrents, without being interesting, and the writing, while good, isn't good enough to make up for the fact that I don't want to read about people I don't care about, doing things I don't care about, while making me feel creepy.

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked 'Isle of Wigs' and the titular story-there's an authenticity in her writing there. Also the closing piece which I thought was unique in its perspective of the divorced mother.
Could skip the others.

Also I wouldn't consider defining this book as edgy, a word that pops up in a lot of its reviews. There's a weight to the situations going on in the stories for sure, but I'm left a bit apathetic in its completion.

[The Advocate]

"Her stories are best when concretely describing characters or their daily lives. In particular, her female protagonists are meticulously presented regardless of age, history, or health."
Read more here.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The striking language and singular turns-of-phrase we've come to expect (and love) from Cooke. Characters bizarre but believable, living lives perhaps we've thought of--but now don't have to live, as they're so richly imagined here.

[Zoë · Rating 4 out of 5]

Luminous and surreal! Demands a second reading as have Cooke's previous books. I had my own spectacularly surreal dreams while reading the book. Finely honed characters and events make this book fantastic reading.

[Jeff Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of short stories - Cooke is great at packing her sentence with compressed feeling and backstory, and many of the stories trace a whole life or lives (emotional or otherwise) within scant pages.

[ew · Rating 1 out of 5]

This collection of short stories was highly disappointing to be completely honest. I found the writing style was rather basic and the topics that were not well tackled. I wanted to like this book so badly, but I ended up not even finishing it.