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Turf: Stories
Through her three story collections and two novels, Elizabeth Crane’s singular literary vision has created worlds of characters standing boldly in the face of their complicated circumstances. Blazing through states, cities, towns, continents, Crane fearlessly pivots from micro to macro, humor to tragedy, past to present, mixing an off kilter sensibility with a heartbreaking reality, guiding us into the fringed and often fantastical lives of her characters. And that has never been truer than in her new collection, Turf.
The end of the world as seen through a young couple in Brooklyn, who find a baby in a bucket on their front step; a group of geniuses who meet every Wednesday, able to unlock all the secrets of the universe except for the unknowable mystery of love; a woman and her dog walker whose friendship is uprooted by an incident at the park; these are dark, intriguing vistas explored in Crane’s glowing collection. For as places change, and people come and go, these stories in Turf remind us that it is the unchanging nature of the human heart that connects us all.
The end of the world as seen through a young couple in Brooklyn, who find a baby in a bucket on their front step; a group of geniuses who meet every Wednesday, able to unlock all the secrets of the universe except for the unknowable mystery of love; a woman and her dog walker whose friendship is uprooted by an incident at the park; these are dark, intriguing vistas explored in Crane’s glowing collection. For as places change, and people come and go, these stories in Turf remind us that it is the unchanging nature of the human heart that connects us all.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
208 pages, Paperback
Published June 13, 2017
14 people are currently reading
450 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Crane
37 books131 followersElizabeth Crane is the author of two novels We Only Know So Much (now a major motion picture) and The History of Great Things (Harper Perennial) and four collections of short stories: When the Messenger Is Hot and All This Heavenly Glory (Little, Brown) and You Must Be This Happy to Enter (Akashic Books), and Turf (Counterpoint). Her work has been adapted for the stage by Steppenwolf Theater and featured on NPR's Selected Shorts. She is a winner of the Chicago Public Library 21st Century Award.
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May 28, 2017I am leaving this unrated as I have only made it through the first four stories. Finding the format, the style and content just not working for me. Just seems so repetitious.
June 24, 2017
Turf: Stories by Elizabeth Crane
Soft Skull Press: 6/13/17
eBook review copy; 208 pages
ISBN-13: 9781619029347
Turf: Stories by Elizabeth Crane is a very highly recommended collection of twenty-two short stories. With an eye for detail, Cranes demonstrates sometimes matter-of-fact, sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes tongue-in-cheek observations. The stories included may be lists or observations or short stories or brief glimpses into a life. Although a few were not quite winners for me, the collection was excellent when considered as a whole. The stories can be loosely organized into themes as you read, which begs you to compare them. The writing is quite good and all the stories flowed smoothly and held my interest.
Contents:
Everywhere, Now: Crane journeys from city or state or continent (Rome, Oklahoma, Seattle, Australia, Nevada, Idaho, etc.) sharing a commonplace, specific event that happens during the same moment in time. "In Rome, a woman who won a prestigious art fellowship falls in love with a local.... Somewhere in the middle of Oklahoma, a UPS guy delivers a package... In Seattle, a barista... In Australia, a woman’s house just washed away, she watched it from a tree."
The Genius Meetings: Geniuses meet to talk with their own kind. "On the first Wednesday of the month we meet at one of our homes to discuss our achievements and share our profound and original thoughts." "We meet to congratulate ourselves but also to purge ourselves. We meet to share things we cannot share with you."
Star Babies: An imagined future expansion of the current social media tabloid culture is explored. "First the star babies took over the state of California. Star babies multiplied rapidly in Los Angeles, slowly pushing out all the other babies, out into the Valley and as far east as Joshua Tree."
Roosters: Stream of consciousness chronicling a woman's search through a store. "I am pretty sure a bag of kettle corn or two is just what I need. I’ll just get three. Because today I am going to be kind to myself. That is what the books say I should do and so that is what I will do. I will start by treating myself to whatever I want. Here I come, fancy cheese."
Here Everything’s Better: A woman focuses on a tall woman she seems to repeatedly see while shopping.
Some Concerns: A list of fears, large and small. "I am afraid that this shirt does not go with this sweater. I am afraid that my outfit does not match. I am afraid that my outfit is too matchy-matchy."
Where Time Goes: A rambling discussion of the fluid nature of time "...if you look for it, it might turn up in places you wouldn’t have much reason to think about. A lot of this time was left behind by the former owners of this house, all of whom eventually died there. These people did the best they could with their time, but they didn’t know the truth..."
Looking: A list of what the author likes looking at.
All the Wigs of the World: "Bigwigs are everywhere, all around us. If you are the biggest wig in one world, you can be sure there is another world with a bigger wig than you. If you are not the biggest wig in your world, there is still a good likelihood that there is a smaller wig than you."
Mr. and Mrs. P Are Married: The life of two people who eventually have a histrionic relationship is chronicled.
Best Friends Seriously Forever: Two fourteen year old girls who are best friends, go through a traumatic experience.
Old Friends: Two longtime friends get together in New York.
Justin Bieber’s Hair in a Box: "Justin Bieber’s hair is in a box on your dresser, a gift for your niece..."
Stella’s Thing: We follow Stella through a time in her life involving her tattoos. "Stella had two tattoos: a bee on each clavicle, bee-sized. It hurt when she got them."
Notes for an Important American Story: Notes highlighting not the story as much as the self-importance of an author of literary fiction as the story is conceived. "This is a story about a man whose heart is large but full of rage. Or just angst. Or just malaise. Something like that."
Heroes: A six-year-old boy makes a unlikely superhero out of Bob Brown, a disagreeable man who saved a child from getting hit by a bus.
Turf: "This story takes place in the large Midwestern city of Hicago, which as you are surely aware, does not even exist, much of it not existing at a dog park very close to the intersection of Hackhawk and Heaver, which is also made up." The two main characters are dog walker Hulie and the dog owner Helizabeth.
Video: "We did not exist before now. We are young and nameless and our skin is unblemished and our hair is just like this and we keep our faces blank, always."
Wind: On the last day of her life, a grandmother wakes up to discover that she has gone bald overnight.
We Collect Things: "Our deal is we collect things. The only requirement for membership is a collection of one thousand things. More is fine. More is better. Our preference is for collections of just one type of thing, but we are not exclusive in this way."
Today in Post-Apocalyptic Problems: A post-apocalyptic story where a couple finds a baby in a bucket on their doorstep.
Notes for A Dad Story: Another window of insight into the framework of creating a story.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Soft Skull Press.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2017/0...
Soft Skull Press: 6/13/17
eBook review copy; 208 pages
ISBN-13: 9781619029347
Turf: Stories by Elizabeth Crane is a very highly recommended collection of twenty-two short stories. With an eye for detail, Cranes demonstrates sometimes matter-of-fact, sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes tongue-in-cheek observations. The stories included may be lists or observations or short stories or brief glimpses into a life. Although a few were not quite winners for me, the collection was excellent when considered as a whole. The stories can be loosely organized into themes as you read, which begs you to compare them. The writing is quite good and all the stories flowed smoothly and held my interest.
Contents:
Everywhere, Now: Crane journeys from city or state or continent (Rome, Oklahoma, Seattle, Australia, Nevada, Idaho, etc.) sharing a commonplace, specific event that happens during the same moment in time. "In Rome, a woman who won a prestigious art fellowship falls in love with a local.... Somewhere in the middle of Oklahoma, a UPS guy delivers a package... In Seattle, a barista... In Australia, a woman’s house just washed away, she watched it from a tree."
The Genius Meetings: Geniuses meet to talk with their own kind. "On the first Wednesday of the month we meet at one of our homes to discuss our achievements and share our profound and original thoughts." "We meet to congratulate ourselves but also to purge ourselves. We meet to share things we cannot share with you."
Star Babies: An imagined future expansion of the current social media tabloid culture is explored. "First the star babies took over the state of California. Star babies multiplied rapidly in Los Angeles, slowly pushing out all the other babies, out into the Valley and as far east as Joshua Tree."
Roosters: Stream of consciousness chronicling a woman's search through a store. "I am pretty sure a bag of kettle corn or two is just what I need. I’ll just get three. Because today I am going to be kind to myself. That is what the books say I should do and so that is what I will do. I will start by treating myself to whatever I want. Here I come, fancy cheese."
Here Everything’s Better: A woman focuses on a tall woman she seems to repeatedly see while shopping.
Some Concerns: A list of fears, large and small. "I am afraid that this shirt does not go with this sweater. I am afraid that my outfit does not match. I am afraid that my outfit is too matchy-matchy."
Where Time Goes: A rambling discussion of the fluid nature of time "...if you look for it, it might turn up in places you wouldn’t have much reason to think about. A lot of this time was left behind by the former owners of this house, all of whom eventually died there. These people did the best they could with their time, but they didn’t know the truth..."
Looking: A list of what the author likes looking at.
All the Wigs of the World: "Bigwigs are everywhere, all around us. If you are the biggest wig in one world, you can be sure there is another world with a bigger wig than you. If you are not the biggest wig in your world, there is still a good likelihood that there is a smaller wig than you."
Mr. and Mrs. P Are Married: The life of two people who eventually have a histrionic relationship is chronicled.
Best Friends Seriously Forever: Two fourteen year old girls who are best friends, go through a traumatic experience.
Old Friends: Two longtime friends get together in New York.
Justin Bieber’s Hair in a Box: "Justin Bieber’s hair is in a box on your dresser, a gift for your niece..."
Stella’s Thing: We follow Stella through a time in her life involving her tattoos. "Stella had two tattoos: a bee on each clavicle, bee-sized. It hurt when she got them."
Notes for an Important American Story: Notes highlighting not the story as much as the self-importance of an author of literary fiction as the story is conceived. "This is a story about a man whose heart is large but full of rage. Or just angst. Or just malaise. Something like that."
Heroes: A six-year-old boy makes a unlikely superhero out of Bob Brown, a disagreeable man who saved a child from getting hit by a bus.
Turf: "This story takes place in the large Midwestern city of Hicago, which as you are surely aware, does not even exist, much of it not existing at a dog park very close to the intersection of Hackhawk and Heaver, which is also made up." The two main characters are dog walker Hulie and the dog owner Helizabeth.
Video: "We did not exist before now. We are young and nameless and our skin is unblemished and our hair is just like this and we keep our faces blank, always."
Wind: On the last day of her life, a grandmother wakes up to discover that she has gone bald overnight.
We Collect Things: "Our deal is we collect things. The only requirement for membership is a collection of one thousand things. More is fine. More is better. Our preference is for collections of just one type of thing, but we are not exclusive in this way."
Today in Post-Apocalyptic Problems: A post-apocalyptic story where a couple finds a baby in a bucket on their doorstep.
Notes for A Dad Story: Another window of insight into the framework of creating a story.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Soft Skull Press.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2017/0...
December 24, 2020
3.5 rounded down. Some very fine stories; other were a bit flaccid.
February 15, 2018
I enjoyed this collection of delightfully odd short stories. I picked it up after reading an excerpt of the longest story, "Today in Post-Apocalyptic Problems", and needing to know what happened next. The rest of the story delivered just what I was hoping for, an exploration of family dynamics in a world that's fallen apart.
Many of the stories feature some form of off-kilter reality. Some are wildly surreal, like "Star Babies", in which celebrities or babies of celebrities (the story isn't hung up on the exact details) somehow take over and become the entire population of the United States. Others are closer to the familiar: "Here Everything's Better" blends the mundane experiences of grocery shopping and vague discontent with the weirdness of discovering someone living in a store's bulk foods aisle.
Crane uses lists frequently within stories, or builds stories entirely around them. "Some Concerns" is a litany of fears that starts with "I am afraid that this shirt does not go with this sweater" and escalates from there. "Everywhere, Now" opens with a series of snapshots of what people around the world are doing, but then the narration loses the thread in a meditative and amusing way. Meta techniques like a narrator struggling to control the story also appear several times in the collection, most emotionally in the attempt to resolve parent issues in "Notes for a Dad Story". (Where possible, I've linked to online versions of stories, which sometimes differ from the versions appearing in the book.)
As with most collections, I connected more with some pieces than others, but the ones I liked best, I liked quite a lot. I recommend TURF to other readers drawn to stories that play around with styles and formats.
Many of the stories feature some form of off-kilter reality. Some are wildly surreal, like "Star Babies", in which celebrities or babies of celebrities (the story isn't hung up on the exact details) somehow take over and become the entire population of the United States. Others are closer to the familiar: "Here Everything's Better" blends the mundane experiences of grocery shopping and vague discontent with the weirdness of discovering someone living in a store's bulk foods aisle.
Crane uses lists frequently within stories, or builds stories entirely around them. "Some Concerns" is a litany of fears that starts with "I am afraid that this shirt does not go with this sweater" and escalates from there. "Everywhere, Now" opens with a series of snapshots of what people around the world are doing, but then the narration loses the thread in a meditative and amusing way. Meta techniques like a narrator struggling to control the story also appear several times in the collection, most emotionally in the attempt to resolve parent issues in "Notes for a Dad Story". (Where possible, I've linked to online versions of stories, which sometimes differ from the versions appearing in the book.)
As with most collections, I connected more with some pieces than others, but the ones I liked best, I liked quite a lot. I recommend TURF to other readers drawn to stories that play around with styles and formats.
June 25, 2024
Part memoir, part short story collection, and part thinly-veiled memoirs masquerading as short stories. Despite my maybe not liking all of this, one thing that I do really appreciate is how incredibly distinct Elizabeth Crane’s voice is. Every single piece in here felt like something only she could have written, for better or for worse. There is a tendency to list things throughout and the narrative style is often very steam of consciousness, which was both interesting and also boring (I can only read so many pages of just things and disjointed ideas being listed before I start to stray a little bit. I’d say at least half of the stories in here were about her or her husband or her parents in one way or another—possibly more—which did make it feel incredibly cohesive but also a little repetitive. The collection starts with “Everywhere, Now” which is a series of sentence or to vignettes that devolve into just one woman’s (Elizabeth’s) perspective in a pretty interesting way. “The Genius Meetings” is the other style of Crane’s which is an interesting, but not always effective, use of the we narrator. The story was funny and sometimes poignant, but those darn lists! Another memoir/short story is “Here Everything’s Better” which was a story about a lack of community when moving and a very, very tall woman. “Some Concerns” was easily one of my favorites here despite it falling directly into the aforementioned category of lists, but the character in the story *cough* Elizabeth *cough* just really came to life in a sometimes rather relatable way. The story that caused the most visceral emotional reaction in me was “Mr. and Mrs. P Are Married:” an endearing love story about two very complicated and imperfect people. The penultimate story, “Today in Post-Apocalyptic Problems” was ANOTHER allegory for her own marriage, but this time with a sci-fi twist that despite not being one I enjoyed a whole lot, I thought was well done. I’m still semi-interested in readying more by Elizabeth Crane in the future since I am impressed that her style is so incredibly distinct that the collection felt so singular, but there was enough in here I wasn’t sold on that this is by no means a new favorite.
October 8, 2017
From the absurdity of celebrity to the inconveniences of the apocalypse, the author writes characters who search their communities and the world at large for assurance that they’re going to be okay. Life, in Crane’s work, is strange and plagued with worry, but it is also strangely beautiful. Not every author is brave enough to own up to the autobiographical subtexts of her fiction. But Crane peeks in, acknowledging her reader. “It’s still me,” she writes, “you know that, right? It’s always me.”
Read more of my interview with Elizabeth Crane at The LA Review of Books .
Read more of my interview with Elizabeth Crane at The LA Review of Books .
September 27, 2019
This is a book of lists. That is not to say it is not good—no, in fact, its repetitive nature and its amplification of the mundane, the intricacies of human existence, are what make Turf stand out among short stories.
Like many contemporary writers now, Crane focuses on the minutia of life and what makes us tick, and when she cuts, shredding at our idiosyncrasies with a knife, she cuts deep and sharp and it hurts to the quick. Her writing is simple and plain and satiric in a blow.
Maybe it was good, but it made me drift off when I got to Turf, the central story. So I don't know what that says.
Like many contemporary writers now, Crane focuses on the minutia of life and what makes us tick, and when she cuts, shredding at our idiosyncrasies with a knife, she cuts deep and sharp and it hurts to the quick. Her writing is simple and plain and satiric in a blow.
Maybe it was good, but it made me drift off when I got to Turf, the central story. So I don't know what that says.
January 15, 2024
if I was in a fiction workshop I would say that this was too much style and not enough substance and then I’d pickyback off someone else who made the same point in a much more eloquent and specific way. I liked “Mr and Mrs P” and “Problems in a Post Apocalyptic World.” perhaps tellingly, these were really the only two that were focused on storytelling and not a weird, half-baked literary gimmick for teeth.
February 24, 2018
I had high hopes for this one, as When The Messenger is Hot is one of my favorite books, but it just didn't do it for me. There were a few stories that stood out as awesome, like the Star Babies one and the apocalyptic Brooklyn one. And Crane's voice is still funny, quirky, and sharply observant. This one just didn't speak to me the way most of her other work has.
January 17, 2018
There's some really clever stuff in here, and some awkwardly poignant moments, and some great writing. Sometimes the more experimental cleverness went on a bit too long for me, but overall, I really enjoyed this collection.
September 7, 2017
This book was uneven and weird, but I really liked the post-acopalyse story towards the end. Didn't like the two stories that consisted of lists at all.
January 25, 2020
I really enjoyed Today in Post-Apocalyptic Problems, Star Babies, and Mr and Mrs P are Married. The rest of the stories were more style than substance.
October 8, 2021
The star babies were my favourite. Very cool stories.
February 2, 2025
star star star star star star star star star star star star star star star star star star star star star star star star …
March 3, 2022
I loved this book so much. I want to read her other books. These stories were over the top at times, hilarious, horrifying, and everything in between. Wonderful.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews