Say Something Nice About Me

by Sara Schaff

Fiction. Women's Studies. In the twelve stories in this engrossing collection, Sara Schaff introduces us to characters at turning points in their lives; in doing so, she charts the way we take risks or create illusions in the face of the unknown. A newly blended family's vacation is upended by one daughter's mythmaking and another's eagerness to believe her. A young couple on the verge of breaking up take one last trip together, only to have their reconciliation disrupted by uninvited guests. A woman faces accusations of theft by the very people who think they have saved her from a troubled past. In beautiful prose that is sometimes dark, sometimes humorous, Schaff's stories grapple with class, sexuality, and relationships in ways that feel revelatory and yet deeply true. Awkward, flawed, and hopeful, these characters' stories hum with the regrets and desires that drive us sometimes closer to our goals, sometimes heartbreakingly further away.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

184 pages, Paperback

First published November 21, 2016

About the author

Sara is the author of the story collections, The Invention of Love (Split/Lip Press 2020) and Say Something Nice About Me (Augury Books 2016), a CLMP Firecracker Finalist in fiction and a 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist for short fiction. Her writing has appeared in the Yale Review Online, The Belladonna, Joyland, LitHub, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. A graduate of Brown University and the MFA program at the University of Michigan, she has taught at Oberlin College, the University of Michigan, and St. Lawrence University, as well as in China, Colombia, and Northern Ireland, where she also studied storytelling. Sara lives in the North Country of New York State with her husband, the poet Benjamin Landry, and their daughter.

Reviews

[Karin]

"Sara Schaff's story collections, THE INVENTION OF LOVE and SAY SOMETHING NICE ABOUT ME, share a language that is at once straightforward and deeply considered, as well as a landscape that reveals as much about character as it does about geography, ranging from Central and Upstate New York and the Midwest to China, Colombia, and Italy. Generations of characters are examined, many balanced on the precipice where middle-class meets poverty, from youthful, wishing children to mature, meandering adults, and their stories are threaded with themes of hope, disquiet, friendship, envy, solitude, and community. With great care and understanding, Schaff explores childhood loneliness, teenage rebellion, young adult aspirations, adult anxiety—the kind that occurs between having children and peering forward to old age—all within the boundless and hopeful measures of love. In prose that is direct and honest, the stories reach toward strands of emotion buried within or tightly encircling the characters, breathing them alive. This is a breathtaking act, and it is the reason to keep turning the pages." - from my interview with Sara Schaff at Newfound. To read the entire interview, visit: https://newfound.org/current-issue/in...

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous collection, each story full of skill and soul.

[Rachel Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It’s the tiny acts of treachery that speak volumes about our deepest fears and insecurities, and Sara Schaff uses this doctrine to great effect in her debut story collection, SAY SOMETHING NICE ABOUT ME. Characters betray their friends and loved ones in small but meaningful ways: in “Faces at the Window,” a young girl buries her mother’s robe in the forest, an act she later remembers with regret; in “Ports of Call,” a woman steals her ailing father’s journal as a means of hiding a family secret. By and large the characters in Say Something are deeply decent—at least in that they possess enough emotional intelligence to frown upon their own bad habits—and yet, like the rest of us, they are only human. Sometimes an affair must be carried on with the neighbor; sometimes a rabbit hutch must be vandalized and set aflame. Schaff’s characters teem with humanity and longing—they swing toward epiphany, always with a light touch."

My review/interview for MQR:

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this twelve story collection immensely. The stories offer intimate views of families, friends, lovers and even mere acquaintances in a stark, unapologetic and often not rationalized way that makes the reader almost voyeuristic. I am watching these characters live and love, and it is fascinating to do so. In a lesser writer's hand than Schaff's there would be more exploration of the whys of the character's actions and behaviors or, even worse, a vagueness daring the reader to rationalize things or have a need to do so. Schaff let's her characters just be and live which I found to be the greatest gift she could give the reader. This is that rare collection that I will definitely read again and probably more than once.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first story in this collection was not my favorite, but the rest of them were more and more enjoyable. I think the first story felt a bit stiff and unrealistic; I felt like Schaff didn't capture the voice of a child, really, so it felt a little dissonant.

However, her writing pulled me deeper and deeper in. Every character is on the precipice of something new in their life, whether that is good or bad. Each story was melancholy and poignant, and they captured the uncertainty of change.

After the initial bumpiness of the first story, I found myself completely engrossed by this collection. These stories are and sad and funny and heartbreaking and thought-provoking, all at once.

[Melissa T · Rating 3 out of 5]

* I won a copy of this book from a Goodreads Giveaway*

This is an interesting collection of stories. I'm not sure exactly the big picture message of this collection was supposed to be, but for me a theme that stuck out in the stories was that of ghosts. Some of them literal, most of them not. Each story had a ghost of some kind: ghosts of the past, ghosts of strange family dynamics, ghosts of life unlived, of the path not taken, of former friendships.

There are also some recurring characters throughout the collection, but the connection between the first stories they appeared in and the subsequent ones was lost on me.

[Avital · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good story collection.
(This is from Google, to remind me too: A newly blended family's vacation is upended by one daughter's mythmaking and another's eagerness to believe her. A young couple on the verge of breaking up take one last trip together, only to have their reconciliation disrupted by uninvited guests. A woman faces accusations of theft by the very people who think they have saved her from a troubled past.)