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Flings
The acclaimed author of Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever and The Gospel of Anarchy makes his hardcover debut with a piercing collection of short fiction that illuminates our struggle to find love, comfort, and identity
In a new suite of powerful and incisive stories, Justin Taylor captures the lives of men and women unmoored from their pasts and uncertain of their futures.
A man writes his girlfriend a Dear John letter, gets in his car, and just drives. A widowed insomniac is roused from malaise when an alligator appears in her backyard. A group of college friends try to stay close after graduation, but are drawn away from-and back toward-each other by the choices they make. A boy's friendship with a pair of identical twins undergoes a strange and tragic evolution over the course of adolescence. A promising academic and her fiancée attempt to finish their dissertations, but struggle with writer's block, a nasty secret, and their own expert knowledge of Freud.
From an East Village rooftop to a cabin in Tennessee, from the Florida suburbs to Hong Kong, Taylor covers a vast emotional and geographic landscape while ushering us into an abiding intimacy with his characters. Flings is a commanding work of fiction that captures the contemporary search for identity, connection, and a place to call home.
In a new suite of powerful and incisive stories, Justin Taylor captures the lives of men and women unmoored from their pasts and uncertain of their futures.
A man writes his girlfriend a Dear John letter, gets in his car, and just drives. A widowed insomniac is roused from malaise when an alligator appears in her backyard. A group of college friends try to stay close after graduation, but are drawn away from-and back toward-each other by the choices they make. A boy's friendship with a pair of identical twins undergoes a strange and tragic evolution over the course of adolescence. A promising academic and her fiancée attempt to finish their dissertations, but struggle with writer's block, a nasty secret, and their own expert knowledge of Freud.
From an East Village rooftop to a cabin in Tennessee, from the Florida suburbs to Hong Kong, Taylor covers a vast emotional and geographic landscape while ushering us into an abiding intimacy with his characters. Flings is a commanding work of fiction that captures the contemporary search for identity, connection, and a place to call home.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 19, 2014
13 people are currently reading
807 people want to read
About the author
Justin Taylor
18 books73 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Justin Taylor is the author of the novel “The Gospel of Anarchy” and the story collection “Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever.”
The Millions called “The Gospel of Anarchy” a “bold casserole of sensual encounter and deranged proclamation… Loudly, even rapturously, Taylor succeeds in making the clamoring passion of his characters real, their raw, mercurial yearning a cry for ‘a world newly established.’ In terms of acts of God, The Gospel of Anarchy is a tornado, tearing up the hill where rock ‘n roll and cult meet.”
And the New York Times raved that “Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever ” is a “spare, sharp book” which “documents a deep authority on the unavoidable confusion of being young, disaffected and human. … [T]he most affecting stories in … are as unpredictable as a careening drunk. They leave us with the heavy residue of an unsettling strangeness, and a new voice that readers — and writers, too — might be seeking out for decades to come.”
His stories have been published in many shitty literary journals, and his non-fiction has appeared in the New York Times, BookForum and The Believer, among other publications.
He lives in New York.
Justin Taylor is the author of the novel “The Gospel of Anarchy” and the story collection “Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever.”
The Millions called “The Gospel of Anarchy” a “bold casserole of sensual encounter and deranged proclamation… Loudly, even rapturously, Taylor succeeds in making the clamoring passion of his characters real, their raw, mercurial yearning a cry for ‘a world newly established.’ In terms of acts of God, The Gospel of Anarchy is a tornado, tearing up the hill where rock ‘n roll and cult meet.”
And the New York Times raved that “Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever ” is a “spare, sharp book” which “documents a deep authority on the unavoidable confusion of being young, disaffected and human. … [T]he most affecting stories in … are as unpredictable as a careening drunk. They leave us with the heavy residue of an unsettling strangeness, and a new voice that readers — and writers, too — might be seeking out for decades to come.”
His stories have been published in many shitty literary journals, and his non-fiction has appeared in the New York Times, BookForum and The Believer, among other publications.
He lives in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
July 14, 2015
This one got off to an inauspicious start for me with the title story which concerned the comings and goings of a number of unmemorable twenty-somethings.
Think Friends with no Smelly Cat.
It got better, though I have to admit upon finishing, only two stories really made an impression - Mike's Song about a father trying to connect with his grown kids by taking them to see the Phish in concert. "It's Phish, Dad, not 'the Phish.'" (He must REALLY love those kids to make such a sacrifice!) and Carol, Alone, a sweet, sad tale about an elderly woman battling sleep problems and memories.
Taylor is a decent enough writer, though he leans toward those ambiguous non-endings that everybody loves to hate. In retrospect, I'm probably just TOO OLD for this collection. If you're twenty-something and enjoy reading about the tribulations of other twenty-somethings, these stories might just be your cup of Mountain Dew, or whatever the young folks are drinking these days.
Think Friends with no Smelly Cat.
It got better, though I have to admit upon finishing, only two stories really made an impression - Mike's Song about a father trying to connect with his grown kids by taking them to see the Phish in concert. "It's Phish, Dad, not 'the Phish.'" (He must REALLY love those kids to make such a sacrifice!) and Carol, Alone, a sweet, sad tale about an elderly woman battling sleep problems and memories.
Taylor is a decent enough writer, though he leans toward those ambiguous non-endings that everybody loves to hate. In retrospect, I'm probably just TOO OLD for this collection. If you're twenty-something and enjoy reading about the tribulations of other twenty-somethings, these stories might just be your cup of Mountain Dew, or whatever the young folks are drinking these days.
July 29, 2015
A new name for me and another to add to my growing list of good ones. If you like the comedy show Girls you won’t need much introduction to these stories. There’s not as much “aggressive nudity” (love that phrase, as it’s regularly applied to Lena Dunham) and they aren’t as actually funny as Girls but it’s that kind of territory.
Young writers these days, boy, huh? They hafta be screechingly au courant don’t they, otherwise who will take to heart their satires and jibes? They – or let’s be nice, their characters – always sound revoltingly hip. But it has to be. So, we get this kind of stuff:
The poetry prof once told me that for people who think Stephen Malkmus is Jesus, the Royal Trux are like the Old Testament. I didn’t tell her that I didn’t know – or care – who Stephen Malkmus was, and she chose to interpret my silence as contemplative pleasure (our signature form of miscommunication) so she Dropboxed me the mp3s, which I got cloud-backupped to my phone the last time I updated
It’s beginning to sound as if I’m not enthusiastic about Flings. But I am. I give it 3.5 stars. The effortlessness of Justin Taylor’s ability to whip up snapshots of the lives of a few dozen 20-something post-grads meant that I wanted most of these stories to carry on and I got what a lot of novel-readers complain about – aw, you hafta keep getting to know a new set of characters and you were still interested in the previous ones. Well, it’s true here. But that’s a plus, not a minus.
For non-American readers one perpetual minor irritant is the complete obsession of these short story writers with brand names, and every one of these mentions (sometimes they come in little lists) is there to trip off a host of reference points, nostalgic or class-conscious synapses are to be all fired up accordingly, and I know I am not getting any of that. I could write you a paper :
Did Jay Gatsby wear a Rolex Oyster Bubbleback or a Fortis Aviatis Daybreaker Stealth?: The Ubiquity of Brand Name Ideation in the Modern American Short Story.
Boy, that would be boring. But very doable. It’s universal in American short fiction. You just have to go with it.
As I scoop up this stuff, I am finding that modern American short story writers shake down into the realists, the surrealists and the dangerous meth-head hillbillies. In the first group we have (for instance) Wells Tower, Matthew Klam, Junot Diaz, Thom Jones and now Justin Taylor. In the second we have George Saunders, Alissa Nutting and Amelia Gray and in the third group the bloodstained groaning of Donald Ray Pollack, Jordan Harper and Frank Bill. Most of these are good or great. American short stories have never been better.
I’m sorry to have finished Flings because it had a place, briefly, on my real-life to-read shelf next to Georges Perec’s Things, and I liked that – Flings, Things, hah. I should have got a copy of Strings by Darren Gallagher. That would have been awesome.
Young writers these days, boy, huh? They hafta be screechingly au courant don’t they, otherwise who will take to heart their satires and jibes? They – or let’s be nice, their characters – always sound revoltingly hip. But it has to be. So, we get this kind of stuff:
The poetry prof once told me that for people who think Stephen Malkmus is Jesus, the Royal Trux are like the Old Testament. I didn’t tell her that I didn’t know – or care – who Stephen Malkmus was, and she chose to interpret my silence as contemplative pleasure (our signature form of miscommunication) so she Dropboxed me the mp3s, which I got cloud-backupped to my phone the last time I updated
It’s beginning to sound as if I’m not enthusiastic about Flings. But I am. I give it 3.5 stars. The effortlessness of Justin Taylor’s ability to whip up snapshots of the lives of a few dozen 20-something post-grads meant that I wanted most of these stories to carry on and I got what a lot of novel-readers complain about – aw, you hafta keep getting to know a new set of characters and you were still interested in the previous ones. Well, it’s true here. But that’s a plus, not a minus.
For non-American readers one perpetual minor irritant is the complete obsession of these short story writers with brand names, and every one of these mentions (sometimes they come in little lists) is there to trip off a host of reference points, nostalgic or class-conscious synapses are to be all fired up accordingly, and I know I am not getting any of that. I could write you a paper :
Did Jay Gatsby wear a Rolex Oyster Bubbleback or a Fortis Aviatis Daybreaker Stealth?: The Ubiquity of Brand Name Ideation in the Modern American Short Story.
Boy, that would be boring. But very doable. It’s universal in American short fiction. You just have to go with it.
As I scoop up this stuff, I am finding that modern American short story writers shake down into the realists, the surrealists and the dangerous meth-head hillbillies. In the first group we have (for instance) Wells Tower, Matthew Klam, Junot Diaz, Thom Jones and now Justin Taylor. In the second we have George Saunders, Alissa Nutting and Amelia Gray and in the third group the bloodstained groaning of Donald Ray Pollack, Jordan Harper and Frank Bill. Most of these are good or great. American short stories have never been better.
I’m sorry to have finished Flings because it had a place, briefly, on my real-life to-read shelf next to Georges Perec’s Things, and I liked that – Flings, Things, hah. I should have got a copy of Strings by Darren Gallagher. That would have been awesome.
July 31, 2014
Beautiful, structurally perfect stories. I wanted the tiny world of each chapter to keep going and going and going.
February 5, 2016
People young and old face all kinds of choices. Decisions that will affect their lives not only immediately but just as much further down the line. Friends newly graduated and deciding what to do next; a couple about to get married and facing down secrets from their past; a divorced father spending an evening with his grown children... these are just a few examples of the stories in Justin Taylor's new collection.
I think there's a certain amount of discomfort I felt in reading these stories. Most of the characters are drifting, much in the way I imagine a lot of older twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings are. It's being faced with the very truth of today's post-college reality that's unsettling to someone like me and so with that in mind I can't say that I enjoyed these stories.
In terms of being realistic, well written, and effective, however, Justin Taylor most certainly has accomplished that. All of the people are well drawn and real. There's a depth to them that is intriguing. It makes you wonder - is the sign twirler on the corner skimming off the top? Is the person next to you on the airplane making a run for it from his longtime love? And what about that happy family in the corner booth of the restaurant - is there some dark tragedy that mars their past?
I think there's a certain amount of discomfort I felt in reading these stories. Most of the characters are drifting, much in the way I imagine a lot of older twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings are. It's being faced with the very truth of today's post-college reality that's unsettling to someone like me and so with that in mind I can't say that I enjoyed these stories.
In terms of being realistic, well written, and effective, however, Justin Taylor most certainly has accomplished that. All of the people are well drawn and real. There's a depth to them that is intriguing. It makes you wonder - is the sign twirler on the corner skimming off the top? Is the person next to you on the airplane making a run for it from his longtime love? And what about that happy family in the corner booth of the restaurant - is there some dark tragedy that mars their past?
July 30, 2014
I received this book via goodreads first reads in exchange for an honest review:)
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A fun little collection of stories, my favorites were more towards the end but I enjoyed them all (rare for me. usually there's one or two I don't like/skip).
It took me a couple stories to really get into his writing style but once I did I flew through the novel . A couple stories had bits that were a bit slow but not in a bad way.
I loved getting a glimpse inside the lives of these ordinary people. .no one's perfect, they all have their quirks/problems.. Mr Taylor has painted interesting and engrossing portraits in each segment.
Would recommend, *waves* Happy reading! Will definitely read more from this author in the future:)
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A fun little collection of stories, my favorites were more towards the end but I enjoyed them all (rare for me. usually there's one or two I don't like/skip).
It took me a couple stories to really get into his writing style but once I did I flew through the novel . A couple stories had bits that were a bit slow but not in a bad way.
I loved getting a glimpse inside the lives of these ordinary people. .no one's perfect, they all have their quirks/problems.. Mr Taylor has painted interesting and engrossing portraits in each segment.
Would recommend, *waves* Happy reading! Will definitely read more from this author in the future:)
April 14, 2020
First off, I will start with the things I enjoyed about this book.
1. I liked the style of writing. I think Taylor has a way with words that make me shake my head and say ‘ohhhh I see what he’s saying’. It was easy to get an image in my head by his descriptions.
2. I, for one, like the ambiguous endings. I like authors who don’t always have to spell everything out for you.
3. My favorite stories by far were: Sungold, Adom Olam and Saint Wade. I felt these stories showed purpose and sent a message or just merely had a good plot point and humor within.
What I didn’t like (Where do I begin?):
1. Let me start by saying that I understood when I picked up this book at the Dollar Tree what ‘Flings’ are and that maybe a couple of these stories would be about either casual sex or infidelity. I read the ‘about the book’ on the inside flap and thought the couple sentence descriptions of the few stories it gave seemed intriguing. After finishing, I reread the inside flap and chuckled because I felt it was portrayed in much more of an innocent light than it should have.
2. All but a couple stories are pretty much only about sex/masturbation/foreplay
3. Every single damn guy in this book has commitment issues.
4. I hate the way most of female characters are portrayed in this misogynistic, hyper sexualized way. It makes it all the worse that this book was written by a man.
5. Some stories hopped around so much I didn’t know who was important to the story or not and sometimes found myself wondering what the actual fuck is going on?
6. If a character isn’t an alcoholic, you bet your ass they’re a drug addict.
7. 0 character development.
8. I find it hard to believe that none of these late twenties to early thirty year olds have their shit together at least a little bit.
Not planning to ever reread this book and not recommending to anybody.
1. I liked the style of writing. I think Taylor has a way with words that make me shake my head and say ‘ohhhh I see what he’s saying’. It was easy to get an image in my head by his descriptions.
2. I, for one, like the ambiguous endings. I like authors who don’t always have to spell everything out for you.
3. My favorite stories by far were: Sungold, Adom Olam and Saint Wade. I felt these stories showed purpose and sent a message or just merely had a good plot point and humor within.
What I didn’t like (Where do I begin?):
1. Let me start by saying that I understood when I picked up this book at the Dollar Tree what ‘Flings’ are and that maybe a couple of these stories would be about either casual sex or infidelity. I read the ‘about the book’ on the inside flap and thought the couple sentence descriptions of the few stories it gave seemed intriguing. After finishing, I reread the inside flap and chuckled because I felt it was portrayed in much more of an innocent light than it should have.
2. All but a couple stories are pretty much only about sex/masturbation/foreplay
3. Every single damn guy in this book has commitment issues.
4. I hate the way most of female characters are portrayed in this misogynistic, hyper sexualized way. It makes it all the worse that this book was written by a man.
5. Some stories hopped around so much I didn’t know who was important to the story or not and sometimes found myself wondering what the actual fuck is going on?
6. If a character isn’t an alcoholic, you bet your ass they’re a drug addict.
7. 0 character development.
8. I find it hard to believe that none of these late twenties to early thirty year olds have their shit together at least a little bit.
Not planning to ever reread this book and not recommending to anybody.
Read
June 3, 2024🎧I'm not going to rate this yet because that would be unfair. I was only 1/4 listening to the audio while I tried to figure out copyright laws on TikTok. I'm old. I can't walk & text at the same time either. Anyway, I plan to read a physical copy because I really did enjoy the writing style of what I did hear.
June 26, 2024
really struck me. but subtly? usually with short story collections i get bored between stories or only love a select few, but this one really captivated me the entire time
October 21, 2014
Superb Collection of Tales from a Modern Master of the Short Story
One of the best prose stylists and storytellers of his generation, Justin Taylor's new short story collection "Flings: Stories" is worth noting as an important collection of short fiction from a writer who deserves favorable comparisons with other American masters of the short story, including George Saunders, Ben Marcus and Rick Moody. While he may not be as bold an experimenter as either Marcus or Moody, Taylor excels in delivering fine, often elegant, terse prose, and in exploring the nature of personal relationships in disaffected twenty and thirtysomethings, occasionally offering some of the wry humor I have encountered in Saunders' latest short story collection. One of the best stories in "Flings", "Happy Valley", delves into a young woman's search for some meaning in her life, amidst the Jewish neighborhood of Hong Kong, with some of the most polished and descriptive prose which Taylor offers. Another, "Poets", which I had heard him read from recently at a well known Brooklyn, NY reading series, recounts the rise and fall of a relationship between two poets, a man and a woman, in a writing program. Without question, for those in search of a contemporary master of the mainstream literary fiction short story in Anglo-American literature, then they don't have to search far by reading Justin Taylor's latest collection, and one destined to be remembered as among the most notable works of fiction published this year.
One of the best prose stylists and storytellers of his generation, Justin Taylor's new short story collection "Flings: Stories" is worth noting as an important collection of short fiction from a writer who deserves favorable comparisons with other American masters of the short story, including George Saunders, Ben Marcus and Rick Moody. While he may not be as bold an experimenter as either Marcus or Moody, Taylor excels in delivering fine, often elegant, terse prose, and in exploring the nature of personal relationships in disaffected twenty and thirtysomethings, occasionally offering some of the wry humor I have encountered in Saunders' latest short story collection. One of the best stories in "Flings", "Happy Valley", delves into a young woman's search for some meaning in her life, amidst the Jewish neighborhood of Hong Kong, with some of the most polished and descriptive prose which Taylor offers. Another, "Poets", which I had heard him read from recently at a well known Brooklyn, NY reading series, recounts the rise and fall of a relationship between two poets, a man and a woman, in a writing program. Without question, for those in search of a contemporary master of the mainstream literary fiction short story in Anglo-American literature, then they don't have to search far by reading Justin Taylor's latest collection, and one destined to be remembered as among the most notable works of fiction published this year.
June 11, 2014
Rachel's galley. I'm waiting til closer to pub date to quote multiple paragraphs on Tumblr.
December 15, 2018
Collection of stories centered mostly around young-ish people, teenagers and young adults dealing with the discomfort of trauma or sexuality and entering the post-college world. Many of these stories--particularly those like the title story and "After Ellen," which follow a group of friends and their dissolving and realigning relationships immediately after college, and "A Night Out," a (kinda messily and unnecessarily, I thought) partially second-person story cataloguing a night out amid art shows and bad parties and worse hookups--read incredibly well in that "Alec Baldwin narrating The Royal Tenenbaums" voice, which I mean as more of a compliment than it probably sounds. They're quick, snappy, reserved and understated in tone. And charmingly clever at their best--"Poets" is as fine and delicate and loving a skewering of poets, writers, lit people and their relationships and ambitions, as I've read, perhaps. Some, like "Sungold" and its restaurant mascot, begin strong and peter a bit, but Taylor largely builds solid, full-feeling stories. Other notables: "A Talking Cure" and "Adon Olam" deal with young male sexuality and "Mike's Song" a recently divorced father attending a Phish concert with his distant grown children.
May 8, 2019
Hey, I was a huge fan of Gospel of Anarchy and generally like Justin's aesthetic and topics. But I'm not really a fan of short stories and don't usually pick them up. This book has been on my shelf for a few months now so I decided to dive in. I liked the first story about a group of friends that moved from their northeastern college to Oregon. Taylor gives rapid fire descriptions of each and their movements are familiar to anyone that's read anything about the restlessness of millennials.
I also liked the next story about a guy trying to keep a pizza joint afloat and the mascot mishap was a great take.
After that, it kind of fell apart for me. The characters and ideas started to run together a bit, I felt like they were all part of the same universe and I probably would've just liked a novel instead.
Will probably always read what Justin writes, but this one isn't necessarily my favorite.
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I also liked the next story about a guy trying to keep a pizza joint afloat and the mascot mishap was a great take.
After that, it kind of fell apart for me. The characters and ideas started to run together a bit, I felt like they were all part of the same universe and I probably would've just liked a novel instead.
Will probably always read what Justin writes, but this one isn't necessarily my favorite.
Sign up for my book recommendation newsletter!
February 24, 2020
Possibly the first book of short stories I’ve read since GCSE English Lit. I’m not sure I’m particularly a fan of the format, and these stories mostly fall into 2 categories; stories that career through people’s lives at breakneck speed but only scratch the surface, or stories that cover a particular moment in time in depth but leave you wanting to know more about the subjects and their lives.
Each of the stories has sex and songs in them.
A couple of them a very much like Bret Easton Ellis.
Interesting diversions, but I was left craving the substance of a novel.
Each of the stories has sex and songs in them.
A couple of them a very much like Bret Easton Ellis.
Interesting diversions, but I was left craving the substance of a novel.
February 18, 2021
There's one moment when a character describes his desire for a (foreign) colleague and declares he wants to "fuck her until she prays in her mother tongue". It's not often enough you have to put a book down for five minutes to laugh (though I should stress that the build-up and the context did help).
I read this book in less than two days.
I read this book in less than two days.
August 5, 2021
Boring
Pointless stories
I liked the story about the boy at camp
Pointless stories
I liked the story about the boy at camp
September 2, 2024
Un libro de relatos variados entretenidos, emocionantes e interesantes. Bien construidos y desarrollados. La lectura perfecta para verano, ligera pero detallada y maravillosa.
December 4, 2024
i liked it but it wasn’t exactly what i expected it to be
January 29, 2015
Flings: Stories by Justin Taylor, a book of short stories, is interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying. The blurb on the back names Taylor “A master of the modern snapshot” and they might well be right. The book is like a stack of Polaroids, taken by strangers and with no context to explain them. (Think Awkward Family Photos.) They are fascinating, funny, vaguely disturbing, but by themselves, they aren’t enough to tell a story.
As always, I wanted to love the book – I love short stories, in particular, and I always want to love the books I settle down to read – but I found this one easy to put down. That’s never a good sign. While the stories were interesting, they weren’t absorbing and they weren’t satisfying. A good example is Mike’s Song, a story about a divorced father taking his adult children to a Phish concert. There is some hint that the divorce was his fault – probably something to do with his new girlfriend, Lori, who may or may not be cheating on him, based on some misdirected texts – and there is some random reference to a neighborhood boy who committed suicide back when his kids were in their teens. It is most definitely a snapshot. It’s an odd, awkward night with this family, full of tense undertones and secrets no one talks about. I can see why some people might be fascinated with it, the way you can be fascinated staring into a lighted window, watching the family inside and wondering about them, but in the end? I wasn’t drawn in. I didn’t care how it ended — which is a good thing because it doesn’t end, not in the sense that anything is wrapped up and resolved. We learn a few things about them, Mike learns a few things about his kids, but you don’t get any sense of what will come of that knowledge. We walk past the window and on to another one.
One story I felt was much more successful was After Ellen – Scott leaves his girlfriend because she suggests getting a dog and he can suddenly see his whole life stretching out before him. The dog is just the start, the test before they have kids, get a house in the suburbs, a minivan, a carpool, etc., etc., etc. So he takes off, sneaking out while Ellen is at work, taking his half of their stuff, the car, and leaving her a note. He crashes in an expensive hotel with Mom and Dad’s credit card, and eventually finds a new place, a new gig as a DJ, a new girlfriend…and a dog. It goes somewhere. It has some resolution to it.
Now, there may be people who really appreciate these kinds of snapshot stories; apparently, I’m not one of them. The book, for me, was like seeing Waiting for Godot: I spent the whole time waiting for something to happen, feeling like there were clues and allusions that I was missing. There’s a fair amount of graphic sex in the stories that seems sprinkled in at random, more for shock value than anything else; for me, it didn’t seem to serve the story. While I enjoyed some of the writing and found interesting bits in most of the stories, overall, they left me unsatisfied. It was easy to put the book down and walk away because even the stories I finished felt unfinished.
As always, I wanted to love the book – I love short stories, in particular, and I always want to love the books I settle down to read – but I found this one easy to put down. That’s never a good sign. While the stories were interesting, they weren’t absorbing and they weren’t satisfying. A good example is Mike’s Song, a story about a divorced father taking his adult children to a Phish concert. There is some hint that the divorce was his fault – probably something to do with his new girlfriend, Lori, who may or may not be cheating on him, based on some misdirected texts – and there is some random reference to a neighborhood boy who committed suicide back when his kids were in their teens. It is most definitely a snapshot. It’s an odd, awkward night with this family, full of tense undertones and secrets no one talks about. I can see why some people might be fascinated with it, the way you can be fascinated staring into a lighted window, watching the family inside and wondering about them, but in the end? I wasn’t drawn in. I didn’t care how it ended — which is a good thing because it doesn’t end, not in the sense that anything is wrapped up and resolved. We learn a few things about them, Mike learns a few things about his kids, but you don’t get any sense of what will come of that knowledge. We walk past the window and on to another one.
One story I felt was much more successful was After Ellen – Scott leaves his girlfriend because she suggests getting a dog and he can suddenly see his whole life stretching out before him. The dog is just the start, the test before they have kids, get a house in the suburbs, a minivan, a carpool, etc., etc., etc. So he takes off, sneaking out while Ellen is at work, taking his half of their stuff, the car, and leaving her a note. He crashes in an expensive hotel with Mom and Dad’s credit card, and eventually finds a new place, a new gig as a DJ, a new girlfriend…and a dog. It goes somewhere. It has some resolution to it.
Now, there may be people who really appreciate these kinds of snapshot stories; apparently, I’m not one of them. The book, for me, was like seeing Waiting for Godot: I spent the whole time waiting for something to happen, feeling like there were clues and allusions that I was missing. There’s a fair amount of graphic sex in the stories that seems sprinkled in at random, more for shock value than anything else; for me, it didn’t seem to serve the story. While I enjoyed some of the writing and found interesting bits in most of the stories, overall, they left me unsatisfied. It was easy to put the book down and walk away because even the stories I finished felt unfinished.
August 18, 2014
Today’s post is on Flings by Justin Taylor. This is a series of short stories. It is 240 pages long and is published by Harper Collins. The cover is yellow with the title in red and the author’s name in black sideways on the cover. The intended reader is someone who likes literary fiction and short stories. There is strong language, sex/sexuality, and no violence in this collection. Adults for the best. There Be Spoilers Ahead.
From the back of the book- In a new suite of powerful and incisive stories, Justin Tayler captures the lives of men and women unmoored from their pasts and uncertain of their futures.
A man writes his girlfriend a Dear John letter, gets in his cars, and just drives. A widowed insomniac is roused from malaise when an alligator appears in her backyard. A group of college friend tries to stay close after graduation, but are drawn away from- and back toward- each other by the choices they make. A boy’s friendship with a pair of identical twins undergoes a strange and tragic evolution over the course of adolescence. A promising academic and her fiancé attempt to finish their dissertations, but struggle with writer’s block, a nasty secret, and their own expert knowledge of Freud.
From an East Village rooftop to a cabin in Tennessee, from the Florida suburbs to Hong Kong, Justin Taylor covers a vast emotional and geographic landscape while ushering us into an abiding intimacy with his characters. Flings is a commanding work of fiction that captures the contemporary search for identity, connection, and a place to call home.
Review- So that blurb is full of lies. This short story collection is dreck. Every story has sex and drugs in it. One story has no plot, no dialog, and no character development. I was impressed by that one. There was only one part of a line that I liked- everything managed and nothing solved, ask your doctor today. That was the only thing that I like about this book. One part of one line that is the last third of very long and boring line but for the last part. It is very literary. It has all the earmarks of that writing style. It is boring. It is pointless. It has unnecessary sex just to be racy without being racy or interesting. It includes drug use because that is hip but this collection is not hip. It is dreck. Why for the love of god do people want to write this stuff or read it? I just do not understand. Nothing was interesting about this. I was given this book to read for a review by HarperCollins or I would never have read this dreck. Oh the dreck I will read to get more free books. I would never recommend this collection for anyone to read ever.
I give this book a One out of Five stars. I was given this book to read by Harper Collins in exchange for an honest review.
From the back of the book- In a new suite of powerful and incisive stories, Justin Tayler captures the lives of men and women unmoored from their pasts and uncertain of their futures.
A man writes his girlfriend a Dear John letter, gets in his cars, and just drives. A widowed insomniac is roused from malaise when an alligator appears in her backyard. A group of college friend tries to stay close after graduation, but are drawn away from- and back toward- each other by the choices they make. A boy’s friendship with a pair of identical twins undergoes a strange and tragic evolution over the course of adolescence. A promising academic and her fiancé attempt to finish their dissertations, but struggle with writer’s block, a nasty secret, and their own expert knowledge of Freud.
From an East Village rooftop to a cabin in Tennessee, from the Florida suburbs to Hong Kong, Justin Taylor covers a vast emotional and geographic landscape while ushering us into an abiding intimacy with his characters. Flings is a commanding work of fiction that captures the contemporary search for identity, connection, and a place to call home.
Review- So that blurb is full of lies. This short story collection is dreck. Every story has sex and drugs in it. One story has no plot, no dialog, and no character development. I was impressed by that one. There was only one part of a line that I liked- everything managed and nothing solved, ask your doctor today. That was the only thing that I like about this book. One part of one line that is the last third of very long and boring line but for the last part. It is very literary. It has all the earmarks of that writing style. It is boring. It is pointless. It has unnecessary sex just to be racy without being racy or interesting. It includes drug use because that is hip but this collection is not hip. It is dreck. Why for the love of god do people want to write this stuff or read it? I just do not understand. Nothing was interesting about this. I was given this book to read for a review by HarperCollins or I would never have read this dreck. Oh the dreck I will read to get more free books. I would never recommend this collection for anyone to read ever.
I give this book a One out of Five stars. I was given this book to read by Harper Collins in exchange for an honest review.
October 18, 2014
As seen on my blog:
The only things I like short, or at least like them to feel that way, are my work shifts and lines. As a reader, I was never a fan of short stories, never felt like enough emotion or intent could be packed into a 3-10 page narrative. I know there are, in existence, so many fantastic short story works I need to experience, need to seek out and read. Flings by Justin Taylor was a good place for me to start, and just what I needed to kick start a love for shorter tales.
Flings is a compilation of short narratives, all revolving around, immersing within, and drawing out the very things that make us distinctly human-that allow us to build and destroy relationships. Appropriately entitled "Flings" because many of the stories involve people in romantic, or sexually complicated, relationships. In one story, a young boy is best friends with twin brothers, one of whom contracts cancer and passes away. We are left to wonder how deep the friendship ran, what unexplored questions the young boy had about his connection to one of the brothers-was it sexual? Truth be told, the majority of this book dealt with sex, and drugs. It was slightly off-putting, but entertaining to say the least.
Taylor's characters felt real, and displayed very real emotion. Not being used to the hurried time jumps in short stories, it was harder for me to truly enjoy any one specific tale, but as a whole, each one unfolded in a way that lent to the other. Taylor didn't stray too far off course from one story to the next, so, honestly, it felt like one huge setting, cut into snippets of everyone's lives. Taylor's writing was bold, and witty, and caught me completely off guard at times. The perfect piece to add to your reading pile if you're between books.
Recommended for Fans of: Short Stories, Romance, Contemporary.
The only things I like short, or at least like them to feel that way, are my work shifts and lines. As a reader, I was never a fan of short stories, never felt like enough emotion or intent could be packed into a 3-10 page narrative. I know there are, in existence, so many fantastic short story works I need to experience, need to seek out and read. Flings by Justin Taylor was a good place for me to start, and just what I needed to kick start a love for shorter tales.
Flings is a compilation of short narratives, all revolving around, immersing within, and drawing out the very things that make us distinctly human-that allow us to build and destroy relationships. Appropriately entitled "Flings" because many of the stories involve people in romantic, or sexually complicated, relationships. In one story, a young boy is best friends with twin brothers, one of whom contracts cancer and passes away. We are left to wonder how deep the friendship ran, what unexplored questions the young boy had about his connection to one of the brothers-was it sexual? Truth be told, the majority of this book dealt with sex, and drugs. It was slightly off-putting, but entertaining to say the least.
Taylor's characters felt real, and displayed very real emotion. Not being used to the hurried time jumps in short stories, it was harder for me to truly enjoy any one specific tale, but as a whole, each one unfolded in a way that lent to the other. Taylor didn't stray too far off course from one story to the next, so, honestly, it felt like one huge setting, cut into snippets of everyone's lives. Taylor's writing was bold, and witty, and caught me completely off guard at times. The perfect piece to add to your reading pile if you're between books.
Recommended for Fans of: Short Stories, Romance, Contemporary.
August 5, 2015
As the title of this collection (also the title of the first story) implies, the main theme running through Justin Taylor's Flings is that of relationships, both sexual and emotional. Friendships, marriages, crushes, and blood relations all come into play in short stories that (for the most part - there are some exceptions) focus on seemingly mundane or commonplace lives and situations, but in doing so clearly demonstrates through characterization and nuance how these events both contribute to and are influenced by the relationships the people create, preserve, abandon, or ignore. Family plays just as important a role as romance does in this collection, as many of the stories deal with the relationships between generations, with divorce and heritage coming into play repeatedly.
Some of Taylor's stories are told in a sweeping, biographical narrative that travels through years - even decades - of history, while others walk us almost minute-by-minute through snapshots of daily lives tormented by loss or, even worse, the distance that sometimes divides those close to one another. Alienation and abandonment, obsession and disenchantment, communication and reflection; Taylor's Flings shuffles us through the myriad of forms that relationships can take, and exposes us to a behind-the-scenes showcase of how our connections to others can either wither or bloom.
If there is a flaw in this collection, it is the inclusion of the story Sungold. With the exception of Sungold, a brilliantly funny piece that is my personal favorite, the stories in Flings are either subdued or dramatic, and the humor (if any) is at best understated. Stumbling into Sungold four stories into the collection leads one to expect at least one or two other pieces of similar tone and lends to a slight feeling of disappointment upon completion. A great story, but ultimately a rather glaring Odd Man Out.
Some of Taylor's stories are told in a sweeping, biographical narrative that travels through years - even decades - of history, while others walk us almost minute-by-minute through snapshots of daily lives tormented by loss or, even worse, the distance that sometimes divides those close to one another. Alienation and abandonment, obsession and disenchantment, communication and reflection; Taylor's Flings shuffles us through the myriad of forms that relationships can take, and exposes us to a behind-the-scenes showcase of how our connections to others can either wither or bloom.
If there is a flaw in this collection, it is the inclusion of the story Sungold. With the exception of Sungold, a brilliantly funny piece that is my personal favorite, the stories in Flings are either subdued or dramatic, and the humor (if any) is at best understated. Stumbling into Sungold four stories into the collection leads one to expect at least one or two other pieces of similar tone and lends to a slight feeling of disappointment upon completion. A great story, but ultimately a rather glaring Odd Man Out.
October 13, 2014
Writing
I loved Taylor's style in these stories. They're so well done. Of course I had favorites ("Sungold" being my favorite), but the collection as a whole is just lovely. Several of the stories connect in small ways, and those connectors gave the whole work a sense of unity. The length of each story varies, but I feel like Taylor did a great job of ending each story at an appropriate moment. Nothing feels too long or too short for its own unique effect.
Entertainment Value
I'm such a fan of short stories and I knew this collection would be great based on the review I had seen before reading it. I wasn't at all disappointed. It has all of my favorite elements of short stories - just enough character building that you are invested in the story and, of course, the little twist at the end that makes it mean something. I'm not always a fan of connected short stories, but I feel like it worked really well in this case. If you aren't a fan of short stories, you might not find this to be a particularly enthralling read, however. It's definitely on the literary side and much more think-y than plot-y.
Overall
If you like short stories, you must give this one a try. It's full of snapshots of everyday modern life and the uncertainties we all face. I'll definitely be going back through my copies of Best American Short Stories to find his other works, which I'm almost positive have been included at least once.
Thank you to TLC for letting me be on the tour (and my apologies for posting this late!). Click here to see the other stops on the tour.
I loved Taylor's style in these stories. They're so well done. Of course I had favorites ("Sungold" being my favorite), but the collection as a whole is just lovely. Several of the stories connect in small ways, and those connectors gave the whole work a sense of unity. The length of each story varies, but I feel like Taylor did a great job of ending each story at an appropriate moment. Nothing feels too long or too short for its own unique effect.
Entertainment Value
I'm such a fan of short stories and I knew this collection would be great based on the review I had seen before reading it. I wasn't at all disappointed. It has all of my favorite elements of short stories - just enough character building that you are invested in the story and, of course, the little twist at the end that makes it mean something. I'm not always a fan of connected short stories, but I feel like it worked really well in this case. If you aren't a fan of short stories, you might not find this to be a particularly enthralling read, however. It's definitely on the literary side and much more think-y than plot-y.
Overall
If you like short stories, you must give this one a try. It's full of snapshots of everyday modern life and the uncertainties we all face. I'll definitely be going back through my copies of Best American Short Stories to find his other works, which I'm almost positive have been included at least once.
Thank you to TLC for letting me be on the tour (and my apologies for posting this late!). Click here to see the other stops on the tour.
July 23, 2015
I listened to this one via my phone on a long car trip over two days. I was concerned, given that on paper, Taylor can drop in a lot of characters without really introducing them, kinda en media res. But it wasn't so bad-- I suspect I missed some of the social detail that makes the world more realized, but in the listening, it kind of rolls along anyway. The stories are pretty plotted, so that still comes through, and Taylor doesn't always write all that lyrically-- his style can be very, I don't know, instrumental, a little detached, and listening, this kind of gave me a chance to daydream a little. Most of the stories end on a kind of loaded image, elevated and held. But I don't think that it always works-- a more plotted conclusion, when people connect or explode or fizzle might have more impact here.
The stories mostly concern twenty- and thirty-somethings, though there are some characters older and younger, which is something I think I wanted to see in earlier collections. But there's less politics and punk rock than in the earlier books, which maybe makes the stories less distinct to me? I'm torn-- these are kind of interesting stories in a realist mode. And Taylor definitely has an area of interest. He feels like a writer with the start of his career behind him-- I'm curious to see where he goes from here, but not immediately hungry for another book, if that makes sense.
The stories mostly concern twenty- and thirty-somethings, though there are some characters older and younger, which is something I think I wanted to see in earlier collections. But there's less politics and punk rock than in the earlier books, which maybe makes the stories less distinct to me? I'm torn-- these are kind of interesting stories in a realist mode. And Taylor definitely has an area of interest. He feels like a writer with the start of his career behind him-- I'm curious to see where he goes from here, but not immediately hungry for another book, if that makes sense.
August 28, 2014
"Flings" is a great collection of short stories by Justin Taylor. Each story is a wholly individual story. Each story is just a snapshot of different people's lives. Each of those lives is very different and unique. If you like short stories with vivid characters and great detail, you will enjoy this collection of interestingly detailed stories.
The real treat in this book is how Taylor is able to take all of these different characters and give them their own individual voices. Admittedly, I often stay away from short stories because sometimes they feel incomplete to me (they are definitely growing on me though). One thing that Taylor did that makes this collection stand apart from any other collection is that he is able to very quickly lay out detailed worlds within each individual story, which has a tendency to engage the reader right off the bat. The stories definitely do not feel incomplete!
It's easy to tell that this book is going to be a big hit. Short stories are seeing an uprising in popularity and with authors like Taylor at the forefront, it's not hard to see why. Taylor rights writes with a sense of humor as well as great gravitas that really captures some of the beautiful and interesting moments in a person's life. Here even the ordinary is extraordinary.
While some stories I liked better than others, overall this book is a very good story collection. I know that I will be looking out for more by Justin Taylor in the future.
The real treat in this book is how Taylor is able to take all of these different characters and give them their own individual voices. Admittedly, I often stay away from short stories because sometimes they feel incomplete to me (they are definitely growing on me though). One thing that Taylor did that makes this collection stand apart from any other collection is that he is able to very quickly lay out detailed worlds within each individual story, which has a tendency to engage the reader right off the bat. The stories definitely do not feel incomplete!
It's easy to tell that this book is going to be a big hit. Short stories are seeing an uprising in popularity and with authors like Taylor at the forefront, it's not hard to see why. Taylor rights writes with a sense of humor as well as great gravitas that really captures some of the beautiful and interesting moments in a person's life. Here even the ordinary is extraordinary.
While some stories I liked better than others, overall this book is a very good story collection. I know that I will be looking out for more by Justin Taylor in the future.
November 6, 2014
Disclaimer: Harper Collins provided me a review copy. All opinions are my own.
Flings, by Justin Taylor, suffers. It suffers in each story. It suffers as a whole. And it suffers, for me, by not being written by George Saunders. I am just a loser who read another, mind-boggling collection of short stories earlier this year and now Flings can't hope to live up.
The stories are nice. They start out with some difficulty and Taylor's style seems to be immersive-- just dump you into the story and if you get the names and the relationships, great. If not, oh well. As the collection progresses, the stories become either more remote or more intertwined and in each case it's entertaining.
The thing about Flings that lingers is the voice. Each story is narrated by a new protagonist. And each protagonist starts with a unique voice. But by the conclusion of the story, it could be any of the other protagonists telling the story with the same slightly rarefied, clearly Jewish vocabulary. It's not bad. Really. It's just not as distinct as I wish it were. The protagonist of "Saint Wade" stands out, but only because everything that comes before and everything that comes after reads like variations on a theme.
Short stories are wonderful. I'm glad Justin Taylor is writing them. I look forward to more and aim to be more open-minded and open-hearted.
Flings, by Justin Taylor, suffers. It suffers in each story. It suffers as a whole. And it suffers, for me, by not being written by George Saunders. I am just a loser who read another, mind-boggling collection of short stories earlier this year and now Flings can't hope to live up.
The stories are nice. They start out with some difficulty and Taylor's style seems to be immersive-- just dump you into the story and if you get the names and the relationships, great. If not, oh well. As the collection progresses, the stories become either more remote or more intertwined and in each case it's entertaining.
The thing about Flings that lingers is the voice. Each story is narrated by a new protagonist. And each protagonist starts with a unique voice. But by the conclusion of the story, it could be any of the other protagonists telling the story with the same slightly rarefied, clearly Jewish vocabulary. It's not bad. Really. It's just not as distinct as I wish it were. The protagonist of "Saint Wade" stands out, but only because everything that comes before and everything that comes after reads like variations on a theme.
Short stories are wonderful. I'm glad Justin Taylor is writing them. I look forward to more and aim to be more open-minded and open-hearted.
January 8, 2015
Flings comprises some 10-odd stories that dip into just about every social and economic stratum available. You've got narrators aged 20 through 74, males and females, poverty-stricken bachelors and wandering trust-fund babies. That in itself is probably the strength of Flings, the sheer scope, even though -as with any such goodie bag- some are bound to feel stronger than others.
The writing is really deft and conjures up some wonderful imagery but a bigger part of the appeal (for me) was how the 21st century voice was authentic. There are some truly cringeworthy attempts at appealing to my demographic out there (looking at you, Eggers) but Taylor is adept at knowing exactly which details to include and exclude so that it all sounds natural in a disaffected millenial way (very Waldman-y in that regard).
High points: "Flings", "Poets", "Sungold", "Carol, Alone", "Gregory's Year", "Saint Wade", "Happy Valley"- just over half, it seems.
Eh points: "After Ellen", "Mike's Song"
Low points: "A Talking Cure"
I'm sure I may have missed a couple, but we'll file those away under "Eh" for their lack of memorability. All in all though, a superb Brooklyn-vibes read. There are many who may seem like Justin Taylor at first glance ("Middling Millenials" I believe was the infamous turn of phrase) but they just don't have the same confidence in their sparseness.
tl;dr: postcollege identity crises done really well
The writing is really deft and conjures up some wonderful imagery but a bigger part of the appeal (for me) was how the 21st century voice was authentic. There are some truly cringeworthy attempts at appealing to my demographic out there (looking at you, Eggers) but Taylor is adept at knowing exactly which details to include and exclude so that it all sounds natural in a disaffected millenial way (very Waldman-y in that regard).
High points: "Flings", "Poets", "Sungold", "Carol, Alone", "Gregory's Year", "Saint Wade", "Happy Valley"- just over half, it seems.
Eh points: "After Ellen", "Mike's Song"
Low points: "A Talking Cure"
I'm sure I may have missed a couple, but we'll file those away under "Eh" for their lack of memorability. All in all though, a superb Brooklyn-vibes read. There are many who may seem like Justin Taylor at first glance ("Middling Millenials" I believe was the infamous turn of phrase) but they just don't have the same confidence in their sparseness.
tl;dr: postcollege identity crises done really well
March 2, 2015
I only liked two stories in Justin Taylor's Flings. They were 'Flings' and 'After Ellen'. I liked them the most since characters from the first story do appear in the second one. Everything else in this book was a wash. I don't get the appeal of reading about seriously screwed up people, as depicted in 'A Talking Cure' or a story about whatever the heck it is supposed to be about but I think maybe clementines in 'Adon Olam'. Nothing much made sense and I found this to be a boring collection of stories. Sadly all of the narrators seemed to possess the same voice which is a neat trick since sometimes the narrator was a man or a woman or a teenager, etc.
I swear that for me the only three authors that I have found that can write short stories are Stephen King, Dean Koontz (I really wish he do another Strange Highways book) and Maeve Binchy.
It is an art to be able to tell a story in just a few pages and be able to imbue those characters with personality and depth. It takes talent to make me care about them in just a few short pages and wonder about them after I close the book. This collection did none of those things for me at all.
Please note that I received this book for free via the Amazon Vine Program.
I swear that for me the only three authors that I have found that can write short stories are Stephen King, Dean Koontz (I really wish he do another Strange Highways book) and Maeve Binchy.
It is an art to be able to tell a story in just a few pages and be able to imbue those characters with personality and depth. It takes talent to make me care about them in just a few short pages and wonder about them after I close the book. This collection did none of those things for me at all.
Please note that I received this book for free via the Amazon Vine Program.
May 18, 2015
I liked this book a lot more than I expected to. I actually loved it. When I started the first story, “Flings” I wasn’t sure. I found the mixing POVs disorienting, and I also wondered if this was just going to be a book about college students fucking up their lives, which isn’t a bad thing in itself, but it can get tiresome if there’s nothing else going on, no point or grounding post. I progressed through the collection, I found myself trusting the author. The narrative voice was clear and honest, the humor was consistent and enjoyable, but not too heavy handed, and the darkness woven throughout this book was appropriate and powerful, not overdone in the least. One thing I really loved about this collection was that it was compelling. I rarely find this to be true with short story collections. Usually you read a few stories, like them, and kind of skim through the rest. They either blend together or there are clear favorites. With Flings, despite the fact that these are separate short stories, I sensed a trajectory, a kind of subtle progression as I moved from one story to the next. Taylor strikes a great balance between humor and sadness.
January 31, 2016
In this accomplished collection of short stories, characters appear, disappear to new lives, and often reappear again. They are the unmoored, unsettled by the world and uncertainty around them, struggling to find their places in the world. Their locations range from small Midwestern towns to the Pacific Northwest, from Miami to Hong Kong. Mostly (but not always), they are young and uncertain what life has to offer, finding friendships more critical that career paths.
Yet, people and their emotions are fluid and ever-changing, so these characters often find themselves set adrift in their own lives, unsure and unsteady in choosing a direction. It often seems almost random, and yet their cling to those who seem (even on the surface) to have more direction (or do they just have less choice?).
This is a rich, satisfying collection of stories that will entertain and drive readers forward. The book may not have any answers, but the storylines ring true in all the right ways, and more than likely will send readers back to their shelves (or Amazon) to find more writing by this talented author, Justin Taylor.
Yet, people and their emotions are fluid and ever-changing, so these characters often find themselves set adrift in their own lives, unsure and unsteady in choosing a direction. It often seems almost random, and yet their cling to those who seem (even on the surface) to have more direction (or do they just have less choice?).
This is a rich, satisfying collection of stories that will entertain and drive readers forward. The book may not have any answers, but the storylines ring true in all the right ways, and more than likely will send readers back to their shelves (or Amazon) to find more writing by this talented author, Justin Taylor.
December 23, 2016
I can think of no collection that better captures what it has felt like to move from one's 20s to one's 30s in recent times. The stories in this collection are sharp with the intersection of culture, technology and generation-resistant human desires and needs. That's not to say, however, that Flings is entirely made up of tales of young adults having revelations. Stories like After Ellen, Mike's Song, Poets, and Gregory's Year aspire and succeed at capturing whole lives lived within the concise framework of well-wrought and very smart short fiction.
What's most impressive, though, is how Justin Taylor maintains a deeply relateable sense of humor and empathy throughout. If it's not already evident, I'd put Flings among the best short story collections I've read in recent years. I highly recommend it.
What's most impressive, though, is how Justin Taylor maintains a deeply relateable sense of humor and empathy throughout. If it's not already evident, I'd put Flings among the best short story collections I've read in recent years. I highly recommend it.
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