The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead

by Chanelle Benz

A stunningly original debut collection, The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead is about lives across history marked by violence and longing. In ten stories of impressive range, Chanelle Benz displays a staggering command of craft as she crisscrosses through time and space to create a complex mosaic of humanity.

In “The Diplomat’s Daughter,” a woman disappears and resurfaces across the world as a deadly force of nature with many names. “West of the Known” tells of a brother and sister who turn outlaw in a wild and brutal landscape. “James III” lays bare the struggle of a young Philadelphia boy who must contend with the contradictions of privilege, violence, and the sway of an incarcerated father. In “That We May Be All One Sheepefolde,” a sixteenth-century English monk suffers the dissolution of his monastery and the loss of all that he held sacred.

The characters in Benz’s wildly imaginative collection are as varied as any in recent literature, subverting boundaries of race, gender, and class, but they share a thirst for adventure that sends them rushing toward moral crossroads, becoming victims and perpetrators along the way. Riveting, visceral, and heartbreaking, Benz’s stories of identity, abandonment, and fierce love come together in a daring, arresting vision. Benz emerges on the scene as an indomitable talent and a brilliant new literary force.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Anthologies, Literary Fiction, Short Story Collection, Adult Fiction

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 17, 2017

Reviews

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

looking for great books to read during black history month...and the other eleven months? i'm going to float some of my favorites throughout the month, and i hope they will find new readers!

3.5 rounded up

i was a little suspicious of this book at first, since one of the first things i read about it online after being intrigued by that title was not focusing on the stories themselves, but on how gorgeous the author is. and while that is completely accurate:



it's always a red flag when the selling point is the comeliness of the author and not, you know, the work. there are plenty of attractive authors, but The Secret History isn't one of my favorite books because donna tartt is so lovely.

and at first, i wasn't feeling this collection. it's a debut, and it definitely feels like one - the stories are all over the place in terms of theme, tone, and genre, which seems like a new author just finding her voice and style, trying on different hats along the way. it's mostly well-written, but the experimental dissonance took some getting used to. it's also a little ballsy - short story debuts are already tricky enough to find an audience for, and a collection like this one risks alienating an audience who is trying to determine if an author's style works for them, and not finding a consistent enough voice to know that for certain can be frustrating. not all of the stories are successful, but i ended up liking the collection enough overall to round it up to a four, and i'd be interested in seeing what she does next; if she settles into a storytelling groove or keeps playing around with styles all scattershot-like.

the stories:

West of the Known

the collection opens with this story, which won the 2014 o. henry award. it's always smart to open a collection with a crowd-pleaser, but for some reason, this one didn't do much for me. i'm not doubting the assessment-skills of the o. henry panel - they've always made smart choices, but i've just read too many things too similar to this story, as my tastes run towards grit lit and modern, frequently transgressive, takes on the western genre, so it's gonna take more than this to shock me or give me something i haven't already encountered. the writing is strong, no one's contesting that, but the story was just ground already-tread by me in my reading history.

Adela, Primarily Known as The Black Voyage, Later Reprinted as Red Casket of the Heart by Anon. 1829

again - debut author, so i had no expectations in place for style or subject matter, but after the grittydark western of the first story had established a baseline, i thought i knew what to expect. but no. this one is completely different in every way; a fake found text, studded with footnotes, in which a unified chorus of meddling child-narrators matchmake for a woman they admire, even though she is received less-enthusiastically by the rest of the village. it's full of gothic romance conventions, but also strays into metafiction, broad comedy, with feminist filters. even though it references byron AND Wuthering Heights, i was not a fan of this one.

Accidental

this one was much more to my liking - a straightforward story in which an emotionally damaged woman faces grief, regret, disappointing family members, and strange bedfellows on a path to healing. it also has this passage, which i particularly liked:

Near evening, I hitch a ride to a motel along the highway. But some people are not as decent as the freckled guy. Some people are encouraged by my size, since as a small woman, even at thirty-seven, from far away I could look like a child. And so some people force you to reveal as you pretend to root in your bag for a tissue with your left hand, the little pistol that you are now holding comfortably in your right. These red-thick ballcappers need to sense that, as my mother said when she gave me the gun, that you wanna use it, that you've been waiting to use it on any motherfucker dumb enough to be dumb. These people, you see, can only understand humanity at gunpoint. As I walk away from him down the highway, the driver calls me a cuntfaced bitch out his window, detailing my impending bodily harm, but I think he now knows that I too have fears, hopes, dreams.

The Diplomat's Daughter

this one was intriguing, but i'm not sure i understood it fully. i mean, i understand what's going on, but i feel like i'm missing some of the cartilage tying the various story-bits together as it goes back and forth in time. i get the small-picture episodes, but i'm somehow not getting that encapsulating BANG that makes a story pop.

The Peculiar Narrative of the Remarkable Particulars in the Life of Orrinda Thomas

this was the first story that made me stop and say "ohhhhh," because it is great. unwieldy title aside, this is - yes - another "found text" but it is excellent. it's an epistolary slave narrative that is both moving and unexpected. this story is a star.

James III

this is another straightforward story in a contemporary setting, about a sensitive young boy unwillingly caught up in the cycle of violence, torn between family loyalty and the ideals of his quaker-run school.

Snake Doctors

this is a 'family-secrets' narrative composed of MORE found documents split between the 1930's POVs of brother-and-sister pair robert and izabel sibley, compiled by robert's grandson, who had been told they were both long-dead, and is now learning the sordid, but sympathetic, truth of their lives and exploits. the found document gimmick is a little thin in this one - it's meant to be "a manuscript," but i'm unclear on why it would have been written in the first place, and it just reads like a traditional short story, so i'm not sure why the device was trotted out again for this one, but apart from that, it's pretty engaging.

The Mourners

this is the story from which the collection's title is taken, and i liked nearly all of it. i wasn't wild about the ending, for reasons both logical and literary, but there was some excellent grit-lit/horrible family stuff before it.

Recognition

this one had a really great, suspenseful build, and my suspicions were incorrect, which is always nice for a reader. and it's pretty damn brutal. also nice for a reader. a reader like me, anyway.

That We May All Be One Sheepfolde, or, O Saeculum Corruptissimum

this was my least favorite. to be fair, medieval writing has never been my thing, and i thought this was a bit indulgent. the story itself wasn't half-bad, but the language, while authentic to the period, is just a drag. all those prithees and jerkins and "Wherefore dost thou inquirest with so stern a brow?" not my cuppa.

so, while it's a somewhat uneven collection, there's enough here that i liked to make me look forward to the rest of her career with interest.

come to my blog!

[Jerrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the wide variety of characters, time periods, and settings in this short story collection. Each story had a distinct voice.

[Faith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is like a collection of writing exercises. Hops around among periods, themes, voices etc. None captured my attention. The author may have been trying out styles before she wrote her novel (which I liked).

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 3.5 stars. There's a lot of great stuff in here and even greater potential. Thematically and conceptually excellent. Execution not quite there in a few stories.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books)]

After listening to 1.95 of these stories...no....nope...no way...no thanks....just no.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....I think I found a new short fiction writer to add to my favorites. Such a RANGE OF VOICE.

Longer review later!

And thanks so much to HarperCollins for the review copy.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 2 out of 5]

For every book its reader, but not every book pleases said reader. This collection was off the mark for me. You might like it, but I can't say I'd recommend it.

[Peacegal · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars -- It was Ok. The author is certainly talented, and writes from a wildly varied set of perspectives. The stories were slices of life at times too oblique for their own good. I actually gave up on two of the stories and skipped them, not something I do often.

[KWinks · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like 4 and a half. I read West of the Known a couple of months ago (on Fence, I think). I couldn't stop thinking about it. My library did not buy this collection, so I interlibrary loaned it. Benz's range is mindboggling. She jumps genres and in and out of magical realism like a sorceress. It is right that George Saunders blurbs this one. I would highly recommend this collection to his fans. My favorites were West of the Known, James III, Snake Doctors, The Mourners, Recognition, and Sheepefold (which has a longer title, but I'm too lazy to type it out).

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was hard to get into. Honestly, I got halfway through and couldn’t finish it. I liked the first story a lot and it would’ve been cool if the whole book was western themed.

But the rest of the stories I read just didn’t grip me. Either I’d stop caring halfway through or the ending fell flat. There was also always way too much focus on the characters’ traits and less on the actual stories.

I do like the different styles each story had but I wish there was more of a rhythm.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

An uneven collection. The stories with more formal premises succeeded more for me--"Adela" with its academic footnotes, "The Peculiar Narrative of the Remarkable Particulars in the Life of Orrinda Thomas" about a freedwoman black poet giving a reading on a plantation. The others felt too dramatic, too blockbuster big (murders! assassins! reunions!). I was disappointed to see Benz's novel is straight literary fiction--I'd love to read her letting loose and writing genre.

[Nathan Z · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard the author years ago at Ithaca College and immediately bought this book. Every story fires on all cylinders. Such wonderful contemporary short fiction, I cannot wait to reread.

[Lauren Stanek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half of the short stories were excellent, the other half not so much.

[Megan]

He refilled my glass, Look, it ain't your fault this world is no place for women.

But us women are in it, I said.

Have another, he said. Don't dwell.

The ten stories in this collection felt as if someone had grabbed only statement pieces from a jewelry box: each one is wholly distinct, strikingly memorable, and wildly clashing with one another. Very little about any of these stories either faded into its neighbors or was meant to simply take up space; each story was crafted in its own voice and its own form. I'm thrilled to have found that kind of imaginative range and vision here, because I share a lot of Benz's interests: the way violence shapes our world and our lives, the idea of complicity, and the expectations and constraints placed on women of color. There was a steady and eloquent thematic cohesion: each story seems to hinge on the decision of whether to commit violence, and what that does to the characters involved. There's a lot of brutality here, but it wasn't irredeemably bleak. Just clear-eyed and curious.

I was most excited about her post-colonial metafiction outing, "Adela, Primarily Known as the Black Voyage, Later Reprinted as Red Casket of the Heart, by Anon. 1829."

A couple stories available online:
West of the Known
James III

[Gloria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Again, the rating system is too broad. This should get a 3.5 or 3.7. But I can't bring myself to give it 4. It's too... all over the place. Certainly creative, a ton of different genres and voices, but some stories just were kind of incoherent almost, hard for me to see the point of them. Others I was surprised I liked, since they were written in a way or took place during a time period I usually don't enjoy reading. I don't know, really. This book is kind of a mixed bag. She's definitely talented, and I'd like to try whatever she writes next but I can't say I 100% got this book or loved it.. But it's unique.

[Elliott Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories brim with potential and are super fast-placed plots often with violent endings (to a fault). Benz has quite a few period pieces set in the Old West, the South pre-Civil War and even England at the time of the separation from the Catholic Church.

The tales that resonated most with me were about broken families and set in the present - Benz's eye for telling details is strongest here, and her ear for dialogue is more often spot on than not.

[stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

way more literary than anticipated! v nice. at first reminded me of borges, in a way. enjoyed some if the middle stories particularly. (a gift from meglet)

[solitaryfossil · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing collection that felt fragmented and somewhat unfinished in several of the stories. This book and I just didn’t get along very well.

[Paolo Latini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chanelle Benz si è formata alla Syracuse, sotto l’egida di Dana Spiotta e di George Saunders, ed è proprio la lezione di Saunders che pare essere messa in pratica nei racconti di “The Man Who Shot Out My Eye is Dead,” che per certi versi sembra essere il libro gemello di “Tenth of December”: lì, Saunders aveva raccolto dieci racconti che fotografavano situazioni in cui si fronteggiavano Bene e Male, e dove il protagonista spesso si trovava a dover operare la sua scelta etica (in un ricorrente e quasi sussurrato riferimento all’etica di Kant), qui, su “The Man Who Shot My Eye is Dead,” Chanelle Benz fa più o meno la stessa cosa e costruisce mondi ad alta densità di efferatezza, popolati di un’umanità in predicato di corruzione, dove i protagonisti vengono descritti proprio nel momento in cui sono chiamati a dover scegliere che tipo di essere umano diventare.
In definitiva i racconti hanno tutto l’aspetto di esercizi stilistici e l’impressione netta è che Chanelle Benz stia prendendo le misure per pesare, calibrare e tarare il suo stile di scrittura e per organizzare il suo universo narrativo. Si passa dagli umori southern gothic e grit di “West of the Known” (un Texas McCarthyano un po' sbiadito) ai salti temporali e geografici tra Beirut e Virginia di “The Diplomat’s Daughter,” per finire nella Louisiana schiavista del 1840 o in un’Inghilterra immaginaria. Molto spesso si nota la tecnica di Saunders: costruire degli universi linguistici e usare quelli per costruire dei mondi narrativi. Chanelle Benz lo fa soprattutto su “That We May All be One Sheepfolde, or, O Saeculum Corruptissimum.” Lo fa bene, ma quel racconto sembra veramente troppo un racconto che avrebbe scritto Saunders e come lo avrebbe scritto Saunders.
Bello, ma niente di eccezionale.

[Sarah Karasek · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's tough for me to choose a star rating for this collection, but the variety of styles Benz uses bumped this up to a solid four. While I wasn't a fan of the twists in two stories in particular (I won't name them because I don't want to spoil anything for readers who might like them more than me), I at least liked all the other stories. "The Diplomat's Daughter" (which I can write nothing about because it opens with a beautifully puzzling first paragraph) and "The Peculiar Narrative of the Remarkable Particulars in the Life of Orrinda Thomas" (framed as the diary excerpts of a freed slave and traveling poet published in 1840) are well worth reading.

My personal favorite is "Adela" which deserves at least 5 stars. It's narrated by a group of children who decide to meddle in the love life of Adela, a beautiful aging outcast, but there's so much more to it. It's framed as a new edition of an 1829 text and uses footnotes that make commentary about fictional translations and editions. The children are inspired by Shakespeare in their meddling. There's more genius going on than I can explain, but it's not at all a difficult read.

In general, the collection examines sexism, racism, and general violence. I don't remember anything graphic, but it may still deserve a trigger warning for insinuation. Benz's ability to inhabit different voices is impressive and dashes any possibility of monotony. I think it's fair to assume that anyone interested in this book will absolutely love at least one story in it (if not all of them).

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this strange collection of stories, maybe half of which or more are historical fictions set in a variety of settings-- one in the South before the Civil War and one after (which also goes West), one in Reformation England, etc. All of these are written in a heightened style that wants to sound the formal note of whatever time we find ourselves in, and even when she's not out of time and place, Benz has an ear for strange phrasing-- in fact, nearly every story has at least one sentence in the first paragraph that doesn't just confuse you because of its content, but also its syntax, making you stop and reconstruct the sentence in your mind to make sense out of it. It's occasionally a cool affect, but it also feels very mannered, as do some of these stories. What punctures these manners, effectively, is the presence of race, as characters-of-color turn up in places you don't usually see them. And it's race that has the effect of reshaping these kind of stories, some of which are relatively familiar in outline and turning them in new directions, or at least revealing new layers to the story. It makes you want to call these "alternative historical fictions," only of course people of color were present in these times and places, even if their presence has not been recorded in literature. Benz corrects that here, and it's really interesting to read, even if the milieu and gambits of these stories isn't exactly my thing.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories are fantastic. Each one is distinctive and creative and dark in its own shiver-down-your-spine way. I enjoyed that there was a variety of characters, ranging in all time periods. Although my two favorites took place in the late West of America, with gunslingers and bandits. All of them lurk within this moral gray area that makes you, as a reader, want to defend the main characters, even if the actions they take are wrong. The first story "West of the Unknown" is unforgiving and violent and leaves you completely shellshocked by its ending. And the last story, "That We May Be All One Sheepfolde" was one of the most absolute brilliant pieces of historical fiction writing I have ever written and it was about twenty pages. It grapples with morality and God and religion and the hurts we carry with us all our lives and what the place of us humans is in a world full of bad people who do careless and hurtful things. You feel for Jerome who wanted a father and didn't know he had one until he saw his head on a pike outside of a ransacked monastery and if that's isn't a brutally beautiful imagery I don't know what is. Overall, I loved all these stories. I loved her style and her diction and the very precise but very different voices she conjured for each story. No two were the same and I loved that, there was no overlap. Each one a dark gem of its own.

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Benz' career got off to a somewhat hyped, rickety start with this collection. It's easy to see why Saunders and Spiotta saw promise in their protege. Yes, her work is tinged with genius—but there are issues. For one, she tries too hard to show off her extensive love of history (which is sort of a plus)—these aren't dull, navel-gazing walking around stories about "feelings" and relationships. Things happen in Chanelle's stories—but at times the sex and violence feel a little gratuitous and pandering.

Genius is a double-edged sword. Even David Foster Wallace sometimes lost control and forgot about the reader. Benz is fearless with sex and gunplay—even hints of incest. It's all fair game as it should be. But her sentences are sometimes clunky; there's too much scenery-chewing cliched dialogue that doesn't advance the story and brings things to a screeching halt; in her mad rush to project toughness, avoid sanctimony and eschew victimhood (she has very exotic family history) there arise plausibility issues. And finally, she has an annoying love of Middle English ("Verily") that makes me want to eat my eyeballs.

Have not read her novel which garnered good reviews—then again, so did this collection. Is she one to watch? Yes. Do I want her to succeed? Yes. Would I read another book of her short stories? Absolutely. She's done far better than I.

[Kathy Piselli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Benz' is an uncompromisingly violent world with few soothing brushstrokes. Each story ends in a wallop, so for me this was not a collection I could read all at once. I did read several stories over again because there is a lot happening in them. Some favorites were "The Peculiar Narrative of the Remarkable Particulars in the Life of Orrinda Thomas," which could be taken as the entire history of slavery in North America, condensed into a few characters and 27 pages. The Westerns were particularly good, though harsh. Benz' ear for the spoken language both old and new is compelling. Here's a snapshot of the expository: "Only Judah, squirming on her lap, could slip under and touch, his fingers reminding with their hot wet that though no longer a wife, she must be a mother. The baby clutched her skirts as if trying to steer her, melting his yellow curls into folds of her heavy black serge. Kissing his hands was enough to make him smile for she was his religion." Most of these are stories of leaving, stories of those left behind, and stories of those who left fearing for those they left behind.

[h · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm conflicted about these stories. On the one hand, I appreciate the fact that the author is not stuck in the contemporary time period; she's telling stories set in various historical eras with unusual characters and points of view. That is a huge plus for me. On the other hand, at least two of the stories made no sense to me, while two others are borderline brilliant. Additionally, one of the stories deals with wartime rape, I think, but I think it made its point very poorly. (Maybe I just didn't get it.) Therefore I'd have to say, the collection was a mixed bag for me. There is also a literary pretension to the style of writing which is consistent throughout all the stories, primarily in the dialogue.

I think for the casual short story reader, some stories here will be accessible, and will be enjoyable, and others simply will not. Just like any other short story collection.

[Mathilde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je lis très très peu de nouvelles, mais j’aime l’idée de pouvoir picorer ces minies lectures. Et celles-ci ont le don d’être très particulières.

Mise à part la dernière, elles se déroulent toute en Amérique du Nord à travers des intrigues totalement différentes, mais ayant pour thème général la violence.
Les ambiances y sont multiples : western / esclavage / église… ce que j’ai trouvé très riche et bien qu’il s’agisse d’un style particulier, j’ai apprécié toutes ces histoires de contes cruels.
Car l’auteur arrive avec une grande facilité à entrer dans la peau de ses personnages dérangés souvent paumés en mal d’amour ou de reconnaissance, elle nous retranscrit leurs histoires dans un registre à chaque fois différent, exercice original et difficile et pourtant parfaitement maîtrisé.

C’est la première publication de cette auteure, je serais curieuse de ses projets écrits.

[fivestarbookreview]

Chanelle Benz, author of The Man Who Shot Out My Eye is Dead, has a predilection for historical fiction. Many of these eclectic stories take place hundreds of years in the past; in the Wild West, on a Southern plantation, in a English monastery. Uneven in voice and tone, Benz’s talent for dialect is often poorly matched with her handling of plot and character. Too many of these stories meander for pages before finding a point. Despite their flaws, each of the stories presents a small window into another place and time, another flawed community. The standout story, “Recognition” takes place in a future where the land had died and violent dust storms bring terror to small communities. The collection is united by an interrogation of violence and an examination of whether unity can emerge in these eternally violent times.

[Marilyn Shea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in a day. The stories were so different from each other, but each is such a complete world. I would get to the end of one story and look up, taking in some air, before plunging into the next. "The Diplomat's Daughter" was one that I read, believing it as it was told to me and later realizing that the person telling the story was telling it in a way that helped her live through what had happened, not as it had actually happened.

These short stories are well articulated and intense. Some of these stories are written in the style of historical texts and are utterly convincing. I am amazed and exhausted by the feeling that while reading them, I became a part of each of them.

[Dan Downing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ten stories from a 'new' author, a woman who has trained and studied for years. What is on offer covers several continents, several centuries and several genres. All are written with a bent toward obfuscation, with a glance to surprise endings---or no discernable endings. Everything is written well, although several are in what might be termed 'dialect.' Violence and cruelty abound.
While it may be true, as the cover blurbs forecast, that a new and formidable talent has arisen, it is also true, I offer, that the talent has yet to ripen. Many of the stories ring hollow, perhaps false.
Those who savor MFA dictates will be more tolerant than I am; I may be more satisfied in another volume or two when the author finds a voice without pretense.

[Marisa Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's impossible for me to give this book less than four stars even as I was put through the ringer while reading it. A collection of short stories where the overarching theme is all the myriad ways in which people can enact violence against each other and themselves, this book is the literary equivalent of watching the remnants of a train wreck. It leaves the reader changed, uncomfortable, emotional, and disturbed. I can't give it less than four stars because it's well written and compulsive and I can't give it five stars because the subject matter is so volatile and brutal and I'm still very much recovering