Sam the Cat

by Matthew Klam

Matthew Klam's male narrators in Sam the Cat hate and need women in equal measure. By and large they're not physically violent men, but they do possess a certain free-floating aggression--the byproduct of sad childhoods, dads who treated them like losers, and moms who weren't quite all there. Indeed, throughout this troubling, masterfully written collection of stories, women never seem truly present, however central they may be. As the typically indiscriminate narrator of "Not This" explains, his girlfriend "fit my idea of the supreme woman. Why? Who gives a shit. We fell in love."

In the title story, which catapulted the author into the spotlight when it ran in The New Yorker, a guy goes out looking to get laid, then finds himself hitting on a man in drag. Other potential mates turn out to be only nominally less ersatz, with eyes "like a plastic doll's." Klam's men know that they're supposed to locate love somewhere among these zombies, but they can't find it, and this fills them with irritation and angry longing. Cumulatively, his stories paint a grim picture indeed: one of a bitter, stifled heterosexuality, leading straight to violence or to varying degrees of lifelessness. His taut, spooky prose recalls another connoisseur of erotic disappointment, Lorrie Moore. But where Moore is partial to neurotic women, Klam's subject is the guy who wishes he could transcend himself and be redeemed from the small and angry America in which he's stuck. --Emily White

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Short Story Collection, Humor, Literary Fiction, Adult Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 2000

About the author

Matthew Klam was named one of the twenty best fiction writers in America under 40 by The New Yorker. He’s a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Robert Bingham/PEN Award, a Whiting Writer’s Award, and a National Endowment of the Arts. His first book, Sam The Cat and Other Stories, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year in the category of first fiction, was selected as a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Kansas City Star, and by the Borders for their New Voices series. His work has been featured in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Esquire, GQ Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine. He is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire and Hollins College, and has taught creative writing in many places including Johns Hopkins University, St. Albans School, American University, and Stockholm University in Sweden.

Reviews

[lorinbocol · Rating 3 out of 5]

un famoso ebreo, che sapeva di cosa parlava, ha detto che la psicoanalisi è un mito tenuto vivo dall'industria dei divani. e dalla vita di coppia, aggiungerei.
entrambe poi forniscono - disagio permettendo - spunti in abbondanza a registi e scrittori. qualcuno ne trae opere memorabili, qualcuno così così. come nel caso di questi 7 racconti d’esordio, che han fatto parlare di klam come di uno dei più promettenti scrittori americani under 40 (un giorno o l’altro per sfizio proverò a contarli). io ho fatto il loro incontro abbondantemente under i miei, di 40, ma mi sono sentita già troppo vecchia per.
(forse che gli scrittori di short stories sotto i 40 fanno reclutamento di lettori sotto i 20? potrebbe essere una spiegazione).

[Daisy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some people get morning after regret following a boozy night. They vow they’ll never touch another drop but given the opportunity they are pulling on their glad rags and ordering a double. What I’m saying is that people don’t learn, nor stay away from things that are bad for them. This is me with contemporary US short stories.

It goes like this every single time. I read a review, which lauds a new writer as a new exciting voice and their collection of stories as being, “bitingly funny…telling the truth…” and I think oh that sounds good I’ll give that a go and unfailingly I am disappointed when they turn out to be more of an ego trip for the author than written for a readership greater than one.

This collection was no different. All modern (last decade or so) American short stories seem to have the same whiny voice which I’m sure is intended to convey insight or something but it is just really grating. Nothing happens in these stories (which all happen to be variations on the same nothing) other than a range of scenarios where a guy is in a relationship with a woman who irritates him more than invokes love and he compares himself to a man who he feels is superior to him in some respect.

There’s little description of place or people just this almost stream of consciousness that flows from each character’s banal mind.

Annoyed with myself that I was hoodwinked again and may need to have a poster made up for bookshops warning them not to sell short stories to this woman.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s not on the scale of the moon landing hoax but there’s some kind of conspiracy going on to shut down some of America’s best short story writers. Consider these three cases:

Thom Jones (no, not the Delilah guy) - wrote three great collections, in 1993, 1995 and 1999 (The Pugilist at Rest, Cold Snap, and Sonny Liston was a Friend of Mine). He was on fire. Since then – nothing.

Wells Tower wrote a hair-raisingly brilliant collection called Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned in 2009. Since then, nothing.

Matthew Klam wrote this single solitary collection, which is really wonderful, in 2000. Since then, nothing.

What’s going on? It’s even more curious when you consider that the territory they inhabit, both linguistic and sociosexual, is similar. All three of them are masters of the demotic and are fearless about the sliminess of men. All three are wry and excoriating about the awful perpetual tendency of Western people to expect the earth, how all Western people are now the princess in the Princess and the Pea story. (Their entitlement has bloated to the size of a brachiosaur.) Okay, Thom’s guys are from the rougher end of town, and Matthew’s guys are generally surprisingly good at their managerial-level jobs for such dorks.

If anyone has any theories about what happened to these guys, please drop me a line. Your information will be treated with the strictest confidence.

[Ami · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the fact that this is a collection of short stories that are all basically the same short story--emotional cripple of a man wounds women and doesn't know why--I still really enjoyed reading all of them. And I hope that he writes a novel, since clearly there's a character he has in mind to star.

[Frieda Vizel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt about this work the way I feel about men whose charm, self loathing and articulation I mistake for insight and humanity. In other words, I felt disappointed. A sharp book, but soulless.

Here is how it is. At first I am delighted by the rare honesty, by the intimacy of a man willing to say all the things about women - the fucking and sweet asses and unwilling penises - that are generally unforgivable and silenced and punished. I am drawn to the funny commentary that is terrifyingly verboten, the mix of humiliation and passion, gluttonous pleasure and the nausea of its excess. But then I realize that this turmoil is not in search for anything humane, worthwhile, larger. It is a quest for the next fix, and nothing more, nothing whatsoever. Because - and this surprises me every time - - - these men seem to have no capacity to empathize with anyone but themselves. They literally take no joy by proxy, ever. They only feel their own pain and happiness and are perplexed when they are expected to care about others - even the women they fuck. They are fancy sociopaths with a New Yorky neurotic flare.With such characters the novel becomes less a story of a man at war with his ID an Super ID and more like the various scenes of a drug addict looking for another fix. Without the humanity behind the thirst, who wants to read about the daily prowl for some more cocaine or vodka? We enjoy hearing about the teller's mad cravings only when it is not merely presented as a relationship with the destructive desire, but as a larger battle - even if a losing battle - with our conscious beings, our connection to something greater than our animal need.

I am sure that as separate shorts these Philip Roth-ish stories can work, even without redemption or enlightenment. But not as a whole book. Like an SNL piece that won't work full length. Beyond a few pages, a protagonist needs to be more than a dick.

[Ericka Clou · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good reminder that there is more truth in good fiction than there often is in nonfiction.

[Patrick Faller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fair. The story "The Royal Palms" does something sort of risky for a guy like Klam, who seems interested in provocation as much as he's showing us the inner lives of guys most would write off as callow. But other stories seem disingenuous in terms of what they wanted. He doesn't quite go as far as Joshua Ferris does, using his characters as props in social satire; but he doesn't reach as generously toward the yearning behind the facade of masculinity, career, sex, money, as does a writer, say, like Jim Gavin, whose men, perhaps by virtue of being at the bottom rather than the top of the socioeconomic success ladder, seem unwilling or unable to hide vulnerabilities, brokenness. Plots turn when these men reach for things, whereas Klam's plots turn on hesitations, self-critique: a general unmasking that seems not so much insightful but mean-spirited at its worst. Gavin's men have lost the ability to wear masks, or wear such thin ones that they hardly conceal the sort of yearning Klam would offer up as a kind of futility. In a better writer's hands, such yearning means something. It looks to all like reason to want what's best for them: to cheer success, to mourn failure. All that.

[Ben Bush]

I went to a family reunion like this once, not mine: a TV sex therapist singing and sprawled across the piano, a racist nuclear technician, everyone falling off the wagon.

But aside from that—America circa 2000, as described here, is utterly unrecognizable, a foreign country. (It's hard to put my finger on it but these are the most pre-9/11 short stories I've ever read. For a sense of what happens to characters and short stories like these at that moment, check out Deborah Eisenberg's excellent Twilight of the Superheroes.)

If you read this book, read it for the voice.

[Jessica Robinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Technically well-written but filled with identically unlikeable, pathetic narrators and tedious, meandering stories.

[Asghar Abbas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had picked this up really expecting to hate it but ended up laughing. It was charming.

Witty would be a safe way to describe this.

[John Luiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This much-acclaimed collection still may be one that average readers (and not book critics) will either love or hate. It's obvious why Klam has won so much critical phrase. He has a very distinct and unique voice. All of the stories are told in the 1st person except for the final story, "European Wedding," which rotates point of view among the bridge, groom, and an older man who thinks he's the bride's biological father. All of the narrators in the 1st person stories, and the groom in the final one, are disaffected young men - who have trouble connecting with their partners and the other people in their lives. They may worship their significant other's bodies, but there's little else about their partners that they take joy in.

That may be the problem for some readers - no one's dealing with tragic circumstances here. All the problems are of the navel-gazing variety - young men who can't be happy even though they're dating beautiful women, taking exotic vacations, getting millions of dollars from their father-in-law or getting married on a beautiful French estate. (We should all have such problems!)

If that doesn't bother you, and you're willing to read about the neuroses we all carry around that make it difficult to enjoy the good things life delivers, then you can't help but admire how effectively Klam explores male discontent. As many reviewers have noted he is absolutely fearless in exploring how far our darker sides can take us: a "yes" man whose only escape is beating on his dog, a fiancée who acts out his reservation about his marriage by sleeping with a women he's repulsed by, a guy who belittles and ridicules his best friend in a wedding rehearsal dinner toast when he should be paying tribute to him.

It's a chronicle of men behaving badly, driven by their angst and ennui. Ironically, the most likeable character here is one the who might have everyone scratching their heads. It's not clear whether the narrator in the opening story, "Sam the Cat," is gay or not gay, but his passion for a guy who has suddenly captured his interest and his willingness to take chances and make a fool of himself in the process demonstrates a drive, ambition and life force that many of the characters in the stories that follow don't possess.

The seven stories in the collection are:

1. Sam the Cat - 26 pp - A story that garnered a lot of attention when it first appeared in The New Yorker. Sam is a ladies' man who becomes obsessed with a guy he first mistakes for a woman. He brings the guy flowers and even puts on make-up, hoping he'll look better for him. It's not clear if Sam is realizing he's gay or is simply bored with his endless and easy conquests of women and is now excited by the opportunity to gain something he's never had - when the risks of failing and making a fool of himself are all still in the cards.

2. Not This - 35 pp - Vince, a man with women troubles, escapes from his New Haven home to spend Labor Day Weekend at his brother's in New Jersey. He's assumed his brother has it all - a good job, a beautiful wife, a nice home by the water. But when he spends more time with them, he discovers the grass isn't so green down in New Jersey - his brother does PR for the legitimate businesses run by a Mafia family and the brother and his wife may not be able to have children. His brother asks Vince if he'll be a sperm donor, which makes it harder to be around the beautiful wife, especially when she's in her bikini. The brother has to remind Vince, "The doctor does the transfer, not you."

3. The Royal Palms - 29 pp - A couple on a Caribbean vacation are struggling to get their marriage back on track. The wife, fearing she's put on too much weight to still be attractive, is no longer interested in sex. They meet another vacationing couple that seem to have it all together - they're fit, attractive, and have interesting careers. They get drawn into their circle only to discover their marriage is in worse shape than their own. The days and interaction with the other lost souls on the island offer some hope of renewal for their marriage.

4. Linda's Daddy's Loaded -- 28 pp - A young husband wonders if his wife has lost all her ambition and drive because her rich father - a TV news anchor - has showered them with money. They live an extremely affluent life, but the husband knows something's not quite right with everything coming so easy. When the father - whom they've had very little interaction with comes to visit - the husband's anger at being nothing more than the recipients' of his largesse angers him and he takes it out on their dog. Every problem he encounters - getting sick of his job - is addressed through the father's money and contacts. Even though he knows things were better when they were younger and struggling, the easy road is too hard to turn down.

5. There Should Be a Name for It - 22 pp - A young co-habiting couple very much in love had to deal with getting pregnant. The man wasn't ready and talked his girlfriend into getting an abortion. An argument that erupts while they're preparing a chicken dinner -- with the uncooked chicken feeling like a representation of the unborn baby -- makes it clear how upset the woman still is over what they did. While they remain together, it becomes clear the decision they made will continue to color their relationship.

6. Issues I Dealt With in Therapy - 48 pp - A young man travels with his doctor girlfriend to a lavish resort for the wedding of his good friend. He hardly sees him anymore because his friend has become a big-time wheeler/dealer in the Democratic party during the Clinton Administration. While the narrator still has a small-time job as an activist at a "nonprofit that attacked the military-industrial complex," the narrator can't help but feel jealous that his friend has accomplished so much more than he has, even though he sees the emptiness in his friend's life. The friend's main preoccupation during the weekend is whether Al Gore will helicopter in for the weekend and leave his friends duly impressed with how important and connected he is. The narrator's jealousy reaches a boiling point when he has to give a toast to the friend during the rehearsal dinner. While dealing with all this, the narrator also has to sort through the mixed feelings he has about the doctor he's involved with, whom he hardly ever sees because of the demands of her career.

7. European Wedding - 51 pp - A man flies to France to get married in a house that was in his future mother-in-law's family for centuries. The man has such deep misgivings about the wedding he sleeps with an overweight woman he has a business association with and who repulses him the night before he has to leave for France. Once at the family home in the French countryside, he is surrounded by women - mothers, sisters, cousins. All the men, who were scheduled to arrive later, get stranded in the United States because of a hurricane. The only other man on the premises is an older gentleman who suspects he may by the bride's biological father because he slept with the bride's mother when her husband was dying. Knowing nothing of this, but chasing her own demons, the bride keeps quizzing this man, looking for some tortured history about the house and her mother's family. She half hopes to discover her family might have been Nazi sympathizers, in the strained hope that such a legacy could explain why she is so unhappy. Surrounded by family, neither the bride nor the groom feels ready to take on the big adventure they both have deep reservations about.

[Daisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah.. mixed feelings about this book.. unfortunately, most of the characters were remarkably unlikeable. I don’t always think of that as a deal breaker - there are plenty of great stories with unlikable characters. But in some of these stories (“Sam the Cat”, “Not This”, “Issues I Dealt With in Therapy”, “European Wedding”) I didn’t like anyone. Not the main character, not his girlfriend, not his family, etc.

I didn’t like being in these guys’ heads as they criticized their girlfriend’s chin hairs and scrutinized women’s weight and looked down women’s dresses. A certain amount of that is ok but it got old.

Some of the stories had more depth and heart. “The Royal Palms” is about a struggling married couple that stays at a resort for a week and tries to reconcile. That one is excellent. “Linda’s Daddy’s Loaded” is about a couple that gets all their money from the wife’s super famous journalist dad who is a douchebag. That story is also great.

Throughout, Klam is just a stellar writer with dry, sarcastic wit. It just depends on what you have the stomach for.

[Aaron Ambrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

A knockout. How do straight, white middle-class guys navigate a modern world that doesn’t want as many of them as there are? Matthew Klam has some ideas, and gives these guys a fair hearing - in all their sweating, aggrieved, semi-self-aware, basically decent and strikingly unfiltered glory. Frank, hilarious and devastating.

[Sean Carman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Klam writes in an original and thoroughly enjoyable voice. His loose style brilliantly captures the way people think, the way they use language, and the way they tell stories. That's the attraction of this collection, and it's enough to make it a truly enjoyable read. That and the forbidden, voyeuristic thrill of eavesdropping on the base, misogynistic observations of Klam's narrators, of course.

But as Patrick Faller suggested in his review (track down it down on this site if you can), Klam's characters are clearly broken -- desperate for but also afraid of intimacy, driven by but also hateful of their self-destructive desires -- they hide their brokenness as much from the reader as from themselves. They never yearn for anything in particular. Instead they wallow in their frustrations, complaining about what they have but rarely lamenting any specific loss, or truly reckoning with who they are or what they've done. This gives the stories (despite how entertaining they are, and despite how amazing Klam's writing is) a slight feel.

I have high hopes for Klam's upcoming novel. These stories, which are brilliant but only slightly imperfect, give it the potential to be great.

[Adam Rotstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

random!

[Megan Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, this can't even be a fair review reading it after the awesomely edgy work of Jonathan Ames. I loved Ames because of his honesty - brutal, in-your-face truth. That what I was expecting of Klam's work - an examination of real life, the honest truth behind so many typical American people. Maybe A.M. Homes style from the male perspective. Nope, what I got was a work about ordinary people, in ordinary situations, little climax, little humor - just the mundane life I live each day. And as reading I can't help but wonder if my ordinary life is a bit more exciting than these characters' lives. Also, I echo another reviewer who commented that all the narrators of each short story sound the same. They do. I had a difficult time discerning if i was STILL in the same story as last time I picked up the book. And if he wanted to have them all be the same narrator, no problem, but then it might lend itself better to a novel, but for a novel, the issue of little climax might then be a huge issue. Ok, enough complaining. I guess this book came highly acclaimed so I was a bit let down. Otherwise it was a fair book, so I gave it a fair rating. That's it....

[Vanessa Wu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up second-hand. It was published in 2000. It has 6 rainbow-coloured condoms on the front, still in their wrappers and 3 on the back no longer in their wrappers, possibly used.

For this reason I give it 3 stars. If all six condoms had been used it would have got 5 stars, because 5 is the max.

This gives you an idea of the kind of blokish insights and humour to expect. Is this fashionable? Maybe it was eleven years ago. Maybe not even then.

It's written in colloquial American, which means the sentences are short and many of them contain words like fucknob, asshole, goddamn and aborto. (Yes, I know the last one is Spanish, I'm not a fucknob.)

I guess this means it's literary fiction. One of these stories appeared in the New Yorker, which kind of seals it.

I didn't dislike it but next time I will be more careful about what I pick up.

[Sharon Huether · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Sam the Cat; he describes his girlfriends as mostly skiers. In Not This: when visiting his brother. he had quite a surprise. In The Royal Palms; two couples befriend each other at a singles resort, having fun at the casino and the beach. In Linda's Daddy's loaded, a family visit get ugly. There Should be a Name for it. Understanding a woman in her kitchen. In Issues I Dealt with in Therapy. Attending a friends wedding and giving a rotten Toast. In European Wedding. Getting there was not all that great. However life was good.

[D · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oddly enough, I picked up this book after listening to an old reading by Sarah Vowell. In her Q&A session, someone asked her favorite writers, and she mentioned Matthew Klam. So, admittedly, I had rather high expectations. I was not prepared for the misogynistic fluff of Sam the Cat, and other stories. From the perspective from a womanizing, possibly gay guy, it was a curious blend. And I kept hoping the stories would improve. Yet, the didn't. Klam must have other redeeming qualities I've yet to discover. To his credit, I did smile at a few of his one-liners. Read at your own risk.

[Hank Stuever · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a knack for awkwardness. Also, Matt Klam was the subject of a Style profile that I wrote back when this book came out; it was one of my favorite early assignments for The Washington Post. He's a very funny and pleasantly twisted kind of guy and not afraid to write about jerks, even if that meant running the risk that he himself would be perceived as a jerk.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Matthew Klam, write more books.

[Naleendra Weerapitiya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Modern short story is one of the genres that I like to read, especially during the short respites I get for reading during phases of more engagements than usual, in my life - which amount to almost half of the year. This book too was listed as one of the better recent short story collections, although some of the reviewers had mixed feelings about it. Anyway I took up this book to read on my kindle, and here's how I found the stories to be;




Sam the Cat - Sam appears to be an unsettled kind of man, undecided on what he needs, but with no shortage of women. He appears to be bored with life, when he sees a man who appears to be taking care of himself, and somewhat disciplined. Sam becomes further confused with what he wants in life, as he makes a point to impress the man. The reader is left wondering what exactly Sam wants, as Sam himself isn't being honest with himself. A fast paced short story, written in a direct style, giving a good view of Sam's confused state of mind.

Not This - The Protagonist Vincent needs some time away from his girl, Kiffany, and visits his brother and S-i-L over the Labor day weekend. The short story then focuses on the luxurious life that his brother leads, and what he does, and with whom he works with to get so much money. It also dwells on certain problems that the couple is having as they want to start a family. While all this, Vincent is undecided on his future, and is repeatedly insulted by his brother for being a loser. To say that the brothers are poles apart, is putting it mildly. Its a very readable short story, although it finished open-ended.

The Royal Palms - It appears that most, if not all of, these short stories are related to the issues in relationships, irrespective of the stage they are in. In this short story, we come across a couple in which the woman, Diane, feels insecure about how attractive she is. Maybe she feels that her husband tolerates a dip in her looks out of sympathy ? Does it take an attention from a third party to rebuild her confidence ? And is that ok for the husband ? It is clear that these aren't the kind of things that, leave alone couples, even an individual is honest enough to admit to oneself. Hence a reader outside of the pages, do the deconstruction of what may have taken place.

Linda's Daddy's Loaded - Mike finds out he has married rich, and through his wife Linda's father's money, they soon begin to have a life their incomes would otherwise will not permit. But it comes at the occasional tolerance of the old man's unbearable visits, and his whims. But Mike soon finds out that maybe he really can ill afford to not tolerate his father-in-law, however much the daughter feels otherwise.

There Should Be a Name For It - A very young couple in the intense of early passion, try to understand if what they feel for each other is love - is there another name for it ? There should be a name for it.

Issues I Dealt With In Therapy - Is an enjoyable short story where a couple joins the wedding celebration in a resort island, of a close friend of the guy, who has really moved up the ladder of influential people. While the incidents therein make it a fun story, the fact that the father of the bride is one Mr. Niyangoda suggested that Matthew had picked up a Sri Lankan family in the U.S. to inspire the story. The therapy in question is the getaway for Phylida, a surgeon, and her guy, our narrator, who manage to patch up issues that had accumulated over a time due to their busy schedules.

European Wedding - Rich and Gynnie, both Americans, are supposed to get married in France, upon Gynnie's mother's insistence, citing their German and French roots. As with most of the stories in this collection, there is the doubt on the minds of both parties, an infidelity or two, and usually busy occupied lives.

As suggested above, all seven short stories are relationship related, and that of the young couples - young in today's terms for marriageable ages, I reckon - and the challenges, doubts, distractions that they have to live through. There is only short story, in which the story has a married couple as the center point.

A decent short story collection that I enjoyed, especially since I didn't spend my core reading time on this.

Rating: ***1/2

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recall Matthew Klam being hyped as the next big thing when these stories first appeared in magazines, but for whatever reason I ignored him until I heard him read a John Updike story and discuss it on a New Yorker podcast. I'm (admittedly) an Updike fan, and I thought Klam's comments were funny and self-deprecating, so I bought "Sam the Cat." The stories are smooth and easily digestible, like a light beer. Klam writes in a WASPy patois, not as inventive as Updike or Cheever, not as lyrical, more jokey and pop cultural. This book must've come along at a time when people craved a jokey Updike; I don't think "Sam the Cat" would find the same success today. What started to bug me (and I'm a white middle-class male) is that there wasn't much at stake in any of these stories. They all scanned similarly. A wealthy white male who comes from good stock and has a good education is connected to a beautiful woman, but he can't seem to shake his loneliness, unhappiness, whatever. As my boss would call them: first world problems. If there was a crisis in any of these stories, it wasn't one I could become invested in. A man on vacation who can't seem to lose at the casino, a man visiting a private island for an old friend's wedding, a man getting married in France... Klam tries to give the women in the stories features to make them individual, but the features are all surface-level, and the (male) narrator is always appraising the women in terms of sex appeal. Lack of sex becomes the problem in some of the stories, while a sexual experience ultimately becomes the resolution. It's not surprising that Klam chose to read an Updike story: he's clearly influenced by Updike's "domestic" stories, with their infidelities and sex. But while Updike could write about paint drying with enviable turns of phrase, Klam doesn't have that same gift. His prose has a lot of sparks but never truly catches fire. One of the blurbs on the paperback states that "Klam doesn't so much write stories as compose fantastic variations on a theme." This is a really astute observation but also a backhanded compliment, because it's true--the stories don't build; there's very little tension. The only time I felt any sense of conflict was when the narrator gives an inappropriate toast prior to his friend's wedding. But the narrator seems to slip easily from this conflict, shrugging it off. I think there was a time in my life (early 20s) when I sought the more macho fiction of Thom Jones or Richard Ford or Barry Hannah, but I believe that even these writers were kinder to their female characters. In "Sam the Cat," there's a certain hatred or disgust of women that I found repellent. Maybe Klam is one of the reasons the pendulum in short fiction has swung back toward female writers, oppressed writers, writers of color. Because the narrators in "Sam the Cat," nearly without exception, were more literate versions of the guys from "Friends." I've seen them before, in various guises, and I guess I'm ready for something different.

[Roberto Musa Giuliano · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The short story is a dying art form," says Stephen King (I'm paraphrasing liberally) in his introduction to 'Everything's Eventual', "and we need to save it. Go read a short story collection. 'Sam the Cat' by Matthew Klam, for instance."

Sure thing, Stevie, anything you ask for. I knew I had a copy of 'Sam the Cat' lying around, bought who knows when, who knows why (but I do know why: that's what a good cover design is for). So? All seven stories feature ostensibly different first person narrators (they have different names, for one, and you will have forgotten them as soon as you move on to the next story). The stories feel the same and feature the same take-home lessons. We are all alone. Sex is weird. We don't know who we are. Relationships are hard. "That's a feature, not a bug," I imagine someone saying. Not that I need much imagination: "Klam doesn't so much write stories as compose fantastic variations on a theme" proclaims 'The Philadelphia Inquirer' in the back cover. Fantastic? But competently written, yes. This is an OK book, basically.

"Like the stories of Salinger and Cheever, these will doubtlessly be remembered as a chronicle of their time, place and class" says 'Esquire' in one of those blurbs of acclaim that publishers insert in every new book, either to entice hesitant buyers or to reassure those who finished the book that they got their money's worth. If that is so, then Klam's time, place and class is a flat monochord to Salinger's and Cheever's complex tonality. Better turn to them. Read the best books first, you may not have a chance to read them all.

[Brooks Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had one story left in this collection but after starting it and finding it to be just more of the same over-the-top male fantasy fiction that the other six stories served up on a platter, I decided to save my time and energy.

I'd be lying if I said none of these stories were fun reads, but at a certain point, a dog (or cat) can only do the same trick so many times before one starts to roll their eyes and yawn. Reminds me of the whirlpool of repetition I found myself swirling in while reading the initially-promising BED by Tao Lin -- same deal: first 2-3 stories were VERY strong and promising; funny, original, etc. Then you kept going and found that this writer is only capable of doing one thing and the subsequent stories are just paler imitations of it until you're basically drinking watered down water (stole that from 'Malcolm in the Middle').

What's maybe the most surprising thing about this collection is that ALL of these (7) stories appeared in THE NEW YORKER (!) Were their standards for fiction that much lower in the year 2000? I mean the GOAT George Saunders had already published his debut story, "Offloading For Mrs. Schwartz," eight years earlier, so clearly some standards had been established at the Condé Nast subsididiary. Anywho.

My good friend lent me this book and I will once again admit that it was a fun and immature respite from some of my more studious readings (see Brooks's CURRENTLY READING shelf for more, e.g., 'Demons'), but nevertheless, there is only so much Family Guy a person can watch, if you get my drift.

[Stacy Helton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I do not remember purchasing this 2000 collection of short stories by author Matthew Klam, entitled Sam the Cat, which consists of seven middling stories about the life of the middle class in the late 1990s. These stories, all of which appeared in The New Yorker (maybe that is why I bought the book), highlight minor disagreements between couples, usually with a creepy sexual component, and a tad of dated misogyny. Klam seems too tentative to address the incidents from a more sociological or psychological angle, which is, of course, his prerogative. Whether it is a passive character’s sudden flareup with his dog or an out-of-the-blue request for money from a new friend, Klam zigs when he should zag. The title story, however, is the collection’s standout. I wish I could discuss “Sam the Cat” with friends to see what they think…it is a unique and bizarre tale about sexual confusion – or is it? (For an opposing view please read Lorrie Moore’s review in the November 16, 2000 issue of The New York Review of Books.)

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last story, "European Wedding," moved this from three stars to four on its own. I haven't read a short story collection in years, so in a way this was a lot of fun.

I was unimpressed, though, with the repetitive nature of the male protagonist in each of the first five stories- and even a bit in the last one too. How many different ways can you write from the perspective of a man in a relationship who regularly- literally, from page to page, in fact- convinces himself that he's terrible, but he hates his significant other, but he loves her, but it's not his fault, but it's not her fault, oh-im-not-going-to-be-an-asshole-here-and-do-something-mean, oops-i-was-an-asshole, now-lets-have-sex? Not many, it turns out.

But you can still be a good writer and be observant about people and situations and things. And that's what this guy is.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of acerbic, rancidly funny stories. All of them feature white males who are obnoxiously heterosexual and need to spend time understanding how pathetic their view of the world.
Klam is a skilled satirist, but I wonder how well this acclaimed collection of stories published in 2000 would fare among the literati if published in 2025. Trump supporters don't read and rarely think so it seems unlikely that these stories will be embraced retroactively by the MAGA crowd. The last two stories skewer weddings and indirectly commitment. In fact, all the stories look askance at commitment. There are no epiphanies for these characters, and I liked that a lot

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

...and your point is?

That's what almost every story had me saying at the end. There are laugh-out-loud lines interspersed in so much pointless drivel, that this book could be condensed into one paragraph of golden comedy.

The point that did hit me on the head once I finished the book was, that it seems like the one thing modern love is most lacking is, sleep. Forget love, forget sex, sleep (or lack of it) features prominently in at least half the stories. It is, perhaps, the most universally relatable thought this book offers.

[Baki · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boş bir kitap olduğunu tahmin ederek aldım. Bunun böyle olmasını az çok bekliyordum ve fakat bu kadar da boş olacağını hiç düşünmedim. Sırf, öğle arasında yemek yerken okuyup, gülümseme beklentisi içinde okumak istedim ve sonuç hüsran...

Tavsiye etmiyorum.

Alıntılar; (her kitap içerisinde bir yada birkaç alıntı yapılabilir, değil mi? :) )

- "İnsan ne zaman inandıkları uğruna çalışmaktan vazgeçip saçma sapan şeyler için çalışmaya başlar?" dedim. "Bence otuzuna gelince," dedi."(syf.177) Haklı :)