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Thrilled to Death: Selected Stories
From award-winning novelist and cultural critic Lynne Tillman, Thrilled to Death is a collection of selected stories across the career of America’s most audacious writer
Among the vanguard of American literary writers, Lynne Tillman’s work has defied categorization throughout her legendary career—a singular body of work that both redefined and reimagined the short story form entirely.
Curated by the author, Thrilled to Death is the definitive entry point for both established fans and new readers alike. These selected stories collect a bold, playful, and eclectic ensemble of Tillman’s Borgesian fictions that span decades and traverse themes of sex, death, memory, and anxiety.
With argumentative wit, Tillman’s meditations and reflections on art, politics, and culture are animated by deliciously paradoxical characters who desire and fret in turn, and who are imbued with searing intelligence and dolorous ambivalence. Describing Tillman's writing, Colm Tóibín “Her style has both tone and undertone; it attempts to register the impossibility of saying very much, but it insists on the right to say a little. So what is essential is the voice itself, its ways of knowing and unknowing.”
Among the vanguard of American literary writers, Lynne Tillman’s work has defied categorization throughout her legendary career—a singular body of work that both redefined and reimagined the short story form entirely.
Curated by the author, Thrilled to Death is the definitive entry point for both established fans and new readers alike. These selected stories collect a bold, playful, and eclectic ensemble of Tillman’s Borgesian fictions that span decades and traverse themes of sex, death, memory, and anxiety.
With argumentative wit, Tillman’s meditations and reflections on art, politics, and culture are animated by deliciously paradoxical characters who desire and fret in turn, and who are imbued with searing intelligence and dolorous ambivalence. Describing Tillman's writing, Colm Tóibín “Her style has both tone and undertone; it attempts to register the impossibility of saying very much, but it insists on the right to say a little. So what is essential is the voice itself, its ways of knowing and unknowing.”
320 pages, Hardcover
First published March 25, 2025
23 people are currently reading
3531 people want to read
About the author
Lynne Tillman
121 books386 followersHere’s an Author’s Bio. It could be written differently. I’ve written many for myself and read lots of other people’s. None is right or sufficient, each slants one way or the other. So, a kind of fiction – selection of events and facts.. So let me just say: I wanted to be a writer since I was eight years old. That I actually do write stories and novels and essays, and that they get published, still astonishes me.
My news is that my 6th novel MEN AND APPARITIONS will appear in march 2018 from Soft Skull Press. It's my first novel in 12 years.
Each spring, I teach writing at University at Albany, in the English Dept., and in the fall, at The New School, in the Writing Dept.
I’ve lived with David Hofstra, a bass player, for many years. It makes a lot of sense to me that I live with a bass player, since time and rhythm are extremely important to my writing. He’s also a wonderful man.
As time goes by, my thoughts about writing change, how to write THIS, or why I do. There are no stable answers to a process that changes, and a life that does too. Writing, when I’m inhabiting its world, makes me happy, or less unhappy. I also feel engaged in and caught up in politics here, and in worlds farther away.
When I work inside the world in which I do make choices, I'm completely absorbed in what happens, in what can emerge. Writing is a beautiful, difficult relationship with what you know and don’t know, have or haven’t experienced, with grammar and syntax, with words, primarily, with ideas, and with everything else that’s been written.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 22, 2025
I enjoyed reading Mothercare a few years ago so I was excited to read THRILLED TO DEATH by Lynne Tillman. I really enjoyed this collection! These 41 stories are selected from the 1980s to present and ordered thematically. I enjoyed all the settings including London, New York, Kensington Market and the mention of Vancouver. All the movie and celebrity references are fun and there’s even a story from the point of view of Marilyn Monroe. I really enjoyed the touches of humour like when the author references herself and there’s one story about a writer whose pen name is Lynne Tillman. And another funny moment was when a woman at a bar ordered a beer to appear normal. I liked the range of these stories and now I’m thrilled to know I enjoy both nonfiction and fiction by this author.
Thank you to the publisher for my copy!
Thank you to the publisher for my copy!
July 13, 2025
Comme-ci comme-ça
A review of the Soft Skull hardcover (March 25, 2025) collecting stories originally published over the past 45? years.
[2.5 average rating for the 41 stories, bumped up to a GR 3 star]
As with any large anthology, not all of the topics or the styles of the 41 stories here (or 53 if you count the extra flash fiction 1-pagers) will appeal to everyone. I took a chance on this one from the library as I saw that it had an Afterword written by Lucy Sante, whose work I have recently enjoyed (e.g. The Other Paris: The People's City, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Six Sermons for Bob Dylan). The title also sounded promising, but caveat emptor, these are literary fiction and not thriller stories.
The styles here range from outright fiction, metafiction, experimental fiction to possible non-fiction i.e. where the author simply seems to be documenting something that they observed or happened to them in their real life. On the whole, it was the longer 10 to 20 page stories which I enjoyed the most, often for their humour or simply due to their having the space to actually tell a story. The 1 to 2 pagers often left me indifferent.
Somewhat irritatingly, the stories are not arranged chronologically and the original publication sources and dates are not identified. This of course made me want to know them all the more. I was able to identify some from the Table of Contents in earlier collections such as This Is Not It (2002) and Someday This Will Be Funny (2011). Those are labelled below as (2002) and (2011). I did not have access to Absence Makes the Heart (1991) (although #15 is presumably the title story from that one) or The Complete Madame Realism and Other Stories (2016). In a very few cases I was able to identify online magazines (#3 and #39) or other anthologies (#36) as being the source.
My favourites (4-stars) were #1 Come and Go, #9 Aka Mergatroyde, #12 My Time, My Side, #14 Other Movies, #22 A Greek Story, #24 Hello and Goodbye, #30 The Undiagnosed and #41 Thrilled to Death.
The following individual ratings and synopses are setups and mostly do not contain spoilers. In some cases I didn't know what to say, and simply used a line from the story itself.
1. Come and Go (2002) **** A very curious but intriguing start to this collection. The story has 3 different POVs and it changes them every few paragraphs. Two of them are a meet cute and the third is an addict going into rehab. All 3 meet or at least observe each other in a hospital. Then in the final section the author appears and says it is all a construct. Never read anything like it before.
2. There’s a Snake in the Grass *** Not much to this 2 pager. A NYC college girl does a summer job in Bar Harbour, Maine as a maid. Gets into trouble with the law for a misdemeanor.
3. Coming of Age in Xania *** Originally appeared in Bomb Magazine (April 1, 1981). A short 4 pager. A wanderer has various boy friends in Greece and Crete and a town called Xania, and leaves them all behind.
4. No Object in Mind ***. A walker observes London at night. They attend a forgettable play about Kafka. The elevator operator says: “Everybody talks about Kafka, but no one does anything about him.”
5. Myself as a Menu *. Two irritating small font pages broken into paragraphs under menu items such as Appetizers, Soups, Steaks, Seafood, etc ending with Desserts, Beverages.
6. Hung Up ***. Comic tale of a woman who keeps calling her about-to-breakup-with partner from a payphone and he keeps hanging up on her. When they meet later he says a “crazy person” kept calling him all day.
7. Contingencies *** A woman listens in on a conversation and observes at confrontation on a bus. “common lunacy: the fairy tale of absolute and complete freedom.”
8. Maybe ** A man observes his 3rd wife talking to another man at a party and thinks “maybe.”
9. Aka Mergatroyde **** Lynne Tillman tells the supposed scandalous tales of her “real” birth name family.
10. Pleasure Isn’t a Pretty Picture (2002) ** A couple have sex and we listen in on their mostly one-sided dialogues.
11. A Dead Summer ** Elizabeth observes others in a bar and alternating paragraphs recount her dreams which are often about death.
12. My Time, My Side **** A story of seeing the Rolling Stones in concert at the Academy of Music May 1, 1965 which doesn’t sound like it was a good time. Title inspired by the song “Time Is on My Side.”
13. More Sex ** (2011) Kind of an absurd riff on the idea of thinking about sex every seven minutes which men supposedly do. She sets an alarm clock for every 7 minutes & finds that it is a difficult thing to do.
14. Other Movies **** Observations of a neighbourhood & its various quirky characters, often comparing situations to famous movies and roles.
15. Absence Makes the Heart (1991) * “The woman said don’t leave me, then walked into a ballroom, the kind that is easily recognized.”
16. Hold Me (Nine Stories) * Nine 1-page stories/vignettes ranging from dental visits to watching the TV.
17. Living With Contradictions * “Calling love desire doesn’t change the need.”
18. That’s How Wrong My Love Is (2011) *** Observing the mourning doves in her neighbourhood.
19. Dead Talk * Marilyn Monroe as if speaking from beyond the grave. Rather distasteful and exploitative.
20. This is Not It (2002) * Musings about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
21. Madame Realism’s Torch Song * (2002) Madame Realism and Wiley discuss how to build a fire.
22. A Greek Story (2011) **** A friend tells a story about outwitting a Greek customs official.
23. Madame Realism’s Conscience (2011) ** Madame Realism thinks about various U.S. Presidents and their foibles.
24. Hello and Goodbye **** Explaining why she likes to leaves parties, dinners and gatherings as soon as she can.
25. Boots and Remorse *** Reminiscing about a stray cat named Boots that Tillman took in.
26. On the Small Act of Leaving the Home ** Leaving the house and being paranoid during the pandemic.
27. The Substitute ** Helen talks about her lover Rex with her analyst Dr. Kaye.
28. A Simple Idea *** A story about a friend who parks her car illegally in New York City.
29. Tiny Struggles *** Tiny moves to a small town and observes a situation between two of his neighbours.
30. The Undiagnosed (2002) **** Sort of a takeoff inspired by Clint Eastwood’s film “Unforgiven.” The main character attends a ballroom event where Clint Eastwood shows up and they have a discussion about his movies and about death. “We can stop killing. We can’t stop death. Clint astonished me.”
31. Playing Hurt (2011) *** While working at an investment bank, Abigail sets her sights on a fallen scion Nathaniel Murphy but begins to distrust him after they marry.
32. Diary of a Masochist * A dysfunctional relationship story, something to do with art filmmakers perhaps. They keep travelling around the U.S. showing films.
33. Angela and Sal *** Working at an antiques market the main character meets Angela, who is a member of the Strines, the London branch of the Australian mafia. Later they meet actor Sal Mineo, who pays their tab at a bar where they also meet the singer of the rock group Grand Funk Railroad.
34. Future Prosthetic@ (2015) * Experimental stream of consciousness written in some sort of cryptic code with various computer keyboard symbols e.g. lots of @'s. “Too bitty nostalgiac for I/o.” Reads like complete nonsense. Is it supposed to be a machine writing this? Collected in Gigantic Worlds (2015) a flash science fiction collection edited by Lincoln Michel.
35. The Original Impulse (2011) ** Lonely woman keeps seeing her “nighttime man”, who is a writer.
36. The Shadow of a Doubt (2011) ** Thomas attends the wedding of his ex Grace, thinks back about times with his twin sister Antoinette (Tony) and see a vision in a pond after he escapes from the wedding.
37. What She Could Do ** A couple attend a play with the title “A Leap into the Void” which has a startling on-stage conclusion (perhaps an accident?).
38. Dear Ollie (2011) ** Lynne Tillman writes a letter to Ollie about the time they pranked a musician friend of his.
39. The Dead Live Longer (Spring 2020) *** Memories of a friend who grew estranged later in life. “She was out of my life for many, many years, not dead yet, but dead to me figuratively. It’s very different, that kind of death.” Read the beginning of the story at N+1 here.
40. Five Short Stories *** a) A nearsighted girl flirts with a stain on the wall. b) Gene returns home to his sister June. c) Meeting an old lover on the street, who ghosted her. d) A brother dog-sits but breaks an expensive chair. e) Do you know that “conspire” means to breathe together.
41. Thrilled to Death (2002) **** Various characters incl. Paige Turner go to a carnival. The events of that evening will change their lives forever.
A review of the Soft Skull hardcover (March 25, 2025) collecting stories originally published over the past 45? years.
[2.5 average rating for the 41 stories, bumped up to a GR 3 star]
As with any large anthology, not all of the topics or the styles of the 41 stories here (or 53 if you count the extra flash fiction 1-pagers) will appeal to everyone. I took a chance on this one from the library as I saw that it had an Afterword written by Lucy Sante, whose work I have recently enjoyed (e.g. The Other Paris: The People's City, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Six Sermons for Bob Dylan). The title also sounded promising, but caveat emptor, these are literary fiction and not thriller stories.
The styles here range from outright fiction, metafiction, experimental fiction to possible non-fiction i.e. where the author simply seems to be documenting something that they observed or happened to them in their real life. On the whole, it was the longer 10 to 20 page stories which I enjoyed the most, often for their humour or simply due to their having the space to actually tell a story. The 1 to 2 pagers often left me indifferent.
Somewhat irritatingly, the stories are not arranged chronologically and the original publication sources and dates are not identified. This of course made me want to know them all the more. I was able to identify some from the Table of Contents in earlier collections such as This Is Not It (2002) and Someday This Will Be Funny (2011). Those are labelled below as (2002) and (2011). I did not have access to Absence Makes the Heart (1991) (although #15 is presumably the title story from that one) or The Complete Madame Realism and Other Stories (2016). In a very few cases I was able to identify online magazines (#3 and #39) or other anthologies (#36) as being the source.
My favourites (4-stars) were #1 Come and Go, #9 Aka Mergatroyde, #12 My Time, My Side, #14 Other Movies, #22 A Greek Story, #24 Hello and Goodbye, #30 The Undiagnosed and #41 Thrilled to Death.
The following individual ratings and synopses are setups and mostly do not contain spoilers. In some cases I didn't know what to say, and simply used a line from the story itself.
1. Come and Go (2002) **** A very curious but intriguing start to this collection. The story has 3 different POVs and it changes them every few paragraphs. Two of them are a meet cute and the third is an addict going into rehab. All 3 meet or at least observe each other in a hospital. Then in the final section the author appears and says it is all a construct. Never read anything like it before.
2. There’s a Snake in the Grass *** Not much to this 2 pager. A NYC college girl does a summer job in Bar Harbour, Maine as a maid. Gets into trouble with the law for a misdemeanor.
3. Coming of Age in Xania *** Originally appeared in Bomb Magazine (April 1, 1981). A short 4 pager. A wanderer has various boy friends in Greece and Crete and a town called Xania, and leaves them all behind.
4. No Object in Mind ***. A walker observes London at night. They attend a forgettable play about Kafka. The elevator operator says: “Everybody talks about Kafka, but no one does anything about him.”
5. Myself as a Menu *. Two irritating small font pages broken into paragraphs under menu items such as Appetizers, Soups, Steaks, Seafood, etc ending with Desserts, Beverages.
6. Hung Up ***. Comic tale of a woman who keeps calling her about-to-breakup-with partner from a payphone and he keeps hanging up on her. When they meet later he says a “crazy person” kept calling him all day.
7. Contingencies *** A woman listens in on a conversation and observes at confrontation on a bus. “common lunacy: the fairy tale of absolute and complete freedom.”
8. Maybe ** A man observes his 3rd wife talking to another man at a party and thinks “maybe.”
9. Aka Mergatroyde **** Lynne Tillman tells the supposed scandalous tales of her “real” birth name family.
10. Pleasure Isn’t a Pretty Picture (2002) ** A couple have sex and we listen in on their mostly one-sided dialogues.
11. A Dead Summer ** Elizabeth observes others in a bar and alternating paragraphs recount her dreams which are often about death.
12. My Time, My Side **** A story of seeing the Rolling Stones in concert at the Academy of Music May 1, 1965 which doesn’t sound like it was a good time. Title inspired by the song “Time Is on My Side.”
13. More Sex ** (2011) Kind of an absurd riff on the idea of thinking about sex every seven minutes which men supposedly do. She sets an alarm clock for every 7 minutes & finds that it is a difficult thing to do.
14. Other Movies **** Observations of a neighbourhood & its various quirky characters, often comparing situations to famous movies and roles.
15. Absence Makes the Heart (1991) * “The woman said don’t leave me, then walked into a ballroom, the kind that is easily recognized.”
16. Hold Me (Nine Stories) * Nine 1-page stories/vignettes ranging from dental visits to watching the TV.
17. Living With Contradictions * “Calling love desire doesn’t change the need.”
18. That’s How Wrong My Love Is (2011) *** Observing the mourning doves in her neighbourhood.
19. Dead Talk * Marilyn Monroe as if speaking from beyond the grave. Rather distasteful and exploitative.
20. This is Not It (2002) * Musings about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
21. Madame Realism’s Torch Song * (2002) Madame Realism and Wiley discuss how to build a fire.
22. A Greek Story (2011) **** A friend tells a story about outwitting a Greek customs official.
23. Madame Realism’s Conscience (2011) ** Madame Realism thinks about various U.S. Presidents and their foibles.
24. Hello and Goodbye **** Explaining why she likes to leaves parties, dinners and gatherings as soon as she can.
25. Boots and Remorse *** Reminiscing about a stray cat named Boots that Tillman took in.
26. On the Small Act of Leaving the Home ** Leaving the house and being paranoid during the pandemic.
27. The Substitute ** Helen talks about her lover Rex with her analyst Dr. Kaye.
28. A Simple Idea *** A story about a friend who parks her car illegally in New York City.
29. Tiny Struggles *** Tiny moves to a small town and observes a situation between two of his neighbours.
30. The Undiagnosed (2002) **** Sort of a takeoff inspired by Clint Eastwood’s film “Unforgiven.” The main character attends a ballroom event where Clint Eastwood shows up and they have a discussion about his movies and about death. “We can stop killing. We can’t stop death. Clint astonished me.”
31. Playing Hurt (2011) *** While working at an investment bank, Abigail sets her sights on a fallen scion Nathaniel Murphy but begins to distrust him after they marry.
32. Diary of a Masochist * A dysfunctional relationship story, something to do with art filmmakers perhaps. They keep travelling around the U.S. showing films.
33. Angela and Sal *** Working at an antiques market the main character meets Angela, who is a member of the Strines, the London branch of the Australian mafia. Later they meet actor Sal Mineo, who pays their tab at a bar where they also meet the singer of the rock group Grand Funk Railroad.
34. Future Prosthetic@ (2015) * Experimental stream of consciousness written in some sort of cryptic code with various computer keyboard symbols e.g. lots of @'s. “Too bitty nostalgiac for I/o.” Reads like complete nonsense. Is it supposed to be a machine writing this? Collected in Gigantic Worlds (2015) a flash science fiction collection edited by Lincoln Michel.
35. The Original Impulse (2011) ** Lonely woman keeps seeing her “nighttime man”, who is a writer.
36. The Shadow of a Doubt (2011) ** Thomas attends the wedding of his ex Grace, thinks back about times with his twin sister Antoinette (Tony) and see a vision in a pond after he escapes from the wedding.
37. What She Could Do ** A couple attend a play with the title “A Leap into the Void” which has a startling on-stage conclusion (perhaps an accident?).
38. Dear Ollie (2011) ** Lynne Tillman writes a letter to Ollie about the time they pranked a musician friend of his.
39. The Dead Live Longer (Spring 2020) *** Memories of a friend who grew estranged later in life. “She was out of my life for many, many years, not dead yet, but dead to me figuratively. It’s very different, that kind of death.” Read the beginning of the story at N+1 here.
40. Five Short Stories *** a) A nearsighted girl flirts with a stain on the wall. b) Gene returns home to his sister June. c) Meeting an old lover on the street, who ghosted her. d) A brother dog-sits but breaks an expensive chair. e) Do you know that “conspire” means to breathe together.
41. Thrilled to Death (2002) **** Various characters incl. Paige Turner go to a carnival. The events of that evening will change their lives forever.
Read
December 8, 2025In a book about bugs that I reviewed here a while back, a question recurs
What is the point of slugs?
The author mentions this because this way madness lies, to demand the world raise answers to the point of itself, it’s a crazy point of view. From a suburban human landscaper perspective, the answer is there is no point, the answer is like a Hegseth comment in a leaked Discord thread.
Of course, if you interrogate the world in terms of the point of itself, you will never be satisfied. That may not be bad, to be unsatisfied. But it’s still a boring question with no vivacious answers, it’s a question to render commodities usable. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Another thought someone else had: we are here to fart around. Thank you Kurt Vonnegut, this has made sense of everything. Finally. This is as close to a philosophy I can put into words as I hope to have.
So if you are unburdened by wondering about the point of things and farting around is an exalted state, by your standards, then perhaps you have the capaciousness to read these stories. They are more like visual art than fiction. Not because they describe the way things look, but because the scope of the stories feels a lot more like what Cubism set out to achieve than most storytellers would be game to create.
What is the point of slugs?
The author mentions this because this way madness lies, to demand the world raise answers to the point of itself, it’s a crazy point of view. From a suburban human landscaper perspective, the answer is there is no point, the answer is like a Hegseth comment in a leaked Discord thread.
Of course, if you interrogate the world in terms of the point of itself, you will never be satisfied. That may not be bad, to be unsatisfied. But it’s still a boring question with no vivacious answers, it’s a question to render commodities usable. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Another thought someone else had: we are here to fart around. Thank you Kurt Vonnegut, this has made sense of everything. Finally. This is as close to a philosophy I can put into words as I hope to have.
So if you are unburdened by wondering about the point of things and farting around is an exalted state, by your standards, then perhaps you have the capaciousness to read these stories. They are more like visual art than fiction. Not because they describe the way things look, but because the scope of the stories feels a lot more like what Cubism set out to achieve than most storytellers would be game to create.
January 3, 2026
wish i enjoyed this more
September 10, 2025
I had mixed feelings about this collection of stories. Some I loved, finding them profoundly funny and philosophical. Others felt too abstract and, at times, quite boring. I found that reading each story individually rather than in succession helped me enjoy the book more. Each story required time and thought to fully appreciate. That said, there were a fair number of stories I didn’t care for.
September 5, 2025
Hmmmm! I feel torn about this collection. Tillman’s humor was sharp and off-kilter, and when it works, it really works - like in the piece where a narrator casually muses on how a dog seems to understand more about loneliness than people do. Those kinds of observations are strange, funny, and oddly touching.
But the book is uneven. Some sections feel like half-formed sketches or clever fragments that don’t quite go anywhere. I’d find myself laughing at one page, then glazing over the next.
Overall, I admire the wit and originality, but the inconsistency left me more intrigued than fully satisfied. Three stars: smart, playful, but not always engaging.
But the book is uneven. Some sections feel like half-formed sketches or clever fragments that don’t quite go anywhere. I’d find myself laughing at one page, then glazing over the next.
Overall, I admire the wit and originality, but the inconsistency left me more intrigued than fully satisfied. Three stars: smart, playful, but not always engaging.
June 22, 2025
A collection of stories about people failing to connect and hurting each other. Tillman has a fantastic voice: voyeuristic and surreal.
I generally liked the longer stories more than the shorter ones: it takes a few pages for me to buy into the world that they exist in.
I'm not sure I enjoyed reading this collection: I found the overall vibe misanthropic and a bit of a downer.
Stories I liked:
- Come and Go
- Hung Up
- A Dead Summer
- Other Movies
- Boots and Remorse
- Playing Hurt
- The Dead Live Longer
- Thrilled to Death
I generally liked the longer stories more than the shorter ones: it takes a few pages for me to buy into the world that they exist in.
I'm not sure I enjoyed reading this collection: I found the overall vibe misanthropic and a bit of a downer.
Stories I liked:
- Come and Go
- Hung Up
- A Dead Summer
- Other Movies
- Boots and Remorse
- Playing Hurt
- The Dead Live Longer
- Thrilled to Death
June 10, 2025
The stories were a little confusing as character names in different stories could be the same which would lead you to be they are related, but in actuality, are completely different stories.
June 20, 2025
four, for the exquisite Come and Go and others: A Dead Summer, Madame Realism’s Torch Song, The Substitute, The Undiagnosed & The Original Impulse.
Startling, what gets kept
Startling, what gets kept
November 18, 2025
Took a little to fully internalize the style, but Tillman gets at this decaying sense of death and history at the core of existence. Will have to read everything she wrote.
January 12, 2026
most of the time i didn’t know what i was reading
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews