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The Gender of Inanimate Objects and Other Stories
In the phosphorescent title novella of Laura Marello’s collection, an enigmatic drifter pursues her circuitous path through the intricate cultural terrain of Sweetwater County, California, a patchwork of communities where "everyone speaks the wrong language." Through subtle, disciplined prose inflected with the deep colors and clear lines of ancient Mykonos and the northern Californian coast, The Gender of Inanimate Objects and Other Stories depicts the liminal and often surreal states of temporarily rootless people-Old World immigrants, grad students, married sales managers dabbling in adultery at a business conference -- who teeter ambivalently on the cusp of freedom as they reach back for the stories and relationships that bind them.
224 pages, Paperback
First published July 15, 2015
15 people want to read
About the author
Laura Marello
11 books11 followersLaura Marello's seventh book Matisse: The Only Blue, a novel about the second half of painter Henri Matisse's life, set in the south of France, is forthcoming in October 2022 from Guernica Editions, and available for preorder. Her poetry chapbook Balzac's Robe was the second finalist in Finishing Line Press' New Women's Voices Series. Her collection of stories, The Gender of Inanimate Objects is shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize. Her first and second and third novels, Claiming Kin (finalist for the Patterson Prize in Fiction, Tenants of the Hotel Biron, and Maniac Drifter, are also available at booksellers and online websites for booksellers.
Marello is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University and a Fine Arts Work Center Provincetown Fellowship. She has enjoyed writer's residencies at MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Millay Colony, Montalvo Center for the Arts, The Djerassi Foundation, and the Outer Cape Residency Consortium. She has recent work in The Adirondack Review and Ligea.
Marello is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University and a Fine Arts Work Center Provincetown Fellowship. She has enjoyed writer's residencies at MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Millay Colony, Montalvo Center for the Arts, The Djerassi Foundation, and the Outer Cape Residency Consortium. She has recent work in The Adirondack Review and Ligea.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 2, 2015
Yesterday, I was happily writing a review for this book, and then my computer froze. The review was quite eloquent and creative. It talked about how I wanted to get out in front of the pack and praise this book; how eagerly I had awaited its arrival because I loved The Tenants of the Hotel Biron, so much so that I even contacted the author and did an interview for Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog.
http://www.laurelzuckerman.com/2014/1...
From having done that interview, I know that Laura Marello is a former Stanford Stegner Fellow, and I know that her research took her to the archives of France. The last chapter of Tenants induced a physical reaction in me. As I read it, I felt my scalp lifting from my head. I have never experienced that kind of visceral reaction while reading a book, and I think it must have had to do with the author absolutely nailing what it feels like to be an artist.
The book's structure was unconventional--epistolary and episodic; more Odyssey than Iliad. Nevertheless, I felt tension building in my body as I neared the end. The group of artists she wrote about--Camille Claudel, Rodin, Nijinsky, Picasso, Steichen, and others--would all be going their separate ways as World War II threatened. The idyllic interlude when they were all working and creating together dissolved.
When I read more than one book by a writer, I often begin to understand more about their preoccupations. What drives each of us to write? What does a writer understand about humanity and feel compelled to express?
In the second story of the collection,The Gender of Inanimate Objects and Other Stories , "In One Enormous Bed Like Children," I couldn't help but recall the artists of the Hotel Biron. On a work getaway (pre AIDS, I'm guessing), lives and bodies and secrets can't be concealed, nor can the story's main character, Pearse, retrieve his innocence. There are seven characters in this one story.
I'm not sure I'd have the wherewithal to attempt stories with that many characters. However, Marello's narrator hovers like an Amazon drone, giving readers the overview before dipping in and out of multiple characters' heads.
"They nodded their heads. When each of them became too tired or too despondent, they lay down by the fireplace with Pearse and Rana. By the time the music stopped they were all asleep there, heads nestled in stomachs, legs thrown over hips, arms around waists, faces cradled in shoulders."
Such a wise narrative voice! It almost makes me want to give up first- and close-third, and see if I can figure out how to write with such assured omniscience.
The title novella of this collection, "The Gender of Inanimate Objects," begins with an affectless voice--We don't yet know who is speaking--but that voice gives us the lay of the land. The voice arranges the puzzle pieces of coastal California into a quadrant. She gives us the habits, communities, and languages of this Yoknapatawpha-County-like region.
In Chapter 1, the story's gears engage. Maya takes a summer job stocking vending machines. The cast of characters expands. Marello is right at home.
When I ran across these sentences towards the end of the novella, I nodded. "We used to be lighthearted. We tolerated each other's quirks, foibles, and idiosyncrasies of gender."
This is what Marello's fiction can show us: the intertwined lives of vending-machine stockers, pool hall hangers-out, drag queens, surfers, prisoners, waitresses, and dispatchers. All seek love, mess up their marriages, engage in bunko schemes, struggle to find their identities (sexual or otherwise), and, generally, strive to push through the clutter of daily life.
Marello is a very fine writer. Read this book.
http://www.laurelzuckerman.com/2014/1...
From having done that interview, I know that Laura Marello is a former Stanford Stegner Fellow, and I know that her research took her to the archives of France. The last chapter of Tenants induced a physical reaction in me. As I read it, I felt my scalp lifting from my head. I have never experienced that kind of visceral reaction while reading a book, and I think it must have had to do with the author absolutely nailing what it feels like to be an artist.
The book's structure was unconventional--epistolary and episodic; more Odyssey than Iliad. Nevertheless, I felt tension building in my body as I neared the end. The group of artists she wrote about--Camille Claudel, Rodin, Nijinsky, Picasso, Steichen, and others--would all be going their separate ways as World War II threatened. The idyllic interlude when they were all working and creating together dissolved.
When I read more than one book by a writer, I often begin to understand more about their preoccupations. What drives each of us to write? What does a writer understand about humanity and feel compelled to express?
In the second story of the collection,The Gender of Inanimate Objects and Other Stories , "In One Enormous Bed Like Children," I couldn't help but recall the artists of the Hotel Biron. On a work getaway (pre AIDS, I'm guessing), lives and bodies and secrets can't be concealed, nor can the story's main character, Pearse, retrieve his innocence. There are seven characters in this one story.
I'm not sure I'd have the wherewithal to attempt stories with that many characters. However, Marello's narrator hovers like an Amazon drone, giving readers the overview before dipping in and out of multiple characters' heads.
"They nodded their heads. When each of them became too tired or too despondent, they lay down by the fireplace with Pearse and Rana. By the time the music stopped they were all asleep there, heads nestled in stomachs, legs thrown over hips, arms around waists, faces cradled in shoulders."
Such a wise narrative voice! It almost makes me want to give up first- and close-third, and see if I can figure out how to write with such assured omniscience.
The title novella of this collection, "The Gender of Inanimate Objects," begins with an affectless voice--We don't yet know who is speaking--but that voice gives us the lay of the land. The voice arranges the puzzle pieces of coastal California into a quadrant. She gives us the habits, communities, and languages of this Yoknapatawpha-County-like region.
In Chapter 1, the story's gears engage. Maya takes a summer job stocking vending machines. The cast of characters expands. Marello is right at home.
When I ran across these sentences towards the end of the novella, I nodded. "We used to be lighthearted. We tolerated each other's quirks, foibles, and idiosyncrasies of gender."
This is what Marello's fiction can show us: the intertwined lives of vending-machine stockers, pool hall hangers-out, drag queens, surfers, prisoners, waitresses, and dispatchers. All seek love, mess up their marriages, engage in bunko schemes, struggle to find their identities (sexual or otherwise), and, generally, strive to push through the clutter of daily life.
Marello is a very fine writer. Read this book.
May 4, 2019
Found these stories to be entirely compelling though I cannot put my finger on exactly why that was the case. Full of intrigue that kept me wanting to know more without pandering to the reader, Marello's collection here is rife with hidden layers that need pulling apart to make meaning out of.
September 2, 2015
Beautifully crafted with fascinating characters and a setting that comes to life vibrantly, with all of its eccentricities.
I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys good fiction and well-crafted prose.
Also, you'll get to find out what a "panty litany" is.
Aren't you just oh so curious?
I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys good fiction and well-crafted prose.
Also, you'll get to find out what a "panty litany" is.
Aren't you just oh so curious?
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews