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Corpus Christi
From an acclaimed and award-winning young writer comes an intensely moving debut collection set in the eye of life’s storms. In Corpus Christi, Texas—a town often hit by hurricanes— parents, children, and lovers come together and fall apart, bonded and battered by memories of loss that they feel as acutely as physical pain.
A car accident joins strangers linked by an intimate knowledge of madness. A teenage boy remembers his father’s act of sudden and self-righteous violence. A “hurricane party” reunites a couple whom tragedy parted. And, in an unforgettable three-story cycle, an illness sets in profound relief a man’s relationship with his mother and the odd, shifting fidelity of truth to love.
Told in fresh, lyrical voices and taut, inventive styles, these narratives explore the complex volatility of love and intimacy, sorrow and renewal—and expose how often these experiences feel like the opposite of themselves. From the woman whose young son’s uncanny rapport with snakes illuminates her own missed opportunities to the man confronting his wife and her lover in a house full of illegal exotic birds, all the characters here face moments of profound decision and recognition in which no choice is clearly or completely right.
Writing with tough humor, deep humanity, and a keen eye for the natural environment, Bret Anthony Johnston creates a world where where cataclysmic events cut people loose from their “regular lives, floating and spiraling away from where we had been the day before.” Corpus Christi is a extraordinarily ambitious debut. It marks the arrival of an important, exquisitely talented voice to American fiction.
A car accident joins strangers linked by an intimate knowledge of madness. A teenage boy remembers his father’s act of sudden and self-righteous violence. A “hurricane party” reunites a couple whom tragedy parted. And, in an unforgettable three-story cycle, an illness sets in profound relief a man’s relationship with his mother and the odd, shifting fidelity of truth to love.
Told in fresh, lyrical voices and taut, inventive styles, these narratives explore the complex volatility of love and intimacy, sorrow and renewal—and expose how often these experiences feel like the opposite of themselves. From the woman whose young son’s uncanny rapport with snakes illuminates her own missed opportunities to the man confronting his wife and her lover in a house full of illegal exotic birds, all the characters here face moments of profound decision and recognition in which no choice is clearly or completely right.
Writing with tough humor, deep humanity, and a keen eye for the natural environment, Bret Anthony Johnston creates a world where where cataclysmic events cut people loose from their “regular lives, floating and spiraling away from where we had been the day before.” Corpus Christi is a extraordinarily ambitious debut. It marks the arrival of an important, exquisitely talented voice to American fiction.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
17 people are currently reading
502 people want to read
About the author
Bret Anthony Johnston
16 books242 followersBret Anthony Johnston is the author of the internationally best-selling novel Remember Me Like This, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and the winner of the 2015 McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns Prize. The book has been translated around the world and is being made into a major motion picture. Bret is also the author of the award-winning Corpus Christi: Stories, which was named a Best Book of the Year by The Independent (London) and The Irish Times, and the editor of Naming the World and Other Exercises for the Creative Writer. His work appears in The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, The Paris Review, Glimmer Train Stories, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere.
His awards include the Pushcart Prize, the Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers, the Stephen Turner Award, the Cohen Prize, a James Michener Fellowship, the Kay Cattarulla Prize for short fiction, and many more. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Tin House, The Best American Sports Writing, and on NPR’s All Things Considered.
A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he’s the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and a 5 Under 35 honor from the National Book Foundation. He wrote the documentary film Waiting for Lightning, which was released in theaters around the world by Samuel Goldwyn Films. He teaches in the Bennington Writing Seminars and at Harvard University, where he is the Director of Creative Writing.
His awards include the Pushcart Prize, the Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers, the Stephen Turner Award, the Cohen Prize, a James Michener Fellowship, the Kay Cattarulla Prize for short fiction, and many more. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Tin House, The Best American Sports Writing, and on NPR’s All Things Considered.
A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he’s the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and a 5 Under 35 honor from the National Book Foundation. He wrote the documentary film Waiting for Lightning, which was released in theaters around the world by Samuel Goldwyn Films. He teaches in the Bennington Writing Seminars and at Harvard University, where he is the Director of Creative Writing.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
April 27, 2013
I first became aware of Brett Anthony Johnston because of a terrific story that he had in the Fall 2011 issue of American Short Fiction titled “Paradeability” about a father coping with the aftermath of his wife’s death and his son’s obsession with learning how to become a clown, which is the boy’s way of coping with his mother’s loss. It’s a greatly paced and nuanced story, offering wonderful insights into how the father and son cope with tragedy. All the skill at display in that piece made me go searching for more work by Johnston and this collection didn’t let me down. Each story offers a terrific premise, great character insight and deft writing.
The 10 stories in the piece, all located in or near Corpus Christi, Texas, are:
1. Waterwalkers – 31 pp – My favorite story in the collection. While a hurricane is bearing down on Corpus Christi, a man runs into his ex-wife in a hardware store. They haven’t seen each other in years, since they separated and divorced after the death of their son. The story is filled with evidence of why they had the original connection, and how it got marred by the pain of losing their child.
2. I See Something You Don’t See – 29 pp – The first in a trilogy of stories about a son who’s had to take time off from his teaching job and post-graduate studies in order to move back to Texas to take care of his mother who is dying from cancer. Here his mother is hopeful that she still has some time to enjoy life, but when the son learns her cancer has actually taken a turn for the worse, he keeps the news from her for a while and is wracked with guilt about keeping a secret he knows will shatter all her newfound hope.
3. In the Tall Grass – 27 pp -- A son who has a distant relationship with a father he worships witnesses an episode in which the father erupts into violence, kicking an already hobbled man in his weak knee because of a dispute over the rent the father owes on a stall in a horse barn. The boy, eager for the connection, is mystified by why his father would take him along to witness such a scene.
4. Outside the Toy Store – 10 pp – A widow meets a woman he dated five years earlier, after his wife died and when his daughter was gravely ill. The woman is with her twin, three-year-old boys whom she had with another man after their relationship ended. The encounter begins pleasantly, with each of them recalling fond memories of their time together, but then their interaction takes a surprising turn that reveals much about the man’s current state of mind.
5. Corpus Christi – 35 pp – The one story I wasn’t thrilled by. It gets a little too artsy for me with the point of view shifting from one character to the next, and there are sections you have to read several times just to figure out what’s going on. It’s all about the at first circumstantial, and then tragic interaction between a man whose suicidal wife is in a psychiatric hospital and the sister of a soldier who’s been committed there after brutally beating up a fellow soldier on the base. On the road later, there’s an even more fateful encounter between the husband, the sister, and another soldier from the base who brought her to the hospital.
6. The Widow – 26 pp - The second installment in the trilogy of stories about son Lee and his mother, Minnie, who’s dying of cancer. Set again in the present moment when Lee is caring for her, the story reveals through several flashbacks how close Minnie had been to her late husband, and how she’d never fully emotionally recovered from his sudden death a few years earlier from a heart attack.
7. Two Liars – 27 pp – Another story about a young boy witnessing the wayward ways of a father he adores. In this piece, the son watches his father arrive at startling decision for how to deal with the family’s financial woes – he sets their house on fire.
8. Anything That Floats – 12 pp – To escape the heat during a prolonged drought, a mother, whose husband is in the hospital, takes her snake-obsessed son to a pool at a hotel managed by a man she had an affair with the year before as payback for her husband’s philandering.
9. Bird of Paradise – 22 pp - A teenaged boy gets involved with a friend’s crazy father who is having an affair with a woman and asks the boys to steal things from his lover’s house. But things taken a dramatic turn when the cuckolded husband, having learned of the affair, shows up at his rival’s house with a gun.
10. Buy for Me the Rain – 29 pp – The final story in the Lee and Minnie trilogy packs an incredible wallop. Some incredibly moving scenes as the son sings to his mother, hoping to relieve her final painful moments. There is also a heart-wrenching description of of the mother’s final breaths and what the son has to witness as he watches life seep out of his mother. Combined with those moving scenarios is a brutally honest portrait of the son’s secret wish that his mother’s funeral might give him the opportunity to reunite with the great love of his life, a flighty woman whom he quickly realizes can’t give him all he wants even after she does come back into his life and they restore at least a physical connection.
The 10 stories in the piece, all located in or near Corpus Christi, Texas, are:
1. Waterwalkers – 31 pp – My favorite story in the collection. While a hurricane is bearing down on Corpus Christi, a man runs into his ex-wife in a hardware store. They haven’t seen each other in years, since they separated and divorced after the death of their son. The story is filled with evidence of why they had the original connection, and how it got marred by the pain of losing their child.
2. I See Something You Don’t See – 29 pp – The first in a trilogy of stories about a son who’s had to take time off from his teaching job and post-graduate studies in order to move back to Texas to take care of his mother who is dying from cancer. Here his mother is hopeful that she still has some time to enjoy life, but when the son learns her cancer has actually taken a turn for the worse, he keeps the news from her for a while and is wracked with guilt about keeping a secret he knows will shatter all her newfound hope.
3. In the Tall Grass – 27 pp -- A son who has a distant relationship with a father he worships witnesses an episode in which the father erupts into violence, kicking an already hobbled man in his weak knee because of a dispute over the rent the father owes on a stall in a horse barn. The boy, eager for the connection, is mystified by why his father would take him along to witness such a scene.
4. Outside the Toy Store – 10 pp – A widow meets a woman he dated five years earlier, after his wife died and when his daughter was gravely ill. The woman is with her twin, three-year-old boys whom she had with another man after their relationship ended. The encounter begins pleasantly, with each of them recalling fond memories of their time together, but then their interaction takes a surprising turn that reveals much about the man’s current state of mind.
5. Corpus Christi – 35 pp – The one story I wasn’t thrilled by. It gets a little too artsy for me with the point of view shifting from one character to the next, and there are sections you have to read several times just to figure out what’s going on. It’s all about the at first circumstantial, and then tragic interaction between a man whose suicidal wife is in a psychiatric hospital and the sister of a soldier who’s been committed there after brutally beating up a fellow soldier on the base. On the road later, there’s an even more fateful encounter between the husband, the sister, and another soldier from the base who brought her to the hospital.
6. The Widow – 26 pp - The second installment in the trilogy of stories about son Lee and his mother, Minnie, who’s dying of cancer. Set again in the present moment when Lee is caring for her, the story reveals through several flashbacks how close Minnie had been to her late husband, and how she’d never fully emotionally recovered from his sudden death a few years earlier from a heart attack.
7. Two Liars – 27 pp – Another story about a young boy witnessing the wayward ways of a father he adores. In this piece, the son watches his father arrive at startling decision for how to deal with the family’s financial woes – he sets their house on fire.
8. Anything That Floats – 12 pp – To escape the heat during a prolonged drought, a mother, whose husband is in the hospital, takes her snake-obsessed son to a pool at a hotel managed by a man she had an affair with the year before as payback for her husband’s philandering.
9. Bird of Paradise – 22 pp - A teenaged boy gets involved with a friend’s crazy father who is having an affair with a woman and asks the boys to steal things from his lover’s house. But things taken a dramatic turn when the cuckolded husband, having learned of the affair, shows up at his rival’s house with a gun.
10. Buy for Me the Rain – 29 pp – The final story in the Lee and Minnie trilogy packs an incredible wallop. Some incredibly moving scenes as the son sings to his mother, hoping to relieve her final painful moments. There is also a heart-wrenching description of of the mother’s final breaths and what the son has to witness as he watches life seep out of his mother. Combined with those moving scenarios is a brutally honest portrait of the son’s secret wish that his mother’s funeral might give him the opportunity to reunite with the great love of his life, a flighty woman whom he quickly realizes can’t give him all he wants even after she does come back into his life and they restore at least a physical connection.
March 24, 2010
This was a pretty underwhelming book. I had read reviews that said “What a great first book!” or “Can you believe he used to be a professional skater?!?!”
As a matter of fact, I can. I think it’s a little more astonishing that he is a professor of creative writing at Harvard. Was it well written? Yes. Did he accomplish the task, a difficult one in my opinion, of composing just the right amount of a story within the “short story” length? I suppose.
I think what really bothered me was the content. Too many were just uninspired tear jerkers. The most prominent story is simply a description of a mother and her son as she slowly dies from cancer. Maybe that is more appealing subject matter for some, but I think it’s something that is universally acknowledged to be awful, and I don’t really think that it was described in any groundbreaking way. It’s a difficult process for the son as he watches his mother die, the mother feels guilty for imposing on the son, neither one of them can do a damn thing about it. It sucks. It makes you cry because you think about what if my own mother died of cancer? Wouldn't that just really, really suck?
Of course it would, and I don’t need to read a book by this guy to know that. Neither is it something that I feel like this book helped me explore in any meaningful way. It pretty much made me feel exploited and anxious to finish the book so I could read something more provocative.
As a matter of fact, I can. I think it’s a little more astonishing that he is a professor of creative writing at Harvard. Was it well written? Yes. Did he accomplish the task, a difficult one in my opinion, of composing just the right amount of a story within the “short story” length? I suppose.
I think what really bothered me was the content. Too many were just uninspired tear jerkers. The most prominent story is simply a description of a mother and her son as she slowly dies from cancer. Maybe that is more appealing subject matter for some, but I think it’s something that is universally acknowledged to be awful, and I don’t really think that it was described in any groundbreaking way. It’s a difficult process for the son as he watches his mother die, the mother feels guilty for imposing on the son, neither one of them can do a damn thing about it. It sucks. It makes you cry because you think about what if my own mother died of cancer? Wouldn't that just really, really suck?
Of course it would, and I don’t need to read a book by this guy to know that. Neither is it something that I feel like this book helped me explore in any meaningful way. It pretty much made me feel exploited and anxious to finish the book so I could read something more provocative.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 6, 2013
Bret Anthony Johnston's collection is comprised of stories linked together by setting; they all take place in Corpus Christi, and various characters appear in more than one story; but unlike Elizabeth Strout's marvelous book Olive Kitteridge, these stories are tedious! They are mostly domestic in subject matter: dying or dead relationships between husbands and wives, mothers and sons, sons and fathers, et cetera. And there's nothing wrong with that, except when the minutia of living - and all the details that don't matter- take on too much importance. I was bored with two-thirds of the stories, and left unmoved by nearly all of them.
September 2, 2018
Johnston was my workshop teacher at the VQR Writers Conference in 2018. I read his novel before we met, and this collection (which was published first) afterwards. He's very good at pulling together human emotions and even extreme actions out of his all-encompassing sense of place and atmosphere, the hot, humid, frequently stormy seaside town of Corpus Christi. I read these stories slowly and with great pleasure.
September 15, 2024
What a talented author! I'm not typically a short-story enthusiast, but Johnston packs a full tale in each of these short-stories. I picked up this book because I recently finished We Burn Daylight. I SO appreciate and admire Johnston's writing skill and style.
July 14, 2008
I love this book so intensely that I feel like I'm confessing secrets by writing about it. It's one of those books I don't want to recommend to people because if they read it and don't feel destroyed and reborn I will probably like them less and never ever invite them to my birthday parties ever again. I still have a hard time explaining why this collection of stories flattens me so entirely, and I suspect others might find it occasionally hokey or even exploitative. For me though, it strikes all the right chords. The settings are rich and familiar (Corpus Christi, TX), and the characters are people I could easily know. Add to it the fact that fellow-Texan Johnston is almost exactly my age and I'm perhaps the ideal audience here.
It's no exaggeration to say that I feel like a better person for having read this. I want even more to do right by the people I love, and I feel more awake in the present moment--knowing it will all soon be gone. When I finished this late one night on vacation, I stayed awake for more than an hour trying to compose myself before I went to sleep in the bed adjacent to my elder daughter. I didn't want to be a blubbering lummox waking her up post-midnight to squeeze the breath out of her three-year-old lungs as I struggled to hold her so tightly that I could never lose her. So when I say that I don't recall the last time a book had such a brutally wonderful emotional impact on me, I only mean it literally.
ps> If you do read this book and don't love it, please don't tell me. I really am serious about the birthday party thing.
It's no exaggeration to say that I feel like a better person for having read this. I want even more to do right by the people I love, and I feel more awake in the present moment--knowing it will all soon be gone. When I finished this late one night on vacation, I stayed awake for more than an hour trying to compose myself before I went to sleep in the bed adjacent to my elder daughter. I didn't want to be a blubbering lummox waking her up post-midnight to squeeze the breath out of her three-year-old lungs as I struggled to hold her so tightly that I could never lose her. So when I say that I don't recall the last time a book had such a brutally wonderful emotional impact on me, I only mean it literally.
ps> If you do read this book and don't love it, please don't tell me. I really am serious about the birthday party thing.
November 30, 2025
Great writing but all the stories in the collection were so sad.
June 12, 2022
I really enjoyed his writing style. The subject matter was a tad bleak for my tastes, but these are great stories.
February 19, 2015
Normally I'm not a fan of short stories but occasionally I find a talented author who can change my mind about the format such as Jess Walter (We Live in Water), Annie Proulx (Close Range) or Russell Banks (Permanent Member of the Family). More often I am left frustrated by short stories either being boring, leaving things so underdeveloped in the plot or characters rendering the story pointless, or trying too hard to be clever, bizarre or open-ended. All that said, I was delightfully surprised by the Johnston's collection "Corpus Christi." Having read his novel I knew he was a capable writer but as I have discovered that does not always translate to an author's short stories (or vise versa). These stories were fresh and thoughtful and managed to give a very full picture of the characters and place in a few pages. Some were very specific anecdotes about one day or thing that happened to someone like the time a son's father went to jail. Where another about an adult son taking care of a terminally ill mother was a three part narrative that could be read together or could hold up each on its own. Each story was meaty and well developed and carefully crafted. The treatment of the characters was tender and without judgement and the story was told without a predetermined moral or conclusion. The book shares a love of story telling and we as readers can relate to many of the themes and people. I would highly recommend the book to anyone looking for realistic bite-sized fiction.
May 30, 2016
After finishing Johnston's book Remember Me Like This, I knew I'd discovered an author I would want to read again. He hasn't written another novel, but I discovered his book of short stories.
I took me a while to finish this because some of the stories made me so emotional that I just had to put it down between them. I'm not one who enjoys a good cry, I want to ignore those feelings and move on. But don't misunderstand - not all of the stories are sad. But they ARE all touching and extremely well-written. It's a talented author who can introduce characters and make you feel connected to them in the span of a short story, and Bret Anthony Johnston is definitely talented.
When I finished this, it occurred to me to wonder who could read this book without crying and I realized that 20 years ago, I could have done it. But anyone who has watched a loved one dying could not read the trilogy of stories about a son who moves back home to help his mother through her last months. They are spread throughout the book, which doesn't lessen their impact a bit. They were the hardest ones for me to read, but the ones that will stick with me the most.
If this book doesn't sound like one you'd enjoy, I urge you to read Remember Me Like This instead, so you can appreciate Johnston's skill.
I took me a while to finish this because some of the stories made me so emotional that I just had to put it down between them. I'm not one who enjoys a good cry, I want to ignore those feelings and move on. But don't misunderstand - not all of the stories are sad. But they ARE all touching and extremely well-written. It's a talented author who can introduce characters and make you feel connected to them in the span of a short story, and Bret Anthony Johnston is definitely talented.
When I finished this, it occurred to me to wonder who could read this book without crying and I realized that 20 years ago, I could have done it. But anyone who has watched a loved one dying could not read the trilogy of stories about a son who moves back home to help his mother through her last months. They are spread throughout the book, which doesn't lessen their impact a bit. They were the hardest ones for me to read, but the ones that will stick with me the most.
If this book doesn't sound like one you'd enjoy, I urge you to read Remember Me Like This instead, so you can appreciate Johnston's skill.
June 18, 2015
This is a powerful collection of linked short stories which clearly demonstrates Johnston’s writing talent and ability to get under the skin of his characters. He writes with compassion and empathy, and by concentrating on the characters of one Texas town reveals a small world well worth exploring. I didn’t find the stories as compelling as his novel Remember Me Like This, but nevertheless it’s a strong collection with some memorable moments.
January 3, 2008
5 stars! This is the best collection of short stories I've read in a long time...such a promising debut. It's clear the author has toiled to make the writing as fresh, concise and sharp as it is. The stories themselves are stunning, and will stay with you. They brought me to a town -- an entire universe --I never thought to explore. So glad I did.
April 16, 2010
Good god, these stories. Bret Anthony Johnston's collection reminds us what is to be human, that it is something fundamentally sad and full of longing. The three stories about Lee Marhsall and his mother, in particular, are some of the most powerful, perceptive stories I've ever read.
November 17, 2012
I was thrilled with the BASS selected story, and enjoyed several of the others, but several fell flat, in my opinion. Constant POV changing was also an issue for me in several pieces.
April 6, 2025
Everybody in Corpus Christi has cancer.
July 4, 2025
The author most have been going through some very specific grief because there are, like, three themes that recycle through each story. I'm not kidding when I say every story is either about a couple that has/is falling apart after the death of a kid, a parent dying or having died, or a poor family where a dad commits a crime and also someone has or will die. Every story has someone dying or dead--the potential subversion being the cheating wife story where she maybe(?) is imagining that her husband is currently dying in the hospital, and the other cheating wife story where we only in passing mentioned that other dad's wife is dead and the narrator's dad "left". Seriously, it became a game of trying to predict "Ok, in the next story, is it a dead parent or dead child?" As a Corpus Christi resident, I guess the only thing to look forward to by living in Corpus Christi is to run into my exes and die of cancer. This author has no range; the writing is average, it's fine, and yeah I recognized street names, but these characters are forgettable--save, maybe, the kid obsessed with reptiles--he was the only character I'll remember. The others I'll remember vaguely their stories--the dad that committed a crime, the dad that committed a crime, the wife that cheated on her husband, the wife that cheated on her husband; The couple whose kid died and so they divorced, the couple who lost their kid and separated afterwards. The story that we return to for three stories was probably the least impressive, being about the mom and son who come to terms with the mom dying from a metastasis, and while the first of the three stories had an interesting point to make about how their relationship was now shattered in that they'd walk on eggshells and never fight because these were their last months together, the next two stories were wholly unnecessary and just depressing. The last story is about the son still holding a torch for some childhood friend and it does nothing for the reader, for the character, for this book. I'm being generous in my rating cause, again, the writing isn't offensive but this book commits, I think, the worst sin a collection of short stories can do--it's repetitive as hell and uninspiring.
September 9, 2020
This is a difficult book to review. The stories are very well written with tightly woven plots, heart tugging storylines, well developed characters. Fine examples of the short story form. However, I found it difficult to read. They all deal with death, dying, and parent/adult child relationships. Several stories focus on a young man whose mother is in the late stages of cancer; each story adds to the picture of what he and she are going through. One is about the end of marriage after the death of a child, and a couple are about the end of romantic entanglements. Emotionally, the stories are quite sad to the point of depressing. I give the author 4 stars (maybe even 5) for the quality of the work, but I can't really say I "liked" the book.
On one personal note. I grew up in Corpus Christi (although I have been gone many years) and the settings of the stories ring true with local references to streets, neighborhoods, restaurants, and geographical features. He really captures the city and the surrounding area well. One glaring error (possibly on purpose for dramatic effect) is in the first story about a man who meets an old lover as she is preparing for a hurricane. Although the descriptions of hurricane preparation and the devastating winds & rain and after-effects of a hurricane are amazingly accurate, he uses the name "Alicia". Alicia did hit the Texas coast in 1983, but the eye did not pass over Corpus and there was actually minimal damage to the city. My parents were living there then, and we lived in Houston which took the brunt of the storm. YES -- this is a personal point of irritation that would likely not be an issue for anyone who had not lived through that storm. Just a pet peeve of mine. A little research could have produced a different storm name. Or it seems to me he could have just used a different (fictional) name and the story would have more impact. Instead, it was a distraction that took me out of the story. Just my 2 cents.
On one personal note. I grew up in Corpus Christi (although I have been gone many years) and the settings of the stories ring true with local references to streets, neighborhoods, restaurants, and geographical features. He really captures the city and the surrounding area well. One glaring error (possibly on purpose for dramatic effect) is in the first story about a man who meets an old lover as she is preparing for a hurricane. Although the descriptions of hurricane preparation and the devastating winds & rain and after-effects of a hurricane are amazingly accurate, he uses the name "Alicia". Alicia did hit the Texas coast in 1983, but the eye did not pass over Corpus and there was actually minimal damage to the city. My parents were living there then, and we lived in Houston which took the brunt of the storm. YES -- this is a personal point of irritation that would likely not be an issue for anyone who had not lived through that storm. Just a pet peeve of mine. A little research could have produced a different storm name. Or it seems to me he could have just used a different (fictional) name and the story would have more impact. Instead, it was a distraction that took me out of the story. Just my 2 cents.
January 6, 2022
The first short story is very reminiscent of Johnston's novel 'Remember Me Like This', perhaps it was based on the idea he first explored in this short story.
There is something magical about Johnston's writing. I found the same thing with his novel 'Remember Me Like This'. On the surface, the writing is unassuming and plain. But the more you read, the more it dawns on you that this is actually really great writing. It has a quiet elegance about it.
I feel transported into the time and place of Johnston's America. He manages to capture a side to America that other which authors have often attempted not as successfully as Johnston. He makes the ordinary seen and the quiet heard. Like with 'Remember Me Like This' my attention was captured and held throughout.
I wish Johnston had written more novels and can only hope he will write more in the future. Until then, I shall remember him like this (!) and thank Jill from GoodReads for introducing me to this author.
I shall also say that I very rarely enjoy short story collections, but I enjoyed this one, and that is probably the biggest statement I can make.
For me, 5* is a gut feeling and I'm not sure if I got it with this. So for now it's a 4*, although like with Remember Me Like This, I may increase this to 5* at a later date if it continues to stick with me as it was so close to a 5*.
There is something magical about Johnston's writing. I found the same thing with his novel 'Remember Me Like This'. On the surface, the writing is unassuming and plain. But the more you read, the more it dawns on you that this is actually really great writing. It has a quiet elegance about it.
I feel transported into the time and place of Johnston's America. He manages to capture a side to America that other which authors have often attempted not as successfully as Johnston. He makes the ordinary seen and the quiet heard. Like with 'Remember Me Like This' my attention was captured and held throughout.
I wish Johnston had written more novels and can only hope he will write more in the future. Until then, I shall remember him like this (!) and thank Jill from GoodReads for introducing me to this author.
I shall also say that I very rarely enjoy short story collections, but I enjoyed this one, and that is probably the biggest statement I can make.
For me, 5* is a gut feeling and I'm not sure if I got it with this. So for now it's a 4*, although like with Remember Me Like This, I may increase this to 5* at a later date if it continues to stick with me as it was so close to a 5*.
October 3, 2023
Super interesting to read a book that takes place in the city I grew up in, especially since it made very niche references that I likely wouldn’t have picked up on had I not lived in Corpus (i.e. the glass greenhouse on Del Mar), but overall this book just really depressed me. Don’t get me wrong it was a very well written book of short stories, but every character was broken & seemed to be searching for something they would never find & I feel the writer was trying to align the “spirit” of Corpus with these sad characters which I didn’t love, but I’m biased.
August 16, 2018
Un libro in teoria tristissimo che però riesce a raccontare il tema della morte con una dolcezza infinita, esplorando la natura umana e le sue debolezze, i suoi momenti eroici, le sue fragilità. Sono racconti che gravitano attorno a Corpus Christi, città del Texas, sono quasi completamente slegati l’uno dall’altro, ma andando avanti con le pagine capisci che un filo che lega tutto c’è.
Ho letto le ultime pagine piangendo. Ed è stato bello.
Ho letto le ultime pagine piangendo. Ed è stato bello.
June 29, 2020
this is a nice read
bret anthony johnston is a writer who developes great wordplay and feelings
the plotlines of his stories are simple but the most important parts are the descriptions and dialogue and the wonderful intense lines
all the stories are set in corpus christi and deal with relationshios, love and violence
johnston does a great job pulling on heart strings and exploring headspaces
bret anthony johnston is a writer who developes great wordplay and feelings
the plotlines of his stories are simple but the most important parts are the descriptions and dialogue and the wonderful intense lines
all the stories are set in corpus christi and deal with relationshios, love and violence
johnston does a great job pulling on heart strings and exploring headspaces
December 16, 2023
Layered stories that delve deeply into the author's characters. Many deal with the relationship of Lee, the son, and his dying mother. The story from the dying mother's perspective is an amazing piece; I envy how he convincingly pulled that one off. Highly recommended. A book that definitely makes me want to read more of this writer's work.
September 6, 2023
Good stories but very conventionally, mannishly told.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 12, 2016
Corpus Christi, by Bret Anthony Johnston, is a collection of ten short stories exploring the intimacies of human relationships. Each story is set in or around the town of Corpus Christi in Texas, USA. There are crossovers within the tales such that the reader quickly becomes immersed in the setting.
The relationships in each story vary. Some are familial, cross generational; others feature friendship, sometimes lovers. There are accidents, violence, stormy weather and loss. The challenges of living within and without marriage, parenting, and adolescence are explored.
A triptych of tales offer snapshots of the day to day trials of a terminally ill widow being cared for by her adult son. The difficulty of communication is brought into sharp relief.
A good short story must capture the readers attention from the off, have a purposeful plot and satisfying denouement. Each of these tales left me sated. The narrative throughout is steeped in the melancholy of life. When concluded I had to walk away to process what I had just read.
The writing seeps poignancy but avoids sentimentality. Feelings evoked are raw, intense, the rarely acknowledged expressed with piercing clarity. The sparse prose gets under the skin and touches the heart. The trials detailed and the ripples of their effect exquisitely portrayed.
“parents, children and lovers some together and fall apart, bonded and battered by memories of loss that they feel as acutely as physical pain. […] events cut people loose from their regular lives, floating and spiralling away from where we had been the day before.”
A fine collection of stories from an accomplished writer. This is a rewarding read.
My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Two Roads.
The relationships in each story vary. Some are familial, cross generational; others feature friendship, sometimes lovers. There are accidents, violence, stormy weather and loss. The challenges of living within and without marriage, parenting, and adolescence are explored.
A triptych of tales offer snapshots of the day to day trials of a terminally ill widow being cared for by her adult son. The difficulty of communication is brought into sharp relief.
A good short story must capture the readers attention from the off, have a purposeful plot and satisfying denouement. Each of these tales left me sated. The narrative throughout is steeped in the melancholy of life. When concluded I had to walk away to process what I had just read.
The writing seeps poignancy but avoids sentimentality. Feelings evoked are raw, intense, the rarely acknowledged expressed with piercing clarity. The sparse prose gets under the skin and touches the heart. The trials detailed and the ripples of their effect exquisitely portrayed.
“parents, children and lovers some together and fall apart, bonded and battered by memories of loss that they feel as acutely as physical pain. […] events cut people loose from their regular lives, floating and spiralling away from where we had been the day before.”
A fine collection of stories from an accomplished writer. This is a rewarding read.
My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Two Roads.
August 29, 2009
Johnston didn't teach a writing seminar at Weber State I was supposed to attend, and in preparation for his cancellation, I read this collection of short stories. There are no flat out duds. There are no works of genius. Two of them are above average. The rest teeter on the border between average and slightly below average. Johnston is at his best when he dares to try something different, although I should say he never tries anything very much different. The cycle of stories concerning the preparations of a young adult man for his mother's pending death of cancer are particularly forgettable. (NOTE: I wish this d@#$ thing had a spell check. Also, is it okay to swear on here, or do you get dinged?) Johnston rarely attempts any fireworks of the language and when he does it's too little too late. What mars these stories, and most contemporary stories that strive to be ruthlessly "realistic" is two fold: (1) The prose stubbornly refuse to become stentimental, which as a rule I find preferable, except that (2) The tried and true underlying ideology is that of the grief, paralysis, and spiritual impotence indemic of the Postmodern Man (or Woman). The cumulative effect is unbearably sentimental because it glorifies a subdued aesthetic and emotional numbness that, as a postmodern, I guess I'm supposed to appreciate, but I really don't. worth reading are "Corpus Christi" and "In the Tall Grass."
July 27, 2014
I had the pleasure of hearing Bret speak during one of my visits to Corpus where he was promoting his newest book, Remember Me Like This. He is a graduate of my high school who has gone on to much greater things--trading in a career as a professional skate-boarder and ultimately teaching creative writing at Harvard. He's a charming and personable speaker as well as a graduate of the fabulous Iowa Writers' Workshop (where I believe this book originated.) All that said, Corpus Christi Stories is not an uplifting account of life in South Texas. He stung me with his opening story about the death of a young son and the devastation that rocks the family -- it recounts places and dredges up memories of my older brother who died unexpectedly at age seven. I put down the book and cried. The next story is about an ailing mother who senses the encroachment of death but soldiers on cheerily. Another page from my life. I cried again. Bret's prose is clean and clearly voices a CC point of view for me, but I don't know if it would resonate to someone who didn't know the milestones and touchstones of the place. I enjoyed the book but recommend it with reservations.
I have added Remember Me Like This to my To-Reads. (Gotta support my homeboy!)
I have added Remember Me Like This to my To-Reads. (Gotta support my homeboy!)
June 10, 2010
There are some beauties in this book, but for a collection of stories named by the place in which they are set, I didn't emerge with much of a sense of the uniqueness of Corpus Christi. I grew up in Southeast Texas, and was hoping for more of a sense of place. Johnston's very human characters find themselves in tough situations and relationships, and the stories are all beautifully told. I particularly enjoyed the story "In the Tall Grass," told by an adult from his perspective as a child. So many collections of short stories I've read lately deal with death in many of their stories. Johnston's stories left me hoping for stories whose stakes were high not because of someone's mortality, but for the other aspects of being human--not that Johnston ignores other tensions, but sometimes the preponderance of stories in which death plays a major role seemed to cheapen, not heighten, the stakes. Still, an excellent read.
January 15, 2008
From this book I learned that just when you thought your mother had defeated cancer it can come back and kill her and that can be sad and complicated and can cause you to reassess the value of your past relationship with her, and too, the rest of the world, but it also brings hope since the pending funeral would probably cause your lost love to return to town, resulting in sex mixed with death, which is deeply literal and empty and both guilt-ridden and redeeming. In addition, this book taught me that fathers can get frustrated by the futility in their lives and then act out in violent manners, which as a young boy you may not understand but nonetheless "get" on some level since the same savage blood runs through you. For the most part, I think I would have been fairly happy to have written this book.
May 16, 2014
This collection's dust jacket quotes the Boston Sunday Globe, which says "These stories are relentlessly sober, large-hearted, and intense," and yes. Yes to all three descriptions. The stories focus on everyday kind of tragedies: cancer, infidelity, parental failures. Throughout, the writing is beautiful. The setting of Corpus Christi both grounds and unifies the collection. Part of me wants to warn potential readers that these stories are not terribly uplifting, but as soon as I think such a thought, I can hear Flannery O'Connor in my head saying, "if her heart had been in the right place, it would have been lifted up." Johnston opens the possibility of a similar kind of redemption in these marvelously crafted stories--at least, for those readers willing to pay the toll of the vicarious pain of his complex, well-rounded characters.
December 20, 2014
Lots of carefully considered and revealing stories in here about the relationship of parents and children. With the caring of aging parents by their adult children being a mega-trend with the large aging cohort of baby boomers over the next 10 years, this theme is timely and appreciated. It is also universal.
The book is easy to read and simple in language and style. I'd recommend it to those interested in the themes above and also I'd recommend it to anyone from that part of the country (around Corpus Christi). The version I read (kindle) also has an informative interview with the author in the back with some interesting insights into skateboarding, teaching, and the task of fiction writing.
The book is easy to read and simple in language and style. I'd recommend it to those interested in the themes above and also I'd recommend it to anyone from that part of the country (around Corpus Christi). The version I read (kindle) also has an informative interview with the author in the back with some interesting insights into skateboarding, teaching, and the task of fiction writing.
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