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How Gone We Got
From the wood–paneled basements of Ohio to the end of the world, Dina Guidubaldi’s characters have gone wandering, searching for a way home. In How Gone We Got, their efforts to befriend the unfamiliar result in confusion, frustration and violence, but their awkward interactions—with everything from robots to sea creatures to fallen celebrities—send the reader into unexpected and unapologetic territory.
"Dina Guidubaldi’s debut, How Gone We Got, evokes worlds we recognize, from the dank and heat of Florida to the deceptive placidity of middle–American suburbia, and others we don’t—like in her gem, 'What I Wouldn’t Do,' a fable of love and loss that recalls the best of García Márquez. These stories are peopled with tentacular jellyfish as old as the world, a dentist whose every movement echoes the action of bears, and horses surgically altered to look like unicorns. How Gone We Got is generous, lush and a little sad. You want to read it."
—David Wright, author of Fire on the Beach and the forthcoming novel, Away, Running
"Playful and dark and quirky, How Gone We Got roams the outposts of human experience in a book whose humor is as inventive as its cast of displaced kids, oddball friends, adult siblings, and undone lovers grown exasperated by the indeterminate worlds they occupy, all of them sharing a subversive but deeply humane reality weathered by seasons of disappointment, abandonment, and that blooming 'love in your mouth' that awaits inevitable fallout. Emotionally piercing, these voices of an encumbered generation bridge disenchantment with wit, outrage, and their collective quest for a place all their own. Written with arresting brilliance and unforgettable originality, this collection puts Dina Guidubaldi among the best new literary voices of our time."
—Melissa Falcon Field, author of What Burns Away
Dina Guidubaldi’s writing has been published in various places, including Prairie Schooner, Ninth Letter, the Santa Monica Review, Cup of Fiction, SPIN, the Austin American-Statesman, and Other Voices; she has been an editor for Callaloo and American Short Fiction. A graduate of Texas State’s MFA program, she currently lives in Austin.
"Dina Guidubaldi’s debut, How Gone We Got, evokes worlds we recognize, from the dank and heat of Florida to the deceptive placidity of middle–American suburbia, and others we don’t—like in her gem, 'What I Wouldn’t Do,' a fable of love and loss that recalls the best of García Márquez. These stories are peopled with tentacular jellyfish as old as the world, a dentist whose every movement echoes the action of bears, and horses surgically altered to look like unicorns. How Gone We Got is generous, lush and a little sad. You want to read it."
—David Wright, author of Fire on the Beach and the forthcoming novel, Away, Running
"Playful and dark and quirky, How Gone We Got roams the outposts of human experience in a book whose humor is as inventive as its cast of displaced kids, oddball friends, adult siblings, and undone lovers grown exasperated by the indeterminate worlds they occupy, all of them sharing a subversive but deeply humane reality weathered by seasons of disappointment, abandonment, and that blooming 'love in your mouth' that awaits inevitable fallout. Emotionally piercing, these voices of an encumbered generation bridge disenchantment with wit, outrage, and their collective quest for a place all their own. Written with arresting brilliance and unforgettable originality, this collection puts Dina Guidubaldi among the best new literary voices of our time."
—Melissa Falcon Field, author of What Burns Away
Dina Guidubaldi’s writing has been published in various places, including Prairie Schooner, Ninth Letter, the Santa Monica Review, Cup of Fiction, SPIN, the Austin American-Statesman, and Other Voices; she has been an editor for Callaloo and American Short Fiction. A graduate of Texas State’s MFA program, she currently lives in Austin.
214 pages, Paperback
First published March 30, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 27, 2019
HOW GONE WE GOT is another debut story collection that impressed me for its idiosyncratic view of the world. Most of the stories are about women adrift in the world or women who have been unsuccessful in finding love. I devoured them all, relishing their fresh approach to language.
March 15, 2015
Throughout How Gone We Got Dina Guidubaldi expounds on young alienated women struggling with life and those around them. Whether it’s remembering finding a corpse on the “It’s a Small World” ride at Walt Disney World, or dodging the advances of a handsome Latin ambassador, or getting ready to jump to her death in a dystopian future, Ms. Guidubaldi’s heroines face steep odds, perhaps constantly at the point of insurmountability. In the seventeen servings in this short story collection, the author shows a very impressive range of setting and plot, and takes a look at sadness and desperation from a wide variety of angles. I’m rather taken by it.
Ms. Guidubaldi demonstrates her powers very consistently from story to story, but I want to single out a few for special mention. “The Love in Your Mouth” captures the life a woman and her boyfriend find when they run away to Florida. It’s unusually visual for this collection, and the passive, pessimistic view this woman has for her life and her relationship sets the tone for much that follows. The toxicity that runs through these stories takes the form of actual poison from jellyfish in this story. She repeats this watching-my-relationship-disintegrate theme in a couple of other stories, notably “The Desert: A Field Guide.” It’s never ver clear whether the protagonist really values the relationship, or whether she recognizes the inevitability of the breakup and her own powerlessness to stop it.
Ms. Guidubaldi launches these pieces from a place where things are already broken down - the damage has already been done, and feels like it was done a long time ago. In some stories we witness events at their logical, whimpering end, but in others the concluding moment is very dramatically poised - about to happen. Her stories show a very consistent mastery of her form and she combines this with a raw honesty to make a very impressive, worthwhile whole. These stories come from an interesting new voice, one to keep an eye on, certainly.
Ms. Guidubaldi demonstrates her powers very consistently from story to story, but I want to single out a few for special mention. “The Love in Your Mouth” captures the life a woman and her boyfriend find when they run away to Florida. It’s unusually visual for this collection, and the passive, pessimistic view this woman has for her life and her relationship sets the tone for much that follows. The toxicity that runs through these stories takes the form of actual poison from jellyfish in this story. She repeats this watching-my-relationship-disintegrate theme in a couple of other stories, notably “The Desert: A Field Guide.” It’s never ver clear whether the protagonist really values the relationship, or whether she recognizes the inevitability of the breakup and her own powerlessness to stop it.
Ms. Guidubaldi launches these pieces from a place where things are already broken down - the damage has already been done, and feels like it was done a long time ago. In some stories we witness events at their logical, whimpering end, but in others the concluding moment is very dramatically poised - about to happen. Her stories show a very consistent mastery of her form and she combines this with a raw honesty to make a very impressive, worthwhile whole. These stories come from an interesting new voice, one to keep an eye on, certainly.
January 3, 2017
The best story collection I've read in years!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews