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People Like You
In this marvelously funny, unsettling, subtle, and moving collection of stories, the characters exist in the thick of everyday experience absent of epiphanies. The people are caught off-guard or cast adrift by personal impulses even while wide awake to their own imperfections. Each voice will win readers over completely and break hearts with each confused and conflicted decision that is made. Every story is beautifully controlled and provocatively alive to its own truth.
150 pages, Paperback
First published November 17, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
November 1, 2015
This women, these sentences. I finished the book on a couch in my living room. The Oregon fall rain going and going. And when I finished it, when I rounded the bend of the last story and the last page in this collection, the sun was out for a second. One dead leaf spun on a spiderweb.
I've known Margaret for years, she's a friend, a fellow writer. But it wouldn't matter, I'd find a way to find this book in my hands regardless. These people, for much of the book, there are couples, and the men they do things, stupid, loving things. The main characters are the women who love and don't love them, who are figuring out the world, and the men try to help out and they mean well, but they are broken, they, like the women do not work. Most of the people don't work, they are like you and me, we have broken places in us.
But the book works, every story in this collection locks dead into place. Not a misspent word. Through this narrator, or several narrators, but Margaret's voice shines on throughout, and in this there is a crying out, for life for love, for life the way it is meant to be lived, that can't be lived, because we are never satisfied. We remain broken.
I read this while sick, under a thick green blanket, it made me want to get out of bed and write this. I wanted to say on the couch but I got up and wrote this.
Thank you Margaret.
I've known Margaret for years, she's a friend, a fellow writer. But it wouldn't matter, I'd find a way to find this book in my hands regardless. These people, for much of the book, there are couples, and the men they do things, stupid, loving things. The main characters are the women who love and don't love them, who are figuring out the world, and the men try to help out and they mean well, but they are broken, they, like the women do not work. Most of the people don't work, they are like you and me, we have broken places in us.
But the book works, every story in this collection locks dead into place. Not a misspent word. Through this narrator, or several narrators, but Margaret's voice shines on throughout, and in this there is a crying out, for life for love, for life the way it is meant to be lived, that can't be lived, because we are never satisfied. We remain broken.
I read this while sick, under a thick green blanket, it made me want to get out of bed and write this. I wanted to say on the couch but I got up and wrote this.
Thank you Margaret.
August 11, 2018
Margaret Malone is a rare talent. Her prose is pitch perfect. Her stories are both polished and raw, crafted and yet somehow alive. The characters in PEOPLE LIKE YOU are indeed people like you, and me—no matter what our circumstances. My copy is quickly becoming worn, as I love to revisit these stories often.
January 21, 2016
Margaret Malone’s stories are written with an existentialist angst, a noir voice, each narrator somehow knowing that what is happening isn’t really what’s happening, or that the unexpected is really expected and whatever is occurring is taken with a shrug, an almost surrender without actually giving up. Margaret’s characters get tossed around like flotsam and jetsam on storm driven waves, yet even when they’re fazed by events, they stay in their bodies and ride out the storm to go on another day. Maybe that’s why they seem so familiar, even when they’re not. The characters try. They make mistakes. They know they do. They admit it. Even after heated arguments or disappointing news or embarrassing encounters. Malone’s love of these characters are in every sentence. Every word. Every detail.
When it comes to Margaret’s prose, it is, as author Lisa Glatt says, “…a gorgeous combination of lyricism and colloquialism—a tightrope she walks with skill.”
In each story, Malone shows her gift for observation and empathy. I could show this in every story, but I’ll use the story “Good Company” for an example.
The first few lines take us into a noir story—the details:
“We are heading toward Vegas, driving toward night, the windshield cracked and dusty. Sand on the side of the road looks like snow through the headlights and for a second I get excited. …”
The narrator Caroline knows who she is, yet seems to be “going along.”
“I am driving because I am always driving because Marcus does not drive. His license expired a long time ago, back when I still had bangs. I am not wearing my glasses like I know I should and never do because they make me look old and ugly.”
Caroline has never met Marcus’ parents. Here she meets his mother:
“I smile. Here is a woman who does not need me to like her.”
Margaret’s observations:
“Out the sliding glass doors on the patio are two plastic Adirondack chairs, a palm tree the size of a person growing in a glazed pot, and a pair of worn flip-flops. The yellow porch light is on. The Mother retrieves an ashtray from behind the palm tree and sets it on her bathrobed knee.”
Already, we know from inference that she is going along with this trip and that her relationship is in jeopardy:
“The sex we used to have, it was miraculous—several times a day, every day. But with the months passing and the relationship outside of sex not what it used to be, I suspect us of maintaining the frequency as proof that everything’s fine. After all, the sex is usually the first thing to go, but here we are, we can tell ourselves, doing it just as much as we did a year ago. Sometimes we tell our friends to make them jealous. Sometimes it works.”
But is this story really about that relationship?
Margaret adeptly moves us into a different relationship, and I would say the main one—Caroline with the Mother. More pages later, we ride along with them, and the ending brings us to … well, I won’t say what, as I don’t want to give away the story … or your pleasure of reading People Like You.
When it comes to Margaret’s prose, it is, as author Lisa Glatt says, “…a gorgeous combination of lyricism and colloquialism—a tightrope she walks with skill.”
In each story, Malone shows her gift for observation and empathy. I could show this in every story, but I’ll use the story “Good Company” for an example.
The first few lines take us into a noir story—the details:
“We are heading toward Vegas, driving toward night, the windshield cracked and dusty. Sand on the side of the road looks like snow through the headlights and for a second I get excited. …”
The narrator Caroline knows who she is, yet seems to be “going along.”
“I am driving because I am always driving because Marcus does not drive. His license expired a long time ago, back when I still had bangs. I am not wearing my glasses like I know I should and never do because they make me look old and ugly.”
Caroline has never met Marcus’ parents. Here she meets his mother:
“I smile. Here is a woman who does not need me to like her.”
Margaret’s observations:
“Out the sliding glass doors on the patio are two plastic Adirondack chairs, a palm tree the size of a person growing in a glazed pot, and a pair of worn flip-flops. The yellow porch light is on. The Mother retrieves an ashtray from behind the palm tree and sets it on her bathrobed knee.”
Already, we know from inference that she is going along with this trip and that her relationship is in jeopardy:
“The sex we used to have, it was miraculous—several times a day, every day. But with the months passing and the relationship outside of sex not what it used to be, I suspect us of maintaining the frequency as proof that everything’s fine. After all, the sex is usually the first thing to go, but here we are, we can tell ourselves, doing it just as much as we did a year ago. Sometimes we tell our friends to make them jealous. Sometimes it works.”
But is this story really about that relationship?
Margaret adeptly moves us into a different relationship, and I would say the main one—Caroline with the Mother. More pages later, we ride along with them, and the ending brings us to … well, I won’t say what, as I don’t want to give away the story … or your pleasure of reading People Like You.
December 18, 2015
Margaret Malone’s debut collection, People Like You, is one of the best collections I’ve read in a while! It’s hilarious, strong, visceral, and brilliant. These nine stories are peopled with authentic, fractured, questioning human packages trying to figure each other out with all our proclamations of what a day should look like and what it is that keeps us moving forward and why.
I was pulling out quotes that I loved and then realized that any and every line is as exceptional and solid as the last. Malone has a manifold gift with language and bringing in the big picture of existence without proclaiming it. It weaves in naturally with each story of relationships and how we make our way around our own small planets.
Here are some of the quotes from this superb collection:
“There is music coming from the bedroom in the back of the small house, and a potato-looking guy in a faded Rush tee-shirt is next to me, talking and talking, the kind of person that talks about whatever is on his mind, no matter who he is talking to. He’s telling me and Bert and whoever squeezes past us for a pig-in-a-blanket about his car, a Grand Am, and what it can do.”
“I also know about kissing french. I did that with Eric Bingham in a closet at a party this summer. It was sort of gross and my tongue felt like a piece of meat that I was holding in my mouth at the same time I was trying to kiss someone and it made the kissing almost impossible. Kissing was on the way to sex and I knew that I wanted to know what sex was but I also knew I wasn’t supposed to have sex because having sex would mean I was a slut and if I was slut everyone would want to have sex with me, and then I’d be stuck having sex with everybody all the time, which sounds exhausting. I don’t know when I’d have time to practice the piano.”
“So now I’m engaged. I am reserved, like a table at a restaurant.”
“Reno is a smudge of tallish buildings and neon-signed casinos, dry desert mountains all around. It’s almost a tiny Vegas but feels unfinished, like someone took a lunch break in the middle of building it and never came back.”
“If I wait long enough time will catch up.”
“Our new neighborhood had bored kids and no sidewalks and stop signs that nobody stopped at.”
“It said a lot about me that Barb could get a goose and I couldn’t even get a man.”
“There was Raul, shaped like a yam with arms and legs. His tiny eyes and clenched lips overtaken like an avalanche by his big mound of a head. His face mostly stubbly flesh with features designed for a much smaller man.”
“Even though the hedges were as wide as a sidewalk, they were just leaves and branches and air after all, and sound traveled through them like nothing was in sound’s way.”
“A mouth of a memory swims to the surface. I cannot see the whole thing.”
“My old body liked sex; this new body preferred to be the basecamp for a brain.”
Like I said, you have to read Malone’s collection. This is a small sampling of the huge organism that is this literary beauty.
January 27, 2016
oh my stars. to be a person like margaret malone. who writes stories like these. freaking fantastic.
January 17, 2016
I have to thank my dear pal Meg Tuite for recommending Margaret Malone's book, People Like You. (Also check out their interview at Connotation Press!) This book made me chuckle, and burst out laughing more than any other read in 2015. Yet, Malone's stories are not superficial in any way. She takes on the hundred pound issues, and the pathos for her characters run deep. At the core of her writing is a gentle compassion for the characters, and for life itself. I'll recommend this collection to all of my reading friends, family and hell yeah- strangers. It is heart-warming, affirmative, and fantastic.
December 28, 2016
One of the few books from our contemporaries I read this autumn that truly excited me. Each story is narrated by a woman in her twenties and thirties in intimate present-tense. I was hooked on how each one pays attention to identifying her emotions so as to better connect with those in her surroundings, especially those she wouldn't ordinarily empathize with (like with the low-wage guard who escorts her off the premises at a Las Vegas casino). Overall, I felt these stories were written by a very smart person with a comic touch who wears her intelligence lightly.
In interviews we hear that Malone came to writing fiction fairly late in life (at 148 pages it took her twelve years to publish this). Much of the lateness was dedicated to getting it right, but there were also life's difficulties to overcome, like her husband's brain tumor. There's an essay called A Crooked Still Life regarding this which you can access through her web site.
There is a very compelling philosophical outlook that binds these stories together. Malone’s assumption, which I feel too, is that the best philosophy is found in superior fiction. She has read the philosophers but you don’t feel them explicitly addressed. She reaches philosophy subtly, in other words, by selection over statement.
This leads to the most appealing aspect of Malone's writing: it encompasses a very wide spectrum of American life. The narrators are on the lower end of the middle class, on the verge of falling off the precipice (one character comes to work each day with a sandwich and corn chips for lunch). Malone writes like she's at ease with the working class. But from the position of a sophisticated, leisure-sharpened mind. We've all read fiction where the writer tries to be "real" in this regard only to fail miserably at it, showing her contempt or class bias unconsciously through the lines. Fittingly, a few stories center around Las Vegas, the empty, glittering heart of American life. Malone, however, finds love there too (or at least a little more understanding).
I don't wish to suggest Malone has any agenda writing these stories, though. I don't think she's purposefully trying to encompass it all, but poetry is definitely a part of her makeup. If you love the movies of Eric Rohmer or Richard Linklater (especially Boyhood) I think you might enjoy these stories too. It has their warmth of heart and gender neutral approach. It could be that I'm getting fed up with the myopia of literary culture, and its economics over poetry gig which determines value. At any rate, I read this book over a two-week period during the autumn, enjoying every single line while elsewhere I attempted too many overpraised and over-hyped heavy-hitters who didn’t move me at all. I only discovered Malone by listening to her talk with Brad Listi on his podcast. Otherwise this book, like the characters in it, would have fallen through the cracks of American mainstream life. Thanks to Listi for their great talk, and thanks to Malone for making it happen.
In interviews we hear that Malone came to writing fiction fairly late in life (at 148 pages it took her twelve years to publish this). Much of the lateness was dedicated to getting it right, but there were also life's difficulties to overcome, like her husband's brain tumor. There's an essay called A Crooked Still Life regarding this which you can access through her web site.
There is a very compelling philosophical outlook that binds these stories together. Malone’s assumption, which I feel too, is that the best philosophy is found in superior fiction. She has read the philosophers but you don’t feel them explicitly addressed. She reaches philosophy subtly, in other words, by selection over statement.
This leads to the most appealing aspect of Malone's writing: it encompasses a very wide spectrum of American life. The narrators are on the lower end of the middle class, on the verge of falling off the precipice (one character comes to work each day with a sandwich and corn chips for lunch). Malone writes like she's at ease with the working class. But from the position of a sophisticated, leisure-sharpened mind. We've all read fiction where the writer tries to be "real" in this regard only to fail miserably at it, showing her contempt or class bias unconsciously through the lines. Fittingly, a few stories center around Las Vegas, the empty, glittering heart of American life. Malone, however, finds love there too (or at least a little more understanding).
I don't wish to suggest Malone has any agenda writing these stories, though. I don't think she's purposefully trying to encompass it all, but poetry is definitely a part of her makeup. If you love the movies of Eric Rohmer or Richard Linklater (especially Boyhood) I think you might enjoy these stories too. It has their warmth of heart and gender neutral approach. It could be that I'm getting fed up with the myopia of literary culture, and its economics over poetry gig which determines value. At any rate, I read this book over a two-week period during the autumn, enjoying every single line while elsewhere I attempted too many overpraised and over-hyped heavy-hitters who didn’t move me at all. I only discovered Malone by listening to her talk with Brad Listi on his podcast. Otherwise this book, like the characters in it, would have fallen through the cracks of American mainstream life. Thanks to Listi for their great talk, and thanks to Malone for making it happen.
November 4, 2015
I loved this book, every story. I couldn't put it down. There is subtle humor under the vulnerable humanity, a great combination. What a masterful storyteller. I can't wait to read her next publication.
December 29, 2015
This book is smart. Each character is perfectly human and their unhappiness is familiar and funny in the way that honest despondency tends to be. At the end of nearly every story, I was in tears, just because they felt so true. Read this goddamn book.
January 29, 2016
After reading a story in this debut collection, I would think, "This is my favorite story." And then I'd think the same thing after the next story and so on. Margaret Malone writes about ordinary human longing so well. I can't wait to see what she does next.
December 13, 2018
Come raccontare il disagio, la perdita, il vuoto, il dolore con una leggerezza fresca e quasi giocosa.
Animali in salvo
Margaret Malone
Traduttore: G. Guerzoni
Editore: NN Editore
Pag: 144
Voto: 4/5
Animali in salvo
Margaret Malone
Traduttore: G. Guerzoni
Editore: NN Editore
Pag: 144
Voto: 4/5
August 11, 2019
Margaret Malone’s stories are stunning, and she is a major, major talent. A maestro of words who’s both student of, and expert on, the tiny, telling moment. I cannot wait for her next book, and I hope it comes out soon. Margaret Malone is clearly among the best writers of her generation.
February 12, 2016
I can't recall the last collection of short stories I read that struck me as pitch perfect from beginning to end. Margaret Malone's collection just ended that dry spell. These compassionate stories are remarkable; vivid characters whose often sad, desperate situations are rendered with stunning detail and emotional complexity and also a dark sense of humor that totally won me over. Malone is the real thing. I can’t wait to read her next book.
November 17, 2017
My only regret is that this collection does not have more stories. Brutal, brilliant, human to its core. Hillsdale Blvd in the Bay Area, Henderson Nevada, Portland -- it feels like Margaret's writing has been stalking me all along, haunting the places my own family has lived and which I know well. Such a gift this (much too short) collection.
November 4, 2015
Flawless. OK, the only flaw was that it wasn't longer; I wanted more.
February 18, 2020
Malone has a nicely understated sense of humor and of pathos both. And . . . she knows how to write an ending, something that eludes many short story writers. Her's a sample of her humor: "My old body liked sex; this new body preferred to be the basecamp for a brain." Nine stories.
August 1, 2016
People Like You is a series of stories focused on the lives of women and couples, with a fixation on imperfection, discomfort, and weathering bad choices and low points in a less than ideal world, AKA Real Life. These stories are so good because Malone's characters are honest and complex; they're truly three dimensional, and so are their struggles. Malone is intentional and creative in using the short story form to push boundaries and explore the human condition in ways that force the reader to think critically about her non-ideal life and her non-ideal self.
I'm glad Atelier26 Books published this! I'd love to see more People Like Yous and Margaret Malones out there in print and fewer sad sack memoirs written by white men in their 40s about their pathetic failures as adults, boyfriends, husbands, writers, and musicians.
I'm glad Atelier26 Books published this! I'd love to see more People Like Yous and Margaret Malones out there in print and fewer sad sack memoirs written by white men in their 40s about their pathetic failures as adults, boyfriends, husbands, writers, and musicians.
November 21, 2015
LNL Book Club: November 2015
Inaugural Book Club Selection
http://latenightlibrary.org/margaret-...
This a fantastic collection of short stories. Margaret Malone really has a handle on the human condition. Her fiction is brutally honest and self revelatory. Three of the nine stories definitely fit together as they involve the same couple (Cheryl and Bert). But all the stories stand alone as well.
I could really relate to the characters in these stories. Malone is a fantastic writer and she approaches some fairly serious issues with humor and wit.
People Like You is, simply put, terrific!
Inaugural Book Club Selection
http://latenightlibrary.org/margaret-...
This a fantastic collection of short stories. Margaret Malone really has a handle on the human condition. Her fiction is brutally honest and self revelatory. Three of the nine stories definitely fit together as they involve the same couple (Cheryl and Bert). But all the stories stand alone as well.
I could really relate to the characters in these stories. Malone is a fantastic writer and she approaches some fairly serious issues with humor and wit.
People Like You is, simply put, terrific!
December 14, 2016
It's been a long time since I enjoyed reading a short story collection this much. Reminded me a bit of Carver. A bit of Alice Munro. Reality and sadness. The awkward moments and unsexy sex of life. It's the kind of fiction that made me want to be a writer in the first place. Can't wait to read more from Malone. ***Note: totally unrelated to Margaret's prose, the ink inside this book smeared a lot in the bathtub. CAREFUL OF BATHTUB READING. That's all. Get on it. Read this book. You won't regret it.
January 21, 2016
This collection of short stories were so charmingly relateable. I found something in each story that I thought to myself was such a deep secret only kept to myself. Whether it be a thought, feeling, or something said out loud that shouldn't be but is anyway without hesitation. I love authors like these who just give off the vibe that they just want to punch you in the face with humility and reality. Can't wait to read more from Margaret Malone.
December 28, 2015
Truly one of the best collections I've read – right up there with Rebecca Lee and Raymond Carver himself. The characters are so achingly real, and the writing so perceptive, so honest and heartbreaking... and funny in the most painful way. I have a feeling these characters are going to stay with me for a very long time.
May 16, 2017
Malone seems to have X-ray vision when it comes to love and family relationships. The she slices and dices with her wit, so that we can see the inner workings too. She's also a badass. This little small press book packs a deft wallop.
July 27, 2018
Zigga zagga!
Now, I did like this book. I found its pathos poignant. It’s language charming. The 24-second story clock was never violated. I’m giving it three stars cause I’m in a bad mood. There.
Sure, as I’ve bitched in the past, it’s mostly stories of husbands and wives visiting momdad. And there are some duplicates in this collection as well. But I’m giving it a pass.
No, I’d like to poke fun at something else.
So often, the descriptions, arrrrrre lists of things. Simple stuff, like if you look out some and just name the things might see, that’s kind of what this is. And at times it aint, necessarily enough, at times, it feels. We either need some Updikian ornamentation, or some McCarthy like abstraction, or, or something I’ve not heard of. (I mean, I get, it, illusionism, straight from the devil, and only the minimalists have had the nerve to finally vanquish it)
Or, or not. You could make a case for anti-spectaclism and I’d pat ya on the back. The whole, view from the window thing, it’s a point a to point b affair and need not the elevations of them maya a-holes like Updike. What's more totalitarian than a description of landscapes? What about letting the reader fill in the motions? What of creativity?
Perhaps, perhaps first person narrative should be shotty like so. Maybe when one is ‘present’ its big nouns and lousy adjectives. Hazy this-n’-thats. Ideas? No. But the naming of things as on an oceanic drift, yes. Artificial reconstruction is illusionisms form of naturalism. (There’s nothing natural about it, one might ponder). Stream of consciousness, you could say, but the person is still writing. But actual 'in the moment' looking, it's a crapshoot.
But they are sad and funny in that contemporary literature way that finds redemption in such forms. Lords knows I do.
Shit, it feels good just to be reviewing a book. I started a new job and it feel like my life is evaporating. I’m hardly getting poems in and I’m leaning on audio books more than I’d care to.
Now, I did like this book. I found its pathos poignant. It’s language charming. The 24-second story clock was never violated. I’m giving it three stars cause I’m in a bad mood. There.
Sure, as I’ve bitched in the past, it’s mostly stories of husbands and wives visiting momdad. And there are some duplicates in this collection as well. But I’m giving it a pass.
No, I’d like to poke fun at something else.
So often, the descriptions, arrrrrre lists of things. Simple stuff, like if you look out some and just name the things might see, that’s kind of what this is. And at times it aint, necessarily enough, at times, it feels. We either need some Updikian ornamentation, or some McCarthy like abstraction, or, or something I’ve not heard of. (I mean, I get, it, illusionism, straight from the devil, and only the minimalists have had the nerve to finally vanquish it)
Or, or not. You could make a case for anti-spectaclism and I’d pat ya on the back. The whole, view from the window thing, it’s a point a to point b affair and need not the elevations of them maya a-holes like Updike. What's more totalitarian than a description of landscapes? What about letting the reader fill in the motions? What of creativity?
Perhaps, perhaps first person narrative should be shotty like so. Maybe when one is ‘present’ its big nouns and lousy adjectives. Hazy this-n’-thats. Ideas? No. But the naming of things as on an oceanic drift, yes. Artificial reconstruction is illusionisms form of naturalism. (There’s nothing natural about it, one might ponder). Stream of consciousness, you could say, but the person is still writing. But actual 'in the moment' looking, it's a crapshoot.
But they are sad and funny in that contemporary literature way that finds redemption in such forms. Lords knows I do.
Shit, it feels good just to be reviewing a book. I started a new job and it feel like my life is evaporating. I’m hardly getting poems in and I’m leaning on audio books more than I’d care to.
June 5, 2016
Margaret Malone’s People Like You is a collection of short stories about your neighbors, the people you see in the grocery store, the obnoxious person in line at the coffee shop. Written over the course of 12 years, Margaret’s stories are sharp, funny and carefully crafted. They pull you into the lives of her characters, for better or for worse. Margaret’s characters aren’t always likable, but each is trying to find their way through real situations of loss, or the kind of loss where you never had something in the first place. Reminiscent of Lorrie Moore’s stories, Margaret’s characters are damaged and weighted down, but are also funny and even ribald at times. When her characters are caustic and unpleasant, Malone gives them moments of vulnerability. A woman wears her skirt inside out, another tries to love her unborn child by holding her arms out to cradle empty air. Lost as they are, they keep reaching out for connection, bumbling through love, bouncing off and around the other characters, all of them hoping for that connection that makes life the beautiful thing it can be.
December 27, 2018
https://stambergadinchiostro.altervis...
Oggi sembra proprio che sia arrivata la nuova stagione, l'autunno si è imposto con la rapidità di un forte vento che ha fatto calare a picco le piacevoli temperature dei giorni precedenti. È arrivata aria nuova, fresca e frizzante, per me questo cambiamento si è concretizzato nella lettura di Animali in salvo, una raccolta di racconti scritta da Margaret Malone. Appena mi sono imbattuta in un piccolo estratto del primo racconto sono rimasta super intrigata, nonostante non mi sia capitato spesso di affrontare questo genere sono rimasta molto entusiasta.
Mi passa davanti una donna della mia età, spinge un passeggino sulla strada, visto che, come ho detto, il nuovo quartiere non ha molti marciapiedi. Mi fa pena, lì a scarrozzare quel fagotto a metà giornata. Mi immagina a scarrozzare il mio di fagotto a metà giornata. Mi chiedo se riuscirò a voler bene a quel fagotto. Se la donna vuole bene al suo. Mancano solo quattro mesi al grande giorno, una stagione, e poi sarà qui. Per tutto il tempo. Una parte di me. Per sempre. Le giornate tutte per me che ancora mi rimangono rimbombano nella mia testa. Faccio tutto il possibile per onorarle
Non so spiegare come mai, fino ad ora, non mi sono mai lasciata coinvolgere e tuffata in una raccolta di racconti. Se devo impegnarmi a ricercare una motivazione, credo che nel mio inconsco ho creduto fermamente che fosse un genere un pò caotico, quasi incompiuto, che non fosse capace di regalare la stessa quantità di emozioni e la sensazione di completezza di un romanzo. Animali in salvo ha spazzato via tutti questi miei pregiudizi personali e mi ha regalato la possiilità di vivere nove storie emozionanti, nove storie con tematiche forti e attuali, nove storie che trasmettono tantissimi spunti di riflessione. L'autrice parla di solitudine, di adolescenza, di amore, di morte, di maternità, di infertilità, di sesso e di passione; lo fa con un tono leggero e musicale, appassionate ed intrigante, allo stesso tempo ironico e divertente.
Il problema non era solo che ormai Anatro aspettava che Barb all'ora di pranzo andasse allo stagno a dargli i popcorn. No, quella era solo una parte del problema. Se Barb non si presentava, Anatro saliva sculettando la collina verde e, quando arrivava alla grande finestra dell'ufficio di Barb, picchiettava con il becco sul vetro per porgerle i suoi saluti monosillabici. Ciao. Ehi. Tu. Barb si metteva a strillare come se là fuori ci fosse George Clooney. «Mindy! Anatro è tornato!».
La voce di Margaret Malone prende vita attraverso le protagoniste dei racconti, la cui narrazione è affidata alle donne, un coro di voci di carta e inchiostro che acquistano un timbro reale.Le protagoniste delle storie sono donne come noi, affrontano i nostri problemi e i nostri drammi, sono persone che si sentono disperse lungo il cammino della vita, ma alla vita restano sempre saldamente aggrappate e nonostante tutto vanno avanti. Non importa quando sia brutto o difficile un determinato momento che stanno affrontando, dalle loro parole si capisce che hanno speranza nel domani, quantomeno la consapevolezza che il domani arriverà comunque e loro saranno lì. Le donne che incontriamo stanno tutte affrontando un periodo particolare della loro vita, in un modo o nell'altro si trovano davanti ad un bivio, destra o sinistra, la scelta sarà la loro. Emergono forti emozioni e convinzioni, emerge l'indipendenza nei confronti degli uomini, perchè infondo non devono aspettare un uomo per essere salvate, noi donne sappiamo come salvarci da sole.
E beviamo. È Sauza, roba buona, non abbiamo bisogno di sale né di lime. La buttiamo giù come le donne toste del Selvaggio West, dove saremmo entrambe prostitute - la Madre sarebbe la Tenutaria, e probabilmente odorerebbe sempre di cipria profumata, sudore e olio di rosmarino. Quando staccherà le labbra dal bordo del bicchiere, lascerà una spessa traccia di rossetto rosso, prova della sua esistenza, prova che, a prescindere da quello che succederà, ora è qui.
Credo che la parola chiave di Animali in salvo sia Cambiamento. Tutti i personaggi sono impegnati ad affrontare particolari cambiamenti nelle loro vite. C'è chi vuole dare una sferzata di aria nuova alla propria vita e prova a fare un qualcosa che non avrebbe mai fatto normalmente e c'è chi affronta i cambiamenti legati all'adolescenza. Qualcuna deve accettare che di lì a poco sarà madre, anche se non è ancora davvero pronta, anche se non sa se riuscirà ad amare il proprio figlio; c'è chi invece dovrà superare il dolore più puro del non poter scegliere se diventare genitore o meno, perché la possibililità di essere madre le sarà negata. C'è chi presto diventerà una sposa, ma forse non è pronta a vedersi legta così indissolubilmente a qualcuno; e abbiamo chi si prodigherà per aiutare una creatura più debole ed indifesa, perché l'affetto viene dimostrato in molti modi, anche da un'anatra.
Cercavo di individuare una risposta negli altri turisti. Li guardavo camminare sui marcipiedi affollati con il cono di gelato che si scioglieva in mano. Li guardavo spalmarsi olio lucido su pance e cosce tremolanti, slacciarsi i bikini per evitate brutti segni dell'abbronzatura. Li guardavo giocare a tennis, le palline sfosforescente che sfrecciavano avanti e indietro nel sole torrido. Non riuscivo a trovare nessuna risposta. Eravamo tutti in quel posto meraviglioso per ragioni diverse, ciascuno la sua, e non avremmo mai saputo chi c'era venuto per ricordare e chi per dimenticare.
Animali in salvo è una raccolta di racconti che trasmette un forte senso di vicinanza al lettore, si viene coinvolti e sorpresi dal desiderio di sapere di più sulle vite di quei personaggi infelici, goffi, insicuri e sicuramente imperfetti, che ci accompagnano nella lettura. È impossibile non adorare le storie raccontate da Margaret Malone.
May 20, 2016
In this case, the slim volume signals that the short stories within are not loaded with extraneous words, but provide just enough for you to get a feel for the emotions, a sense of the characters, and the clues to put together what is going to happen next. what you envision may depend on your own beliefs, outlook, and experiences, but Malone gives you the set-up, scenario, and brief insight into the people involved.
Melancholy, unfulfilled, lonely, getting by, settling for mediocre (men), unsure, strong and weak, hoping--these words and many others could describe the women we encounter in this collection and it is refreshing to have a collection that doesn't present men as the focal point, the fulcrum women must balance their lives upon. Good or bad, these are women's stories and goddamn it, Cheryl, kids aren't everything.
Melancholy, unfulfilled, lonely, getting by, settling for mediocre (men), unsure, strong and weak, hoping--these words and many others could describe the women we encounter in this collection and it is refreshing to have a collection that doesn't present men as the focal point, the fulcrum women must balance their lives upon. Good or bad, these are women's stories and goddamn it, Cheryl, kids aren't everything.
May 6, 2016
I received this book as my first ever Goodreads Giveaway. It is a slim volume of short stories that I devoured in one sitting, on a chilly evening, curled in my bed with a glass (OK, a bottle) of wine. I loved this book. The stories and the characters in them were honest, visceral and heartbreakingly human. The fact that I adored this book so much made it all the more devastating when, around page 120, blank pages began appearing, about fifteen in all, rendering the last two stories unreadable. I feel robbed, but still thankful to Margaret Malone for her beautiful book.
**UPDATE** After my review, I was contacted by the publisher and provided with a free, complete, and signed copy of the book. Thank you Atelier26 Books!
**UPDATE** After my review, I was contacted by the publisher and provided with a free, complete, and signed copy of the book. Thank you Atelier26 Books!
September 12, 2016
For a book of short stories, every narrator was actually the same, sociopathic, narcissistic human. The whole book had this almost morose, low-energy tone, even though there were several stories and you'd think that would shift . "People Like You" is a depressing title if it's meant to be literal, since every character was somehow miserable yet completely unwilling to do a thing about it, besides tear down those around them. Not sure about the 100 people who gave this 4 and 5 stars, but I'm unabashedly giving it just the 1.
August 10, 2016
An excellent collection that brings you into the interior lives of various women struggling with the societal expectations imposed upon them, debating the consequences of their strengths and weaknesses, and questioning the influence of the people they have allowed into their lives. At times delightfully sarcastic, frustrating, and ingratiating.
February 2, 2017
This was a good collection of short stories. There were a lot of stories exploring themes surrounding obligations and status of motherhood and the difficulties of flat relationships. All were well written and there were more than a few instances where I had to stop and think about the deeper meanings and philosophical implications of a line.
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