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The First Hurt
From a young writer whose stories have graced the pages of today's most exciting literary journals, comes a masterfully elegant, sexy, and surprising debut. The publication of Rachel Sherman's first book heralds the arrival of a singularly fresh and remarkably assured new voice. In this brilliantly original story collection, she evokes the wonders and horrors of a young woman's life, from girl to teenager to adult, through crushes, sex, family, and the agonies and ecstasies of finding one's way. Sherman's beautifully direct and deceptively simple prose produces accessible, shockingly real narratives that combine a disarming sexual edge with great sensitivity and humor. From a high school girl's crush on her female teacher, to a family's serenity threatened by the presence of a sexy Danish au pair, to a pubescent girl's sexually outrageous soldier pen-pal, all the way to a young couple's horrifying yet life-affirming experience of learning to love their brain-injured newborn twins, this collection wends its way around the deepest of struggles with unusual frankness and wisdom. Fans of A. M. Homes, Mary Gaitskill, Mona Simpson, and Rick Moody will be thrilled at this auspicious and noteworthy debut.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
160 pages, Paperback
First published April 12, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 29, 2008
From a writer's perspective, Rachel Sherman's short story collection The First Hurt is a great collection to read because it shows another writer taking a lot of risks. Want to know how to get off the well-trodden path? Well, Sherman shows you how. Virtually every story features characters engaging in risky behavior: sometimes the danger is aimed at the character's emotional vulnerability, but other times the behavior is physically dangerous or taboo. I think the mixture of danger and vulnerability is what sets this story collection apart. The stories remind me a bit of A. M. Homes and Mary Gaitskill (good company to keep), but Sherman puts her own spin on things.
June 10, 2019
I wish I could remember where I got this book or why or anything about who recommended it. My copy is autographed by the author, but I have no memory of meeting her or attending a reading. This book has been sitting on my shelf unread for at least 12 years (yikes! how is that possible?).
I loved these stories. The characters are real. They're vivid. And a little crazy. But Sherman captures something here about the way that people lust after inappropriate partners (e.g., the schoolgirl's crush on her teacher, the odd girl's strange friendship with a lacrosse player, the au pair). In some ways, her writing reminds me of Mary Gaitskill -- the straightforward, grimy, sexy-but-not examination of female sexuality.
I read the whole collection over one weekend. Highly recommended.
I loved these stories. The characters are real. They're vivid. And a little crazy. But Sherman captures something here about the way that people lust after inappropriate partners (e.g., the schoolgirl's crush on her teacher, the odd girl's strange friendship with a lacrosse player, the au pair). In some ways, her writing reminds me of Mary Gaitskill -- the straightforward, grimy, sexy-but-not examination of female sexuality.
I read the whole collection over one weekend. Highly recommended.
November 27, 2007
*Named one of 25 books to remember from the New York Public Library (2006)
*Shortlisted for The Frank O'Connor Short Story Prize
*Shortlisted for The Story Prize
In this brilliantly original story collection, Rachel Sherman evokes the wonders and horrors of a young woman’s life, from girl to teenager to adult, through crushes, sex, family, and the agonies and ecstasies of finding one’s way. The First Hurt heralds the arrival of a singularly fresh and remarkably assured new voice.
Sherman's beautifully direct and deceptively simple prose produces accessible, shockingly real narratives that combine a disarming sexual edge with great sensitivity and humor. From a high-school girl's crush on her female teacher, to a family's serenity threatened by a sexy Danish au pair, to a girl's sexually outrageous soldier penpal, all the way to a young couple's horrifying yet life-affirming experience of learning to love their brain-injured newborn twins, this collection wends its way around the deepest of struggles with unusual frankness and wisdom.
“Rachel Sherman’s stories are real wonders—brave, dangerous fictions full of heart and wit. She gets to the creepy, despairing, hilarious core of adolescence like few writers I’ve read. This is an amazing debut.”
—Sam Lipsyte
“Rachel Sherman writes stories like splinters: they get under your skin and stay with you long after you’ve closed the book. These haunting stories are both wonderfully, deeply weird and unsettlingly familiar.”
—Judy Budnitz
“In this excellent first collection, the human body is a promise of future happiness and a source of present embarrassment. The prose is another matter: polished, poised, sure of itself. It’s a very grown-up way of recording the queasy intimacies, the frighteningly raw perceptions, and the almost cosmic desolation of a suburban adolescence.”
—Benjamin Kunkel
"A startling debut collection...As in A. M. Homes’s The Safety of Objects, the angst here is set in well-groomed places—developments, summer houses, manicured streets...Sherman’s straightforward prose provides a contrast to her characters’ unsettling behavior."
—Lara Tupper, The Believer (click here for full review)
“Laser-cut narratives . . . Full of great, quirky lines, the book would be a good read even if it did condescend to its flawed characters, but it doesn’t. Instead, it takes the constraints of its context seriously, wondering not how its characters will escape—their bodies, their boring neighborhoods, their unreciprocated lust—but how they’ll behave when they can’t.”
—Michael Miller, Time Out New York
"In a highly promising debut collection of stories, Sherman writes of alienated lower-end white suburbia in a manner that shifts perspectives with an effortlessness that mitigates her characters' sad stuckness . . . By the time one reaches the last story . . . one has given up any resistance to Sherman's grotesques and settled all the way in to a very uncomfortable place."
—Publishers Weekly
*Shortlisted for The Frank O'Connor Short Story Prize
*Shortlisted for The Story Prize
In this brilliantly original story collection, Rachel Sherman evokes the wonders and horrors of a young woman’s life, from girl to teenager to adult, through crushes, sex, family, and the agonies and ecstasies of finding one’s way. The First Hurt heralds the arrival of a singularly fresh and remarkably assured new voice.
Sherman's beautifully direct and deceptively simple prose produces accessible, shockingly real narratives that combine a disarming sexual edge with great sensitivity and humor. From a high-school girl's crush on her female teacher, to a family's serenity threatened by a sexy Danish au pair, to a girl's sexually outrageous soldier penpal, all the way to a young couple's horrifying yet life-affirming experience of learning to love their brain-injured newborn twins, this collection wends its way around the deepest of struggles with unusual frankness and wisdom.
“Rachel Sherman’s stories are real wonders—brave, dangerous fictions full of heart and wit. She gets to the creepy, despairing, hilarious core of adolescence like few writers I’ve read. This is an amazing debut.”
—Sam Lipsyte
“Rachel Sherman writes stories like splinters: they get under your skin and stay with you long after you’ve closed the book. These haunting stories are both wonderfully, deeply weird and unsettlingly familiar.”
—Judy Budnitz
“In this excellent first collection, the human body is a promise of future happiness and a source of present embarrassment. The prose is another matter: polished, poised, sure of itself. It’s a very grown-up way of recording the queasy intimacies, the frighteningly raw perceptions, and the almost cosmic desolation of a suburban adolescence.”
—Benjamin Kunkel
"A startling debut collection...As in A. M. Homes’s The Safety of Objects, the angst here is set in well-groomed places—developments, summer houses, manicured streets...Sherman’s straightforward prose provides a contrast to her characters’ unsettling behavior."
—Lara Tupper, The Believer (click here for full review)
“Laser-cut narratives . . . Full of great, quirky lines, the book would be a good read even if it did condescend to its flawed characters, but it doesn’t. Instead, it takes the constraints of its context seriously, wondering not how its characters will escape—their bodies, their boring neighborhoods, their unreciprocated lust—but how they’ll behave when they can’t.”
—Michael Miller, Time Out New York
"In a highly promising debut collection of stories, Sherman writes of alienated lower-end white suburbia in a manner that shifts perspectives with an effortlessness that mitigates her characters' sad stuckness . . . By the time one reaches the last story . . . one has given up any resistance to Sherman's grotesques and settled all the way in to a very uncomfortable place."
—Publishers Weekly
February 10, 2008
The women and girls found within the stories of Rachel Sherman's short story collection, The First Hurt are flawed--internally, externally--fucked up, marked, imperfect. And that is what makes them so appealing. Within these pages, they show us their dark hearts, their secret bumps, the skin that they pick at. They show us what makes them tick, which is--as the narrator explains in the title story--the first hurt: "My grandmother has only seen me from my neck up. She has never even caught a peek of my terrain of secret skin. On my chest, my back, my arms, I have things growing at the base of me that only I can feel the first hurt of."
And to touch herself in these places, to pick at herself and bring on the hurt is to show herself love. She says:"It's like magic: you touch your skin with the things you were given--hands and oil and pores. All you are doing is wiping yourself with love."
Shame and pain are equal to love--this is terrain I am quite familiar with, as, I would guess, are many of us.
All in all, it's a great collection and I recommend it wholeheartedly.
And to touch herself in these places, to pick at herself and bring on the hurt is to show herself love. She says:"It's like magic: you touch your skin with the things you were given--hands and oil and pores. All you are doing is wiping yourself with love."
Shame and pain are equal to love--this is terrain I am quite familiar with, as, I would guess, are many of us.
All in all, it's a great collection and I recommend it wholeheartedly.
November 14, 2015
Rachel Sherman's collection of short stories offers coming-of-age awkwardness and oddities with sexual, social, and familial tensions. Her view of the world is unique and vivid, oftentimes relatable after a few moments of wondering what she means and then knowing exactly what she means. She tells a tale seamlessly, propelling from one story to the next. She's also got a biting wit. The funny parts were funny. Sometimes giggle-stifling funny. At times, the plotlines develop into squeamish situations, but squirming is good, necessary in life, and Sherman produces it with subtly and realness (which may not be a word but you know what I mean). The First Hurt is a highly successful and entertaining.
June 1, 2008
These stories manage that rare feat--they're haunting/haunted and moving, but her style is spare and light. Sherman's people are fucked-up and banged around, sometimes by their own nature and sometimes by life itself--but they want something better, different, more. She is never clever when honest is the better choice, and as a result all these stories feel lived-in and important.
February 6, 2008
Some of the stories in this book are better than others; they all interpret the idea of a "first hurt" a little differently. I read this after having my heart broken, and while I didn't feel fully connected to all of the protagonists' troubles, it wasn't bad to have something outside of the self-help genre to turn to.
September 17, 2008
I need to read a couple novels and get some non-fiction in me, I am getting jaded on the short story genre, the last couple collections I have read have been too offbeat and quirky, 'the first hurt' being the better of the two but still a bit too much ... the occasional weirdo character is fine but EVERY character can't be bizarrely odd and therefore unlikeable.
August 28, 2007
This is actually my cousins first novel. Aside from the fact that I want to support her, if you like short stories this book is FANTASTIC! She is a wonderful young writer and her stories are beautiful. Chezzkit out!
March 22, 2007
I was going to give this four stars as I'd remembered really enjoying it. Then I realized I couldn't recall one story in the collection. Humph.
July 4, 2007
An uneven collection of short stories. Several of them were very good, but the rest mediocre.
January 15, 2008
I know that I read this a couple months ago, but don't remember anything about it. Guess it wasn't all that good.
January 31, 2008
In some of these stories Sherman nails it.Her openings are great.
May 10, 2010
(Six Word Review) Mastery from my creative writing teacher.
May 4, 2008
A Really quality short stories, beautifully written, almost wanted to buy it, breathtaking writing
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews