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The Soho Press Book of '80s Short Fiction
In The Soho Press Book of '80s Short Fiction , editor Dale Peck offers readers a fresh take on a seminal period in American history, when Ronald Reagan was president, the Cold War was rushing to its conclusion, and literature was searching for ways to move beyond the postmodern unease of the 1970s.
Morally charged by newly politicized notions of identity but fraught with anxiety about a body whose fragility had been freshly emphasized by the AIDS epidemic, the 34 works gathered here are individually vivid, but taken as a body of work, they challenge the prevailing notion of the ’80s as a time of aesthetic as well as financial maximalism. Formally inventive yet tightly controlled, they offer a more expansive, inclusive view of the era’s literary accomplishments.
The anthology blends early stories from writers like Denis Johnson, Jamaica Kincaid, Mary Gaitskill, and Raymond Carver, which have gone on to become part of the American canon, with remarkable and often transgressive work from some of the most celebrated writers of the underground, including Dennis Cooper, Eileen Myles, Lynne Tillman, and Gary Indiana. Peck has also included powerful work by writers such as Gil Cuadros, Essex Hemphill, and Sam D’Allesandro, whose untimely deaths from AIDS ended their careers almost before they had begun. Almost a third of the stories are out of print and unavailable elsewhere.
The Soho Press Book of ’80s Short Fiction is a daring reappraisal of a decade that is increasingly central to our culture.
Morally charged by newly politicized notions of identity but fraught with anxiety about a body whose fragility had been freshly emphasized by the AIDS epidemic, the 34 works gathered here are individually vivid, but taken as a body of work, they challenge the prevailing notion of the ’80s as a time of aesthetic as well as financial maximalism. Formally inventive yet tightly controlled, they offer a more expansive, inclusive view of the era’s literary accomplishments.
The anthology blends early stories from writers like Denis Johnson, Jamaica Kincaid, Mary Gaitskill, and Raymond Carver, which have gone on to become part of the American canon, with remarkable and often transgressive work from some of the most celebrated writers of the underground, including Dennis Cooper, Eileen Myles, Lynne Tillman, and Gary Indiana. Peck has also included powerful work by writers such as Gil Cuadros, Essex Hemphill, and Sam D’Allesandro, whose untimely deaths from AIDS ended their careers almost before they had begun. Almost a third of the stories are out of print and unavailable elsewhere.
The Soho Press Book of ’80s Short Fiction is a daring reappraisal of a decade that is increasingly central to our culture.
592 pages, Paperback
Published June 7, 2016
26 people are currently reading
330 people want to read
About the author
Dale Peck
41 books108 followersDale Peck (born 1967 on Long Island, New York) is an American novelist, critic, and columnist. His 2009 novel, Sprout, won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Children's/Young Adult literature, and was a finalist for the Stonewall Book Award in the Children's and Young Adult Literature category.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 12, 2016
Highly recommended.
Unusual collection of short stories from the era, highlighting many lesser known authors of the 80s who - with time - have maybe become a little (or totally) forgotten. If you are a die hard 80s person, this book is indispensable. (I tore through it in, like, 3 days.)
But, really, and perhaps most surprisingly, this book should be required reading for anyone interested in traditionally marginalized voices. Peck's collection highlights many feminist and gay authors whose stories account for some of the most poignant, raw, and insightful in this entire collection.
If you're looking for kitsch or gentle nostalgia, look elsewhere. Although many of the stories here are "fun", I think the aim of this book is much more serious, attempting to offer a glimpse into the harder realities of people who struggled to find a place in Reagan's America, a place and time which - at least, according to many of the voices you come across in this book - shames, stigmatizes, or otherwise excludes those not considered "mainstream". This is a collection of stories about people who have no choice but to turn their back on the mainstream values of the day, choosing transgression over conformity, personal truths over the limited and limiting choices available to outsiders at the time.
Unusual collection of short stories from the era, highlighting many lesser known authors of the 80s who - with time - have maybe become a little (or totally) forgotten. If you are a die hard 80s person, this book is indispensable. (I tore through it in, like, 3 days.)
But, really, and perhaps most surprisingly, this book should be required reading for anyone interested in traditionally marginalized voices. Peck's collection highlights many feminist and gay authors whose stories account for some of the most poignant, raw, and insightful in this entire collection.
If you're looking for kitsch or gentle nostalgia, look elsewhere. Although many of the stories here are "fun", I think the aim of this book is much more serious, attempting to offer a glimpse into the harder realities of people who struggled to find a place in Reagan's America, a place and time which - at least, according to many of the voices you come across in this book - shames, stigmatizes, or otherwise excludes those not considered "mainstream". This is a collection of stories about people who have no choice but to turn their back on the mainstream values of the day, choosing transgression over conformity, personal truths over the limited and limiting choices available to outsiders at the time.
May 4, 2021
I lost patience with this one pretty quickly, and gave myself permission to skip around at will. Even for an anthology (which, by its very nature, invites a wide array of styles and forms), this is deeply inconsistent. The highlights really stand out, though: the stories by Raymond Carver, Christopher Bram, Gary Indiana, Patrick McGrath, Mary Gaitskill, Susan Minot, David Wojnarowicz, and Bret Easton Ellis are all worth spending time with. As for the rest, take them or leave them.
July 18, 2016
A book of 1980s short fiction. What was I thinking?
Ok, I'm sure all of the stories were very good, but they remind me of a time of my life I enjoy better as a memory than as reportage thinly disguised as fiction.
Ok, I'm sure all of the stories were very good, but they remind me of a time of my life I enjoy better as a memory than as reportage thinly disguised as fiction.
July 12, 2016
Bret Easton Ellis stories about vampires and other strange and upsetting stuff. Recommended.
February 5, 2017
This one kept breaking me. I saw so many reflections of people I've known, and lost, that it was often hard to keep reading. Well worth the time.
September 4, 2019
Why are short stories so effed up
October 18, 2023
I typically don't read a lot of anthologies because, frankly, a lot of them don't appeal to me. They're usually speculative fiction or romance or YA, genres that don't do a whole lot for me but I like the idea of them as a way to test drive new authors, particular authors who have been on my list for a long time but haven't gotten around to them yet. So, naturally, when I found this my interest was peaked immediately, because of the amount of authors in here I had read and loved previous works (my beloved Dennis Cooper, Bret Easton Ellis, Lynne Tillman, David Wojnarowicz, Gary Indiana) from or wanted to read for a long time now (Mary Gaitskill, Dodie Bellamy, Robert Gluck, Dorothy Allison).
Also, this collection was practically tailor-made for me, given that the writers featured here are primarily underground or underground-ish literary fiction authors, which is what I predominantly read and enjoy, with a special emphasis on certain movements (namely, Minimalism and New Narratives/Downtown Writers; I remain apathetic towards Minimalism but love the New Narratives/Downtown Writers), unlike a lot of similar 80s fiction anthologies that tend to emphasize horror or sff. That being said, after a while I wished for a little more diversity, not in genre necessarily but in literary style or movement or theme in general. There's a lot of minimalism, a lot of New Narratives/Downtown, a lot of AIDS narratives and queer coming of age or depressing love stories, and I don't have a problem with any of that stuff (in fact, I love most of it) but after a while you start to lose momentum and wonder when something new is going to happen and whenever something different showed up I was immediately biased towards it- The Secrets of Summer by Bret Easton Ellis is a highlight because of that, even if I didn't like the story here as much as I liked it in The Informers. Perhaps Peck should have organized the anthology into themes or movements, or chronologically in some way.
One author got two stories, Gil Cuadros, and honestly I'm not entirely sure that was deserved and that's not only because both were thoroughly mediocre. Rather, I kept thinking about the other writers who were left out but who also deserved a seat at this table- Don Delillo or Thomas Pynchon for some postmodernism, another Brat Pack writer who isn't Bret Easton Ellis (I'm a little surprised something from Slaves of New York didn't make the cut), Joy Williams because I'm biased, etc.
Anyway, here are some highlights:
From Pet Food- Jessica Hagedorn
A girl moves to a new apartment in San Francisco, everyone she meets is insane. The title indicates that it's part of a larger work, unfortunately that work seems to be long out of print. It's a shame, because I'd love to read more, though perhaps the odd, childlike style and quirky characters would be grating in a longer work.
In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried- Amy Hempel
A woman, presumably Amy Hempel, visits her best friend in the hospital, who presumably has or is dying of cancer. I remember really disliking Amy Hempel's last collection of short stories, Sing to It, but that was a long time ago now and honestly, I think i'm going to have to give her a second chance because I loved this. The writing is very late 20th century cool girl writer (think Joan Didion, Eve Babitz, Joy Williams, etc) but honestly I love those writers (except for Eve) so i really clicked with the writing and was actually pretty moved by the story itself.
The History of the World- Jim Lewis
A man who is named Bill (so not Jim Lewis) wakes up one morning and decides to shoot himself in the foot. I don't know why. I liked this one, mainly for its weird structure and gore- at the bottom there's this running list of musings about, I suppose, the history of the world. it's a weird one but it's my kind of weird.
The Angel- Patrick McGrath
Bernard, a writer of some kind, befriends an old man who tells him a story of an encounter with an angel. As someone who loves campy gothic tales, this story was right up my alley. Very reminsicent of James Purdy, albeit with a little more of an easily stomachable writing style (though I love Purdy, his prose is very much an acquired taste).
Wrong- Dennis Cooper
A boy who is not Dennis Cooper but is George Miles gets murdered in typical Cooper fashion and then becomes a ghost. This is one of my favorite Cooper short stories so I'm happy with its presence here but also I can't imagine how it would come across to someone who is not already a fan of him. I might have chosen an excerpt from Safe (specifically My Mark), or Horror Hospital even though I personally don't love Horror Hospital. His prose is a bit of an acquired taste, I think, and his content often repulsive so ymmv. I happen to love it, though, in all its weird, enfant terrible glory.
Debbie's Barium Swallow- Laurie Weeks
I'm not entirely sure what happens in this one and it feels like an insane person wrote it so naturally I loved it.
Days Without Someone- Dodie Bellamy
A woman (presumably Dodie Bellamy) keeps a diary of twelve days without her lover, whom also happens to be married. I liked everything about this (except the adultery, but I can look past dubious sexual morals in fiction) and especially the writing, which was beautiful in a way that made me envious.
Spiral- David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz recounts a series of vignettes surrounding sex and AIDS. I love David Wojnarowicz, he's one of those writers that can make transparent political screeds stomachable, though I believe this is one of the more "fiction-nonfiction" blurring pieces in this anthology given I'm pretty sure I originally read this in his memoir/essay collection Close to the Knives.
The Cat Who Loved La Traviata- Jaime Manrique
Just a man going about his day in gritty 80s New York. This was a really refreshing change of a pace from the last bunch of stories, and I enjoyed the atmosphere of the story and also the main character, Santiago, and his point of view and the people he encountered.
From Annotations- John Keene
A long, rambling stream of conciousness in which a man, who is probably John Keene, recounts growing up in the suburbs of St. Louis as a gay(?) black kid. I loved the writing, which was heavy and complex and played with points of view, and the things the story said about assimilation and race.
And some lowlights
Weird Fucks- Lynne Tillman
A woman (presumably Lynne Tillman) recounts 13 of her ex boyfriends/flings. I've liked Tillman in the past, and enjoy her writing here, but this story went on too long. I also felt as if I've read this story before several times (just the general idea, not this particular work), and that also took some of the enjoyment out of it but that's not necessarily Tillman's fault, it was probably cutting edge when she wrote it.
How Soft, How Sweet- Suzanne Gardiner
Suzanne Gardiner recounts a story about her parents shortly after their marriage. Despite the objectively far worst (content-wise, not quality) stories I will likely rate highly in this book, I could not get past the framing device(?) for this. I'm all for mining the family tree for potential stories to be told, but to imagine your parents having sex in such detail is a bit much for me. We all have boundaries.
Giovanni's Apartment- Sam d'Allessandro
A man (who is probably not Sam d'Allessandro) meets Giovanni, and the two form a strange relationship. I feel like I should love this more than I did, because it's by a New Narrative author and it's very Gothic and strange and campy, but there's something about it that sticks while going down. It tries a little too hard to be what it is, I think, and certain repetitive phrases kept getting to me- sex, for instance, constantly being referred to as "killing and reviving".
Pretending to Say No- Bruce Benderson
Something Nancy Reagan. A transparent political screed, which would have been fine if it was artful and not juvenile. Which it was, extremely juvenile.
A Real Doll- AM Homes
A boy has sex with his sister's Barbie Doll. AM Homes has a lot in common with Ottessa Moshfegh, in that they desperately want to be cool and transgressive while also remaining carefully within the boundaries of literary fiction, so they can still get establishment clout. It's hard to describe, but their stories feel like they're missing something because of that. This and the Bruce Benderson story are probably tied for the worst in the collection, I think.
A Good Man- Rebecca Brown
A woman who is probably Rebecca Brown looks back on the life of her friend who died of AIDS. I liked it initially but it just dragged on and on and it wasn't really that memorably written and, quite frankly, with all the AIDS stories represented here, it would have had to have been really special to made me impressed.
As a whole, I liked more stories than I didn't, and found some new authors I'm excited about and this whole experience was very positive for me. And, inspired by this, I actually recently acquired a copy of Writers Who Love Too Much and anthology of New Narrative writers edited by Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian so perhaps I have now entered an anthology era.
Also, this collection was practically tailor-made for me, given that the writers featured here are primarily underground or underground-ish literary fiction authors, which is what I predominantly read and enjoy, with a special emphasis on certain movements (namely, Minimalism and New Narratives/Downtown Writers; I remain apathetic towards Minimalism but love the New Narratives/Downtown Writers), unlike a lot of similar 80s fiction anthologies that tend to emphasize horror or sff. That being said, after a while I wished for a little more diversity, not in genre necessarily but in literary style or movement or theme in general. There's a lot of minimalism, a lot of New Narratives/Downtown, a lot of AIDS narratives and queer coming of age or depressing love stories, and I don't have a problem with any of that stuff (in fact, I love most of it) but after a while you start to lose momentum and wonder when something new is going to happen and whenever something different showed up I was immediately biased towards it- The Secrets of Summer by Bret Easton Ellis is a highlight because of that, even if I didn't like the story here as much as I liked it in The Informers. Perhaps Peck should have organized the anthology into themes or movements, or chronologically in some way.
One author got two stories, Gil Cuadros, and honestly I'm not entirely sure that was deserved and that's not only because both were thoroughly mediocre. Rather, I kept thinking about the other writers who were left out but who also deserved a seat at this table- Don Delillo or Thomas Pynchon for some postmodernism, another Brat Pack writer who isn't Bret Easton Ellis (I'm a little surprised something from Slaves of New York didn't make the cut), Joy Williams because I'm biased, etc.
Anyway, here are some highlights:
From Pet Food- Jessica Hagedorn
A girl moves to a new apartment in San Francisco, everyone she meets is insane. The title indicates that it's part of a larger work, unfortunately that work seems to be long out of print. It's a shame, because I'd love to read more, though perhaps the odd, childlike style and quirky characters would be grating in a longer work.
In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried- Amy Hempel
A woman, presumably Amy Hempel, visits her best friend in the hospital, who presumably has or is dying of cancer. I remember really disliking Amy Hempel's last collection of short stories, Sing to It, but that was a long time ago now and honestly, I think i'm going to have to give her a second chance because I loved this. The writing is very late 20th century cool girl writer (think Joan Didion, Eve Babitz, Joy Williams, etc) but honestly I love those writers (except for Eve) so i really clicked with the writing and was actually pretty moved by the story itself.
The History of the World- Jim Lewis
A man who is named Bill (so not Jim Lewis) wakes up one morning and decides to shoot himself in the foot. I don't know why. I liked this one, mainly for its weird structure and gore- at the bottom there's this running list of musings about, I suppose, the history of the world. it's a weird one but it's my kind of weird.
The Angel- Patrick McGrath
Bernard, a writer of some kind, befriends an old man who tells him a story of an encounter with an angel. As someone who loves campy gothic tales, this story was right up my alley. Very reminsicent of James Purdy, albeit with a little more of an easily stomachable writing style (though I love Purdy, his prose is very much an acquired taste).
Wrong- Dennis Cooper
A boy who is not Dennis Cooper but is George Miles gets murdered in typical Cooper fashion and then becomes a ghost. This is one of my favorite Cooper short stories so I'm happy with its presence here but also I can't imagine how it would come across to someone who is not already a fan of him. I might have chosen an excerpt from Safe (specifically My Mark), or Horror Hospital even though I personally don't love Horror Hospital. His prose is a bit of an acquired taste, I think, and his content often repulsive so ymmv. I happen to love it, though, in all its weird, enfant terrible glory.
Debbie's Barium Swallow- Laurie Weeks
I'm not entirely sure what happens in this one and it feels like an insane person wrote it so naturally I loved it.
Days Without Someone- Dodie Bellamy
A woman (presumably Dodie Bellamy) keeps a diary of twelve days without her lover, whom also happens to be married. I liked everything about this (except the adultery, but I can look past dubious sexual morals in fiction) and especially the writing, which was beautiful in a way that made me envious.
Spiral- David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz recounts a series of vignettes surrounding sex and AIDS. I love David Wojnarowicz, he's one of those writers that can make transparent political screeds stomachable, though I believe this is one of the more "fiction-nonfiction" blurring pieces in this anthology given I'm pretty sure I originally read this in his memoir/essay collection Close to the Knives.
The Cat Who Loved La Traviata- Jaime Manrique
Just a man going about his day in gritty 80s New York. This was a really refreshing change of a pace from the last bunch of stories, and I enjoyed the atmosphere of the story and also the main character, Santiago, and his point of view and the people he encountered.
From Annotations- John Keene
A long, rambling stream of conciousness in which a man, who is probably John Keene, recounts growing up in the suburbs of St. Louis as a gay(?) black kid. I loved the writing, which was heavy and complex and played with points of view, and the things the story said about assimilation and race.
And some lowlights
Weird Fucks- Lynne Tillman
A woman (presumably Lynne Tillman) recounts 13 of her ex boyfriends/flings. I've liked Tillman in the past, and enjoy her writing here, but this story went on too long. I also felt as if I've read this story before several times (just the general idea, not this particular work), and that also took some of the enjoyment out of it but that's not necessarily Tillman's fault, it was probably cutting edge when she wrote it.
How Soft, How Sweet- Suzanne Gardiner
Suzanne Gardiner recounts a story about her parents shortly after their marriage. Despite the objectively far worst (content-wise, not quality) stories I will likely rate highly in this book, I could not get past the framing device(?) for this. I'm all for mining the family tree for potential stories to be told, but to imagine your parents having sex in such detail is a bit much for me. We all have boundaries.
Giovanni's Apartment- Sam d'Allessandro
A man (who is probably not Sam d'Allessandro) meets Giovanni, and the two form a strange relationship. I feel like I should love this more than I did, because it's by a New Narrative author and it's very Gothic and strange and campy, but there's something about it that sticks while going down. It tries a little too hard to be what it is, I think, and certain repetitive phrases kept getting to me- sex, for instance, constantly being referred to as "killing and reviving".
Pretending to Say No- Bruce Benderson
Something Nancy Reagan. A transparent political screed, which would have been fine if it was artful and not juvenile. Which it was, extremely juvenile.
A Real Doll- AM Homes
A boy has sex with his sister's Barbie Doll. AM Homes has a lot in common with Ottessa Moshfegh, in that they desperately want to be cool and transgressive while also remaining carefully within the boundaries of literary fiction, so they can still get establishment clout. It's hard to describe, but their stories feel like they're missing something because of that. This and the Bruce Benderson story are probably tied for the worst in the collection, I think.
A Good Man- Rebecca Brown
A woman who is probably Rebecca Brown looks back on the life of her friend who died of AIDS. I liked it initially but it just dragged on and on and it wasn't really that memorably written and, quite frankly, with all the AIDS stories represented here, it would have had to have been really special to made me impressed.
As a whole, I liked more stories than I didn't, and found some new authors I'm excited about and this whole experience was very positive for me. And, inspired by this, I actually recently acquired a copy of Writers Who Love Too Much and anthology of New Narrative writers edited by Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian so perhaps I have now entered an anthology era.
August 17, 2017
I did enjoy nearly every story in this anthology. I initially picked it up to read a few short stories by authors I knew, but ended up being introduced to authors I'd like to read more of. I have incurred many library fees for how long it took me to finish!
WARNING TO "GENTLE" READERS: This book has a large representation of LGBTQ stories and many of the stories (gay or straight) are sexually graphic. I didn't expect that and, while it did not bother me, I know it would be unwelcome to some readers (my mom, for one). If you don't like sexual content or LGBTQ themes, this is not the book for you.
WARNING TO "GENTLE" READERS: This book has a large representation of LGBTQ stories and many of the stories (gay or straight) are sexually graphic. I didn't expect that and, while it did not bother me, I know it would be unwelcome to some readers (my mom, for one). If you don't like sexual content or LGBTQ themes, this is not the book for you.
September 14, 2024
Intro kinda sucks in a "CNN presents the 80s" kind of hagiography, but then again Dale Peck is kind of just like that, but most of the stories are excellent (there are a couple thudding duds but what can you expect, like good god that Bret Easton Ellis story ... nothing much going on there).
Favs:
"So Much Water So Close To Home" by Raymond Carver
"In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried" by Amy Hempel
"Sodomy" by Gary Indiana
"Secretary" by Mary Gaitskill
"From After Delores" by Sarah Schumann
"Spiral" by David Wojnarowicz
"Ceremonies" by Essex Hemphill
"Robin" by Eileen Myles
"Sight" by Gil Cuadros
"A Good Man" Rebecca Brown
Favs:
"So Much Water So Close To Home" by Raymond Carver
"In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried" by Amy Hempel
"Sodomy" by Gary Indiana
"Secretary" by Mary Gaitskill
"From After Delores" by Sarah Schumann
"Spiral" by David Wojnarowicz
"Ceremonies" by Essex Hemphill
"Robin" by Eileen Myles
"Sight" by Gil Cuadros
"A Good Man" Rebecca Brown
December 15, 2019
A collection of short fiction from the 80s and early 90s, much of it queer. There’s a lot of gold in here and many writers who I am excited to explore further (e.g. Gary Indiana, Essex Hemphill, Dorothy Allison).
There were also a few duds, including a story by Bruce Benderson that made me angry. I guess it was supposed to be a satire, but it came off as lazy and racist.
One story left me in tears and, for the most part, I have respect for any story that’s able to affect me in such a way. I don’t cry too easily.
All in all, I’m happy this exists and that I got to read it.
There were also a few duds, including a story by Bruce Benderson that made me angry. I guess it was supposed to be a satire, but it came off as lazy and racist.
One story left me in tears and, for the most part, I have respect for any story that’s able to affect me in such a way. I don’t cry too easily.
All in all, I’m happy this exists and that I got to read it.
May 12, 2023
Raw stuff in here
October 14, 2025
I'm really glad that I chose to push myself to read this entire anthology. I really didn't like the first, probably, third of the book, and then the stories really started picking up at the end.
My main gripe is that this is supposed to be 80's Short Fiction, but the majority of these stories could take place at any time in the 20th Century, really. It wasn't until the (amazing) story where Nancy Reagan came to the drug dealer's house did I feel we were getting some actual 1980's content.
The stories by David Wojnarowicz and Rebecca Brown were my favorite, telling the sometimes funny, mostly poignant stories of people dying of AIDS. They were heartbreaking.
From David Wojnarowicz's beautifully written "Spiral":
I feel like a window, maybe a broken window. I am a glass human. I am a glass human disappearing in rain. I am standing among all of you waving my invisible arms and hands. I am shouting my invisible words. I am getting so weary. I am growing tired. I am waving to you from here. I am crawling around looking for the aperture of complete and final emptiness. I am vibrating in isolation among you. I am screaming but it comes out like pieces of clear ice. I am signaling that the volume of all this is too high. I am waving my hands. I am disappearing. I am disappearing but not fast enough.
My main gripe is that this is supposed to be 80's Short Fiction, but the majority of these stories could take place at any time in the 20th Century, really. It wasn't until the (amazing) story where Nancy Reagan came to the drug dealer's house did I feel we were getting some actual 1980's content.
The stories by David Wojnarowicz and Rebecca Brown were my favorite, telling the sometimes funny, mostly poignant stories of people dying of AIDS. They were heartbreaking.
From David Wojnarowicz's beautifully written "Spiral":
I feel like a window, maybe a broken window. I am a glass human. I am a glass human disappearing in rain. I am standing among all of you waving my invisible arms and hands. I am shouting my invisible words. I am getting so weary. I am growing tired. I am waving to you from here. I am crawling around looking for the aperture of complete and final emptiness. I am vibrating in isolation among you. I am screaming but it comes out like pieces of clear ice. I am signaling that the volume of all this is too high. I am waving my hands. I am disappearing. I am disappearing but not fast enough.
July 21, 2016
As with most anthologies, this felt uneven. Some stories I loved, some were just ok. The ones I did like: Jamaica Kincaid, Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel, Christopher Bram, Jim Lewis, Dorothy Allison, Mary Gaitskill (the movie Secretary is based off this story), Denis Johnson, Sam D'Allesandro, AM Homes
October 11, 2016
I checked this out because I wanted to read the Mary Gaitskill short story. I really liked some of the stories, but some of them were tiresome. I did really like Secretary though.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews