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The Complete
18 pages, ebook
Published January 24, 2022
29 people want to read
About the author
Gabriel Smith
16 books150 followersGabriel Smith is an author living in London. A winner of the 2023 PEN/O. Henry Award, his fiction has appeared in The Drift, New York Tyrant Magazine, and The Moth. He was mentored by the late Giancarlo DiTrapano of Tyrant Books.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 16, 2024
Most perfect short story I've ever read
'And so we wait it out. The endless nodding, the slip of it all. The cemetery frogs, the wet market of the soul. The evening applause and the midnight alleyoop. The live streams of the dead. A skyful of St. Peters, eyes wet with tears.'
'And so we wait it out. The endless nodding, the slip of it all. The cemetery frogs, the wet market of the soul. The evening applause and the midnight alleyoop. The live streams of the dead. A skyful of St. Peters, eyes wet with tears.'
March 9, 2024
What the fuck was this! Someone was thinking shower thoughts in 2021. Shower thoughts feels like a very BuzzFeed 2014 phrase, doesn’t it.
Listen if your bent-out-of-shape wacky little short story can make me think while on the toilet, “so he’s NOT GAY??” And “I’ve seen this story on reddit but with a lamp” and “LOL indeed” and “let me write this ‘story within a story’ idea down this would be a good story idea that I could use” then… well, you’ve got yourself a good short story.
They say art isn’t good or bad, it’s successful or unsuccessful blah blah blah how can art be the best version of itself/the creator’s intentions. But sometimes the creator’s intentions are boring and I don’t like them and I don’t think it would be a good story.
This story seems quite concerned with being Meta and being A Story and What is Art so including this in the review seems appropriate to me.
When I say good or bad, I really just mean did I like it or not. And I liked this.
I can’t believe the narrator isn’t gay (and neither is… the author? Idk it’s autofiction-y like that/like my Barbie instagram fan account captions.)
I really just assumed he was gay because of two things by which I mean two tweets which the author tweeted. One was pretending that Charli XCX emailed him cause her album has the same title as his upcoming book (very funny, good self promo). And the other was just an excerpt of this book but it was the line about writing a book that’s Brokeback Mountain but gay and in Vietnam. I think these two tweets confused me.
But it’s actually good to have more gay-presenting-but-not-fully-gay men out there. God (in his speeding limousine) only knows my pond needs more fish in it.
The God line is a reference to the story.
Listen if your bent-out-of-shape wacky little short story can make me think while on the toilet, “so he’s NOT GAY??” And “I’ve seen this story on reddit but with a lamp” and “LOL indeed” and “let me write this ‘story within a story’ idea down this would be a good story idea that I could use” then… well, you’ve got yourself a good short story.
They say art isn’t good or bad, it’s successful or unsuccessful blah blah blah how can art be the best version of itself/the creator’s intentions. But sometimes the creator’s intentions are boring and I don’t like them and I don’t think it would be a good story.
This story seems quite concerned with being Meta and being A Story and What is Art so including this in the review seems appropriate to me.
When I say good or bad, I really just mean did I like it or not. And I liked this.
I can’t believe the narrator isn’t gay (and neither is… the author? Idk it’s autofiction-y like that/like my Barbie instagram fan account captions.)
I really just assumed he was gay because of two things by which I mean two tweets which the author tweeted. One was pretending that Charli XCX emailed him cause her album has the same title as his upcoming book (very funny, good self promo). And the other was just an excerpt of this book but it was the line about writing a book that’s Brokeback Mountain but gay and in Vietnam. I think these two tweets confused me.
But it’s actually good to have more gay-presenting-but-not-fully-gay men out there. God (in his speeding limousine) only knows my pond needs more fish in it.
The God line is a reference to the story.
August 6, 2024
wow wow wow wow wow.
August 10, 2024
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I really liked this! It wasn’t chronological or based around one plot, this book was like several conversations going on at once. I really enjoyed it though, one of the best short stories I’ve read.
I really liked this! It wasn’t chronological or based around one plot, this book was like several conversations going on at once. I really enjoyed it though, one of the best short stories I’ve read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews