Hard to Admit, Harder to Escape

by Sarah Manguso

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Poetry, Novels

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Sarah Manguso is the author of ten books, most recently the novel LIARS, a LOS ANGELES TIMES bestseller and a finalist for the Carol Shields Prize and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize.

Her previous novel, VERY COLD PEOPLE, was longlisted for the Wingate Literary Prize, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.

Her other books include a story collection, two poetry collections, and four acclaimed works of nonfiction: 300 ARGUMENTS, ONGOINGNESS, THE GUARDIANS, and THE TWO KINDS OF DECAY.

Her work has been recognized by an American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Rome Prize. Her writing has been translated into sixteen languages.

She grew up in Massachusetts and now lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Mary]

As a whole, pretty damn great.

Here's one of my favorites:
I feel uneasy around a certain acquaintance and decide to solve the problem by spending more time with him. It doesn't help. I initiate a lunch date, then a dinner date. We meet for drinks a few times, but even being drunk doesn't seem to put either of us at ease. By now it's obvious we have a real problem on our hands. We begin sleeping together, but even that doesn't feel right. We move in together. We edit each other's work. Nothing. I like the apartment, but as soon as he walks in the door I stop singing or doing whatever I'm doing and return to the discomfort that is by now familiar.

Whoosh.

[Come Musica]

Tra 3 e 4 stelle. Per adesso ne do tre.
È il meno bello dei suoi tre che ho letto. Ma forse mi aspettavo altro. E l’ho letto con qualche aspettativa di troppo.

[Vincent Scarpa]

The woman does no wrong. The woman is a fucking seer.

[Yoon]

This is a brief, brilliant, peculiar, and singularly depressing book of under 100 pages, told in 81 kaleidoscopic fragments. (This doesn't give away anything you wouldn't figure out in the first two pages.) It doesn't have a plot in the conventional sense, but rather zigs and zags back and forth through time, stitching together vignettes thematically. It tells the story of a woman and her stuttering search for human connection, failed isomorphisms, attempts at manipulation that only skew the results she desires to evoke. Without edging into the territory of horror (like, say, K.J. Parker), the book has an incredibly bleak view of human nature, of our ability to fumble toward each other. The final vignette is heartless, beautiful, and ultimately fatalistic.

[Americanogig]

This book had a very unassuming cover, small and cardboard brown with tiny gold lettering, but the treasure it contained was priceless. I sat reading it at a local coffee shop and had to stop to wipe tears from my eyes a couple times (tears of good laugh-y times). If my friends or I wrote down random thoughts in our head, it would turn out something like this. Be afraid.

[Jennifer]

A small book of very, very short pieces. Most of them brilliant.

[Adam]

I was reading three books at once: A Paris Review, Ross Gay’s Book of Delights, and this once. On the same day I started this book: an essay by Manguso in The Paris Review, Ross Gay referring to Manguso, and then this—which I read in two sittings. Hadn’t heard of her before, but the universe had conspired. I loved it.

[luci_di_libri]

La parte che mi è piaciuta di più è stata la nota della traduttrice. Forse non ho capito il punto

[Austin]

My wife was reading this book, and one morning I picked it up off the table and began reading it. I emerged 45 minutes later having finished it. It's a great collection of short reflections written in a frank, smart, warm, and confidential sort of way. Here's one of many that made me laugh out loud:

"I cannot wait until grace is said to eat a heaping spoonful of applesauce. A girl says, 'We aren't supposed to eat yet.' Does she think I could have stopped myself? Does she think that because I am three years old I am unaware of the price I have already decided I will pay?"

[Meg]

Three and a half stars! On a good day, I'd give it four. I did enjoy this-- I loved the "flash fiction-ness" of it all. Her writing, though, felt more often than not... for lack of a better word... lacking. I loved that her voice felt genuine and honest, though. (I sure "feel" a lot of things, don't I?) She feels "new" to me. Perhaps with time, like a good wine, she will improve.

[Ratesjul]

There are so many fantastic thoughts and reflections and observations in this little volume. I would be quoting whole sections if I tried to say which ones I liked, so I won't. Some beautiful images, some beautiful phrases.

