What do you think?
Rate this book
See Through
By turns electrifying and haunting, the stories in Nelly Reifler's debut collection, now available in paperback, imagine a world where the emotional logic of dreams and childhood fantasies rules our actions.
In the title story, an educated young woman sits behind the glass of a talk booth in a peep show and becomes a different girl for each man who visits. "The Splinter" posits a thorn in a little girl's scalp as the physical locus for a father's wrenching grief and helplessness following his wife's desertion. In "Teeny," an awkward, pubescent girl can't bring herself to perform the simple task of feeding the vacationing neighbors' cats. In "Baby," an infant asks his mother existential questions that are impossible to answer.
Exploring her characters' psyches with the precision of an anthropologist, Reifler illuminates physical urges, crippling fears, stark isolation, and overwhelming, often transgressive desires. Through it all, the author plumbs the deep chasm between expectation and reality with boundless hope, warmth, and wisdom.
In the title story, an educated young woman sits behind the glass of a talk booth in a peep show and becomes a different girl for each man who visits. "The Splinter" posits a thorn in a little girl's scalp as the physical locus for a father's wrenching grief and helplessness following his wife's desertion. In "Teeny," an awkward, pubescent girl can't bring herself to perform the simple task of feeding the vacationing neighbors' cats. In "Baby," an infant asks his mother existential questions that are impossible to answer.
Exploring her characters' psyches with the precision of an anthropologist, Reifler illuminates physical urges, crippling fears, stark isolation, and overwhelming, often transgressive desires. Through it all, the author plumbs the deep chasm between expectation and reality with boundless hope, warmth, and wisdom.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
160 pages, Paperback
First published August 26, 2003
2 people are currently reading
156 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 20, 2008
I like short stories. This is really quirky and sometimes creepy. I enjoyed it, but I knew Jani wouldn't so, I left it in the hotel in Seattle for someone to find. I love the idea of leaving and finding books.
January 27, 2017
Reifler's stories range from the traditional to the offbeat, from the scary to the mundane. It's when she's walking the line between that line of scary and mundane that she's at her best. Mystery--and more specifically the mystery behind our impulse toward violence--is the major motif of the early stories of this collection, which also are among the best.
"Teeny" focuses on a girl who is charged with taking care of the vacationing neighbors' cats--but who for some reason shies away from actually doing it, even as the cats begin to waste away.
"Baby" tells the story of an extremely smart child who calls into question the mother's reason for living. We get the idea that the baby's philosophical dialogue lines are actually in the mom's head. But such does not stop her from reacting in the most horrible of manners.
"Rascal" revolves around a young man who motorbikes around the country, camping out and meeting new people. The idea seems innocent enough, until the rascal discovers that he can use the knife his mother once gave him to gather goods from other campers. While there may not be maliciousness intended, the rascal's inability to discern what the limits of acceptable behavior are is troubling.
The next three stories take a different turn, focusing on death and disease. “Julian” tells the tale of a boy whose father is dying and whose cousin comes to visit and makes explicit how scary that is. “Memoir” is about a village where the plague or some other disease has broken out and to which people fear to travel. The girl at the center of this tale has some strange sexual proclivities as well, which left me a bit befuddled, that combination of wasting away of doctors and townspeople while she's jumping the bones of random older men. “Splinter” is a more traditional piece, telling of a little girl who manages to get a thorn stuck in her head, while vacationing with her divorced father in Greece. The latter is befuddled as to what to do and angry that her mother has saddled him with the child precisely because of things like this. The stories climax involves a dwarf--not the kind of person one reads about often and certainly not, by the end, in such a matter-of-fact way.
“Upstream” puts the metaphor of the salmon swimming upstream to full use. It recounts the tale of a young boy watching his parents' marriage dissolve as his father continues to have various deliances with his college students. The boy becomes fascinated by monsters but also by fish, a memory of his last family vacation to the Northwest.
“The River and Una” also uses a fish metaphor but not with as much success. This story reminded me a bit of some of my own early or poorer work—melodramatic and full of expected troubles: an absent father, a runaway sister, a mom who can't deal with said sister, fights between them, and then a dying sister who has gone too far (or was pulled/pushed too far).
“North Curve” seemed a great set-up for a story but disappointed me in ending too soon. I wanted to know more about this woman who grows up to work as a prostitute near where the brothel where her father died. “Personal Foundations of Self-Forming through Auto-Identifiations with Otherness” discusses philosophical ideas about identity in the form a squirrel who thinks she's a rat, which made me wonder whether I've ever enjoyed a work written from the point of view of an animal. “Summer Job” is about a girl who works at a dirty magazine store owned by a relative for the summer and her phone conversations with a boy she's never met. “Sugar” is the name of a girl's pet that she keeps locked inside a box, a box that her parents want her to get rid of. The trick here is that we never really learn what is in the box.
"Auditor" returns to the writing about the awkward and scary people on the edge, only in this case, the person has actually gone over the edge. The auditor is a woman who dislikes friendly people and who one day can't take it anymore. Her seeming regret for her action suggests that she has perhaps learned to mitigate her tendency to become annoyed.
Finally, the title story revolves around a woman who works at a porn shop. I'm not exactly sure what to call such places, but they are the locations where women perform/strip for customers behind glass. I liked how Reifler narrated this one, with accounts of the different men, but I wasn't sure, in the end, how the stories added up.
"Teeny" focuses on a girl who is charged with taking care of the vacationing neighbors' cats--but who for some reason shies away from actually doing it, even as the cats begin to waste away.
"Baby" tells the story of an extremely smart child who calls into question the mother's reason for living. We get the idea that the baby's philosophical dialogue lines are actually in the mom's head. But such does not stop her from reacting in the most horrible of manners.
"Rascal" revolves around a young man who motorbikes around the country, camping out and meeting new people. The idea seems innocent enough, until the rascal discovers that he can use the knife his mother once gave him to gather goods from other campers. While there may not be maliciousness intended, the rascal's inability to discern what the limits of acceptable behavior are is troubling.
The next three stories take a different turn, focusing on death and disease. “Julian” tells the tale of a boy whose father is dying and whose cousin comes to visit and makes explicit how scary that is. “Memoir” is about a village where the plague or some other disease has broken out and to which people fear to travel. The girl at the center of this tale has some strange sexual proclivities as well, which left me a bit befuddled, that combination of wasting away of doctors and townspeople while she's jumping the bones of random older men. “Splinter” is a more traditional piece, telling of a little girl who manages to get a thorn stuck in her head, while vacationing with her divorced father in Greece. The latter is befuddled as to what to do and angry that her mother has saddled him with the child precisely because of things like this. The stories climax involves a dwarf--not the kind of person one reads about often and certainly not, by the end, in such a matter-of-fact way.
“Upstream” puts the metaphor of the salmon swimming upstream to full use. It recounts the tale of a young boy watching his parents' marriage dissolve as his father continues to have various deliances with his college students. The boy becomes fascinated by monsters but also by fish, a memory of his last family vacation to the Northwest.
“The River and Una” also uses a fish metaphor but not with as much success. This story reminded me a bit of some of my own early or poorer work—melodramatic and full of expected troubles: an absent father, a runaway sister, a mom who can't deal with said sister, fights between them, and then a dying sister who has gone too far (or was pulled/pushed too far).
“North Curve” seemed a great set-up for a story but disappointed me in ending too soon. I wanted to know more about this woman who grows up to work as a prostitute near where the brothel where her father died. “Personal Foundations of Self-Forming through Auto-Identifiations with Otherness” discusses philosophical ideas about identity in the form a squirrel who thinks she's a rat, which made me wonder whether I've ever enjoyed a work written from the point of view of an animal. “Summer Job” is about a girl who works at a dirty magazine store owned by a relative for the summer and her phone conversations with a boy she's never met. “Sugar” is the name of a girl's pet that she keeps locked inside a box, a box that her parents want her to get rid of. The trick here is that we never really learn what is in the box.
"Auditor" returns to the writing about the awkward and scary people on the edge, only in this case, the person has actually gone over the edge. The auditor is a woman who dislikes friendly people and who one day can't take it anymore. Her seeming regret for her action suggests that she has perhaps learned to mitigate her tendency to become annoyed.
Finally, the title story revolves around a woman who works at a porn shop. I'm not exactly sure what to call such places, but they are the locations where women perform/strip for customers behind glass. I liked how Reifler narrated this one, with accounts of the different men, but I wasn't sure, in the end, how the stories added up.
April 9, 2015
With humor, razor insight, and generosity, Nelly Reifler's stories brighten the shadowy corners of life, enlivening misfits and outliers in such a way that we see shared humanity, even as we accept horror and dysfunction. This is prose that'll broaden your inner landscape, give you more room to see characters you might otherwise shy away from. Because her style is often spare, you'll step back from a page and say, "How'd she do that?" She's like a musician; she knows the music exists as much in the spaces as the notes, and she conveys vast amounts of information under, over, and between the words. Luminous and potent.
June 14, 2018
I struggled with what to rate this book; I feel bad about the 2. But there were 14 stories, and I liked 4 or 5 at best.
December 27, 2008
This was my "bathroom book'. I usually leave a book of short stories in my bathroom so when nature calls I have something to read. In any event, this book made me stay in the bathroom much longer than I needed to be. I enjoyed the stories, especially "Personal Foundations of Self Forming Through Auto-Identification with Others". Sure, the story is about a squirrel who wants to be a rat but it was so much more. Everyone in their life has wanted to be someone else and be accepted for who you are all at the same time.
May 25, 2007
Nelly is as good a writer as she is a teacher. These stories are gripping. I was totally gripped.
October 21, 2009
Quietly cunning ... brims with swift, dark precision.
November 25, 2013
There were a few stories that I wasn't too keen on, but a couple I really enjoyed. The highlight was definitely the Lacanian squirrel with an identity crisis.
October 4, 2012
good short read
September 27, 2013
Beautifully written. Short and to the point. The stories are so interesting I can keep re-reading them and never be bored :)
December 15, 2013
This is a collection that I will mull over for awhile. Some of the stories are breathtaking. Others lean to the creepy side. Overall, a very good collection.
June 26, 2007
Beautiful, strange stories.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews