Young Men

by Russell Smith

In this astutely observed collection, Russell Smith charts the lives of several thirty-something men struggling to meet the adult challenges of career, home and family while they mourn the aspirations of their youth.

Dominic discards the life he has built with Christine for a fantasy fling with her best friend and then sheepishly orchestrates a reconciliation. When his career as a music producer fails to materialize, Eddie begins secretly recording the dreams his girlfriend recites in her sleep. He publishes these transcribed tales, but his new-found literary fame is hollow and his shameless crime is inevitably exposed. Lionel embarks on an ill-fated tour of small-town Nova Scotia to promote his latest book. Stranded by a snow storm, the weary writer finds creative inspiration in the reminiscences of an elderly woman.

In each of these stories, Russell Smith flawlessly captures the humour and the sadness of young men bridging the gulf between who they had hoped to be and who they have become.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Canada

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Russell Claude Smith is a Canadian writer and newspaper columnist. Smith's novels and short stories are mostly set in Toronto, where he lives.

Smith grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He attended the Halifax Grammar School and Queen Elizabeth High School, and studied French literature at Queen's University, the University of Poitiers, and the University of Paris III. He has an MA in French from Queen's.

Russell Smith is one of Canada’s funniest and nastiest writers. His previous novels, including How Insensitive and Girl Crazy, are records of urban frenzy and exciting underworlds. He writes a provocative weekly column on the arts in the national Globe and Mail, and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Guelph. He hates folk music.

Reviews

[Lori Bamber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Russell Smith writes beautifully as he reminds us to avoid the men he writes about at all costs. What a bleak, bleak world it would be if these young men were the only young men.

[Loretta · Rating 4 out of 5]

i am somewhat torn about this collection. The stories are well-crafted and well-told. Smith definitely has a way of portraying character and scene, and making you interested and even managing to care about somewhat shifty and not nice people. The Young Men who feature in the stories are flawed and human and icky, frankly, in many of the stories. My favourite stories are in the section at the end called "Young Women". "Chez Giovanni's" and "Dreams" are outstanding.

In my own short stories I really need to work on having fully fleshed out male characters. I actually wonder if Smith had the opposite problem, and wrote that last section to branch out. It worked really well if so; those are to my mind the best stories in the collection. I think the other stories suffer because they all seem to be about the same man (young, hip, toronto, arts scene guy). They might read better as stand alones rather than reading them all together the way I did.

Overall, though, I did like the stories and I'll read more of Smith.

[Marta Kule · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story "Responsibility" should be taught in writing classes as an example of a perfect dialogue. I still can't get over it -- the spoken lines sound so natural and the cues are so descriptive yet unobtrusive that they make me feel like I'm there, listening to that emotional exchange. Smith skilfully maintains the natural rhythm of the dialogue as well: when at one moment the mother goes silent and takes her time to reply, the author extends the description of the table the characters are looking at, just like in real life one's eyes would start wandering during a lull in the conversation. Instead of saying something lame like "after a long minute, she finally replied" Smith makes the reader pass that minute with the character.
Awesome dialogue.
Smith can write all right.

[James Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many authors are either poor at, or reluctant to, create short story cycles, but Smith proves very adept at it here, working together short narratives featuring the titular gentlemen as they search for love, sex, meaning – all the typical 'melancholic urbanite' stuff. Smith's strength as a writer, however, is to find the emotional core at the centre of these yearnings, something lacking from a lot of urban fiction (which leaves it feeling cold and boring).

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book full of powerful, evocative writing. Russell Smith successfully creates a cast of characters that manages to be both completely sympathetic, and utterly deplorable. Disgust and pity, mixed with wistfulness and longing, permeate the stories in this collection...as does the debate on what it means to be an adult in a modern 21st century world. A truly compelling collection of stories.

[Mike Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Russell Smith is one of the best storytellers I've ever read - he captures dialog and characters in a way that few other authors did. His first two books ("How Insensitive" and "Noise") were brilliant, and this collection of short stories continues the trend.