[Melissa]

This was very quick to read and I appreciated that. Flash-fiction, or prose poems, whatever it is, it is all right.

[Kasey Jueds]

Love Sarah Manguso. Brave and startling and absolutely herself. I would read anything she writes.

[martina]

3⭐️ I want to read more by Sarah Manguso

Here are my favorites from this book:

I'm angry at the drawer, which has failed to close again, and I'm angry at the person, who has disappointed me once more. But really I'm angry I consented to believe in carpenter ghosts and that I consented to love an asshole. It was I who committed the real injustices. When I figure that out, I'm so angry I think I'll surely give up, but I do not. I'm too angry. I want to keep myself alive so I can commit further injustices against myself, the self who has already committed such injustices against me.

Our school sends us to Europe, where most of the time we get stoned and lie down in various combinations. I never do lie down with Daniel and regret it all my life. Years later my parents move into a smaller house. While helping them pack I open my boxes of papers and find the journal I wrote that summer in Germany when I wanted to lie down with Daniel. In the journal is a detailed description of how he touched me, what we said to each other, and how it ended. It isn't until I read the pages that I remember it's true.

Eight years ago Nick made us sandwiches before Mike and I went on our hikes, and in our dream, Mike and I would stay the same. Now we three are together again. I have traveled a long way and go upstairs to bed while Mike and Nick talk. A few minutes before the alarm goes off, while I am the deepest sleeper I ever am, a strong hand rubs my shoulder. There stands a clean-faced man with dark hair. Who is it? Yesterday Nick wore a beard. The man's hair is dark like Nick's but he is not Nick. As I awaken I remember things in the order I learned them: my name and who I am, why I am not at home but in a quiet place in a soft bed, why there is a man here in the room with me, why it is not Nick, why it is Mike, why I no longer recognize him.

The entire morning passes but I'm already tired of all the old themes. In the afternoon, still we love and are unloved, still we understand no one, still we and our love will die, still reality is hard to admit and harder to escape, still the essential moments are unexpected yet nothing is new, still we were wrong about the past but the future is about to begin, still things make sense, still there is but one reliance.

[Simona~ pagine_e_inchiostro]

Recensione a cura della pagina Instagram Pagine_e_inchiostro:
Sottovoce é una raccolta di pensieri e memorie, vere e proprie istantanee di momenti vissuti.
Un momento di imbarazzo, un ricordo buffo, un desiderio taciuto, un istante di incomprensione, un fallimento, una scena d’amore: momenti fugaci, apparentemente irrilevanti, ma capaci di fissarsi per sempre nella memoria di chi li ha vissuti in prima persona.
81 momenti individuali e indipendenti, uno per ogni pagina, che ci permettono di vivere, anche solo per poche righe, nella testa di 81 persone differenti.
Il titolo originale, Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape, rende benissimo i sentimenti caleidoscopici e le situazioni ricorrenti della vita di ogni individuo, in cui possiamo riconoscerci e con cui possiamo empatizzare.

Nonostante l’idea di fondo sia nelle mie corde, nonostante alcune istantanee siano di grande impatto, non sono riuscita ad apprezzare del tutto il libro, che viaggia su grandi alti e grandi bassi. Forse mi aspettavo troppo: momenti più memorabili, sentimenti più acuti, vergogne più temibili. Qui si parla invece di veri e propri momenti di vita quotidiana, che però spesso non lasciano il segno. Alla fine di ogni pagina, quasi sempre, mi sono ritrovata a pensare: “E quindi? Qual era il punto?”. E forse il punto non c’era. Forse, semplicemente, é una raccolta di polaroid di vita comune.
Nota positiva del libro é l’attenzione ai dettagli della natura circostante. Il lettore si sente come in un bosco: procede lentamente e in silenzio, attento a tutto, tra paura e stupore, con la sola compagnia di se stesso.

[Jess]

Just dug this set out of a box. It was a good find. 80 stories on 80 pages. Written form the past and into the future. Some made me smile, some made me sad, some feel like I wrote my self. Not because I’m such a good writer, but I remember those moments.

‘The entire morning passes but I am already tired of all the old themes. In the afternoon still we love and are unloved, still we understand no one, still we and our love will die, still reality is hard to admit and harder to escape, still the essential moments are unexpected yet nothing is new, still we were wrong about the past but the future is about to begin, still things make sense, still there is but one reliance ‘

Also quite like the one others have posted:

“I feel uneasy around a certain acquaintance and decide to solve the problem by spending more time with him. It doesn't help. I initiate a lunch date, then a dinner date. We meet for drinks a few times, but even being drunk doesn't seem to put either of us at ease. By now it's obvious we have a real problem on our hands. We begin sleeping together, but even that doesn't feel right. We move in together. We edit each other's work. Nothing. I like the apartment, but as soon as he walks in the door I stop singing or doing whatever I'm doing and return to the discomfort that is by now familiar. “

[Downward]

flash fiction that skews toward tiny moments of epiphany, taking special pains to note the loss of innocence via the revelations that, for example, sometimes grownups are petty. this revelation doesnt mean much to anyone in adulthood because pettiness is such an intrinsic and ubiquitous form of daily adult interaction, but for a child it can be harrowing: we never grow out of this. the book is flush with the dredging of these moments; 81 stories of less than a page each. some are better than others. some are funny. some are a little sad. theyre all pretty thoughtful.

[Alessandro Busi]

Amo le microfinzioni, le narrazioni brevi e brevissime. Queste di Sarah Manguso mi hanno convinto poco. Lo stile asciutto, distante dalla vita è interessante. Cammina su un filo sottile che separa una scrittura minimale da una sciatta, spesso regge, a volte scivola, per esempio nel voler chiudere con una sorta di piccola morale.
Interessanti alcuni sguardi sulle cose, che mettono in luce particolari insoliti. Per chi scrive e non ha idee, potrebbe essere utile per avere degli stimoli a rendere storie le immagini di Manguso.

[M]

Interesting, thought provoking stories. You will have experienced at least one of the vignettes in your life. Others will be foreign. However you will pause to contemplate, time, place, situation. I took my time, because I needed to stop and think about some of the stories. I am looking forward to reading Two Kind of Decay next.

[Amelia Marz]

Picked this up today at a local bookstore not knowing what was inside; it contained a slew of vignettes that interspersed in & out of the protagonists life. It felt raw, heartfelt, and despairing. Quite beautiful though, one that makes me want to read a longer work of Manguso’s.

[Theresa]

I bought this book at a lovely back yard used book sale. It was a foray into a genre I don't ordinarily read - flash fiction.

[Kelsey]

In comparison to her later work which I love, this is flat and unappealing.

[Ayesha Shamsi]

it was stunning . I was enamoured all the way through . Such a good representation of the passage of time and womanhood , life etc . I loved it

[C]

A slim book in 81 short sections; described perfectly as "crystalline recollections of childhood flashpoints." This is peak Manguso i.e. fragmented, genre-bending, incisive, and derisive.

[sosser]

brief and strange snippets and memories.

[Bettie Page]

una raccolta di istantanee intimista.
nitida, delicata.

[Tuesday]

Not all of them land, but what a lovely, and perfectly-sized, book to have encountered.

[Jack Waters]

Good enough to finish, and she is a fine writer, but some of the pieces fell flat. They are flash fiction, so it is a breeze to get through them. The ones that fell flattest to me were the ones short and drab enough to be possible paragraph-long Facebook status updates. If you bought the box of three books of 145 stories, you should definitely read this, but you'll probably like the other two books better than this one.

I did, however, really enjoy the 10th story, because it is about baseball, and actually described the 2012 SF Giants' historic, improbable playoff run. Manguso is a prophet. This book was published in 2007. The story reads, "As we watch on the sofa my friend and I do something we have never done before, and our team wins. In an unprecedented upset they win the next three games. The league pennant is theirs! The World Series in next, and they win the first four games as if it's nothing."

[Kathryn Beck]

This was one of three collections of short stories included in 145 Short Stories in a Small Box, organized by Dave Eggers. Brilliant. Dave Eggers and Deb Olin Unferth are the other two authors in the set.

[Carolynmora]

Written as memoir in tiny little random fragments. Almost crosses line in to poetry - not surprising, author is a poet too.