When Watched

by Leopoldine Core

Refreshing, witty, and absolutely close to the heart, Core's twenty stories, set in and around New York City, have an other-worldly quality along with a deep seriousness--even a moral seriousness. What we know of identity is smashed and in its place, true individuals emerge, each bristling with a unique sexuality, a belief-system all their own. Reminiscent of Jane Bowles, William Burroughs, and Colette, her writing glows with an authenticity that is intoxicating and rare.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Queer, Contemporary, LGBT, New York, Literary Fiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 9, 2016

About the author

Leopoldine Core is the author of the poetry collection Veronica Bench and the story collection When Watched, which won a Whiting Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. She is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in The Paris Review, PEN America, Apology Magazine, The American Poetry Review, Bomb and The Best American Short Stories, among others. She has taught at NYU and Columbia University.

Reviews

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this in a giveaway!

Leopoldine Core has a way with words. "When Watched" is hands-down the best collection of short stories I've had the pleasure of reading. Wow. I felt so many emotions. Core's writing is poetic, brutally frank, sensitive, and highly entertaining. My favorite story was "The Trip", which made me laugh so many times. "The Trip" reminded me of my parents, and the way they used to bicker on road trips when I was a kid. I also enjoyed "Memory", "Hog for Sorrow", and "Teenage Hate" but truthfully, there wasn't a bad story in the bunch (19 in total). I had such a ball reading "When Watched". I hope Leopoldine Core continues to publish short stories in the future. She is a breath of fresh air. Some stories are sexually graphic but never crass or off-putting. Core's storytelling is honest but never preachy. In stories such as "The Hitch", "Orphans", and "Like Baby" - I felt like a strong connection to the characters. Her characters have a lot of demons and insecurities. Some of them suffer from a broken heart, loneliness, depression, alcoholism, a dead-end job, etc. None of her characters are cookie-cutter or predictable. I'm so glad I got the opportunity to read this underrated gem. It made me smile and proud to be a woman. Core is one smart cookie. I highly recommend it. Enjoy!

[Rachel B. Glaser · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brilliant, provoking, dark, beauty of a book is my favorite book of the year! It comes out on August 16th, 2016. Fans of Joy Williams, Mary Gaitskill, Paula Fox, and Miranda July, must read this collection. It's playful and daring. It's vividly written. Its lines sing with terrible truth and wonderful freedom. The stories explore relationships between characters, and characters' relationships to themselves, their pasts, and the shifting gel of reality. A triumph of feeling! Varied and unique. Leopoldine's debut collection kept me in good company for weeks, and now all I can do is marvel and dream of her next book and her next and her next and her next. Congrats to Leopoldine!

[Chloe Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt like more than other story collections When Watched had a cohesive theme which was affection: wanting it, losing it, what it means. The stories themselves were great to read, I couldn't pick favorites after only having read it once.

[Corey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like if I read one of these stories in a magazine or anthology somewhere, I'd have liked them. But reading them one after the other in a collection like this becomes monotonous; same references (to the Beatles, Satan, etc.), same narrative voice, same types of peoples (roughly a quarter of the stories feature academics and/or writers as their protagonists). Core is a skilled enough writer, but it seems to me she's hesitant to leave her comfort zone.

[Dov Zeller · Rating 4 out of 5]

GR reviewer Patti Cottrell puts it brilliantly when she describes Core's first book of short fiction "uncomfortable, sexy, repellent, funny & wise..."

I don't know how it happened that I've found myself reading quite a few short story collections these last few weeks. I am not always particularly fond of the form of the short story, but I tend to think people who are entrancing writers of short fiction are, in some sense, magicians. Philosophers and poets all at once. There is something so meandering and ineffable about what makes a short story work. It's not about narrative through line or character, but about fracture, dissonance, longing, emotional truth and other kinds of truth distilled and proffered (sometimes with tenderness, sometimes with a glittering smack) --the ability to observe or reveal, raucously or carefully or stingily, what characters want and what they fear, and why they want what they want and why they fear what they fear, or the despair of not knowing or being able to make sense of any of the above...and how desire and fear nestle into each other in moments of battering isolation, or intimacy, or near intimacy, or something mistaken for intimacy (or how they claw at each other's already worried lines.)

The stories in this book are intelligently structured and yet meandering in a way that feels honest and true to life. I was sometimes disappointed with a certain carelessness in the writing, and yet, each story was surprising in a way that I relished and admired. The characters felt vulnerable and real, but always complex and in some way powerful. Or, there is none of the objectification that comes with pity. There is respect for the struggles--individual and relational--that the protagonists in each story face. And there is a beautiful acknowledgment of the daily odyssey of relationality. Always dynamic, always rickety, sometimes robust, but even then, one is moving along in a boat with a few holes--maybe the water will enter slowly, languorously, and lovers or friends or siblings...will be able to bail it out. Or, maybe a crushing swell will come rushing in. Hmmm, not sure about how deftly I handled that metaphor. But hopefully it makes enough sense?...Perhaps here I should offer a quote from the book.

"It's not her creaking ceiling that she fears or the shadows that have begun pooling on the floor. Because she is no longer in the room. She's in a canoe with a hole in it. She watches the water pour in..." (79) from Chubby Minutes

I can't say this book is exactly my kind of thing, but I'm really glad I got it out of the library (I don't recall how I heard about it.) There is a kind of anti-wisdom in here that feels more like wisdom than wisdom itself. We are all struggling to understand who we are and who we are across form, and that struggle is ever-shifting, as are we, in every moment. And so how can wisdom itself be static? What is wisdom if it only helps us see ourselves as we are? Does it matter? And if so, why? How? And yet, even in the constant shifting of our social and emotional worlds, there are things that remain (frustratingly?) fixed in place--certain patterns of behavior, certain influences that color and sometimes confine the way we read our interactions, certain obstacles that make it hard for us to feel safe in or to seek safety in connection.

But what this book does is also to expand the idea of intimacy so that it holds moments that might look, at first glance, as exclusion, rejection, and fracture. All the stories in here in some way reinterpret intimacy as that which happens...(More on this if I can find a way to be more articulate on the subject.)

Here are a few quotes from the New Yorker review, which is quite lovingly written.

"When Watched, Leopoldine Core’s first collection of short stories, dwells in the realm of the sparkling mundane, the type of human matter that is invitingly recognizable, the type of matter that you yourself have participated in or observed. Written exclusively in the third person and unfolding almost in real time, Core’s stories have a voyeuristic quality, like peering through the windows of a ground-floor apartment as you walk by...

"But because these stories choose not to depict their characters undergoing change or taking decisive action, there can be a loose, somewhat arbitrary quality to what the reader is shown. Where there is friction, it does not necessarily spark conflict; where there is desire, it fizzles or is crushed or burns silently in secret."
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/bo...

And here a few quotes from the book:

"Next she stood at the stove brewing espresso in a small steel pot, then went straight back to bed and sipped from her mug, a brown-tone afghan up over her shoulders. She watched hours of reality TV, which felt sleazy. This is the pornography of our lives, she thought. (22) from Hog for Sorrow

"Ava smiled embarrassedly. Pink hues flooded to her cheeks. Since getting sober, she felt skinned, tender as a teenager." (29) from The Underside of Charm

"Joan strode right in with a cheery show of confidence that made her daughter tense. Cindy distrusted her mother's smile." (113) from Teenage Hate

[Bethany (bookish.bethany) · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Watched: Stories came to me at the perfect time; lately, I've loved reading collections of short stories...and Core's did not disappoint. The short stories focused on relationships, personal philosophy, and personal suffering.

Orphans, When Watched, Teenage Hate, and The Trip were by far my favorites; once it's August, it's worth picking up When Watched: Stories for these four short stories alone! I'm thankful to Penguin Books for sending me an advanced copy to read almost two months before this collection will be released!

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of "When Watched" through Penguin in exchange for my honest review. Thanks to Penguin Books for the opportunity!

By the end of the final story, I could tell that Ms. Core writes from the depths of her own life. As a writer myself, I could feel her struggles, her fears, her past, her desires, and more in each of her characters. Some of the stories are just "shots" in that they're a few pages long and help to transition between the larger stories. Oftentimes it's hard for me to switch to brand new characters so fast, but I NEVER felt that way when transitioning between each story in "When Watched"... Core knows how to instantly write characters that feel authentic, which is often a struggle when writing short stories.

I had tagged a few parts where the prose seemed slightly reaching too far and over-written, but to me that's just a tiny mark signaling Ms. Core's young voice as a writer, and it didn't detract from how I felt about the overall collection. With that said, there were also lines I tagged as being absolutely poignant. She definitely has a gift.

Core's longer stories were some of my favorites (Historic Tree Nurseries, The Trip, The Hitch, and Paradise). I also appreciated the amount of diversity and LGBTQ+ presence in these stories. As a member of this community, I can speak first hand about the lack of representation in literature, so it was refreshing to be able to read stories that incorporate these characters.

While many of the characters in Core's stories are dealing with their stress, confusion, identity, past traumas, etc,... I have to say that my absolute favorite piece in "When Watched" was actually when Core focused on the relationship between a pair of twin sisters in Like Baby. I felt so strongly about them that I'd have kept reading if somehow their story had turned into a novel.

Overall, I'm very excited for Ms. Core. She's got a hand for relatable, raw, earthy, genuine prose, and there will be great things ahead for her.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love short stories and this book did not disappoint! The characters and storylines are interesting, complex and genuine. The book handles some difficult and "risqué" topics and I loved how deeply the author went into some of these worlds with just a few pages of a story. Excellent and quick read I would highly recommend.

[Katie Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The way Leopoldine Core writes LGBTQ* characters is really refreshing. It's nice to see more representation in literature that isn't merely a novelty or a "token" side character to make a group seem more diverse.

I was impressed by what she was able to do with so little. I feel like short stories rarely allow enough time for much character development but hers really resonated with me and I felt a connection to them.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed these.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book puts Leopoldine Core with fellow authors like Amelia Gray and Marie Helene-Bertino, whose stories make me fall in love again with the weirdness of the world. It's hard to summarize a book of short stories, except that I want everyone in my immediate circle to read these stories and feel the things I felt while doing so.

[Sarah E · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most satisfying short story collections I have ever read. Core gets straight to the heart of a feeling without piling on the naïve corniness. No bells and whistles here, just good, solid, enticing writing.

[Chloé Caldwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book in a long time I wanted to read as soon as I woke up in the morning. (I'm a night reader.) I'm just sad it's over. Such realistic characters and moments, a subtle and understated exploration of the ways we hurt and love and hate each other. I'm a huge fan.

[Patrick Cottrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is stunning. Not many people can channel Jane Bowles. In fact, I can think of two: Sheila Heti, and now Leopoldine Core. Her stories are uncomfortable, sexy, repellent, funny & wise.

[Bridie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't believe how much I loved this. It was the weirdest and most wonderful book. All the stories truly captivated me and taught me something.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly readable collection of short stories. I love the author's writing style and she is able to convey so much in such limited space. These characters felt real and fleshed out, even when their stories were only a few pages long. My only beef is that the themes started to feel the same after a while, but I do think that's the point of this collection.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Those two stars might be missing solely due to my perpetual fatigue when reading about aimless skinny artistic women trying to grow up in NYC. I also partially blame this fatigue for making me recoil at the last two stories, tongue-in-cheek Writer's Life anecdotes that, to me, detracted from the collection's wholeness.

That being said, there's something really, really compelling about Core's stories' chattiness and candor, and every few stories she delivers a line that makes my aimless Midwestern fat artistic female heart spaz up, namely:

"I don't get why artists still move here," she said.
"Because," Laurel said, "they want to drink with other smart, disappointed people." She raised her mug. "What?" (from The Hitch)

AND:

"Even in the heat of her love she could feel the devil peering, waiting to enter her. The devil is blankness, she thought, hating what she contained. It was why she didn't want to do acid. Evil was too close. It lived in her cells and yearned to sing." (from Pleasure Kid)

"It was the way she wished she felt in the morning but only felt at night, full of intelligence and curiosity. Not optimistic--not at all--just focused and hungry and on a path." (also from Pleasure Kid)

I MEAN, DAMN. I'm keeping tabs on you, Leopoldine Core, and also stealing your name for a character.

[Hillary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book I've read that was a collection of short stories and I was extremely pleased. Each story had you invested in the characters and relating the scenes to your own life. I was impressed with the writing on how it was straight to the point and of course, entertaining. Thank you to Penguin Books for sending me an advanced copy.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the writing was decent but this book didn't appeal to me much. I didn't care for the characters and I found it hard to care about what was going on in the stories. I liked the final story the best of the lot.

I won this book in a goodreads first-reads giveaway.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

(This is a hard book for me to rate with a number of stars - I didn't love it on my first read of it, but I felt compelled to read it again so there was clearly something there. Some of the stories didn't do much for me, but the writing is overall very good and the stories that worked for me really worked. 3.5 stars, rounding up?)

Despite it coming highly recommended from a close friend, I found myself feeling sort of resistant to this book of 19 short stories at first. I think partly it was that I'd just read another collection of stories (Public Library and Other Stories by Ali Smith) and had very much enjoyed their mostly-first-person narratives, and the fact that this book is narrated in the third person initially felt flat, especially in the first story, where I found myself impatient with reading about what the characters looked like. Also, this book felt quite bleak: we see its characters in a whole lot of moments of self-hate and sadness and stasis, and I was feeling bleak enough myself before I started reading. But as I kept making my way through it, Core's style grew on me. I can see why she has a back-cover blurb from Marie Calloway; these stories and the ones in Calloway's what purpose did i serve in your life feel like they inhabit a similar sort of space populated by characters struggling with self-doubt and insecurity and want/need and the dynamics of dealing with other people. When I finished the book I read it again, and I liked it more on my second read—maybe because I knew what I was in for.

There is a lot in this book about being young and feeling stuck in your circumstances, and also a lot about being a writer and feeling stuck in your work, and also a lot about being human and feeling stuck in your self/in your desires, but there are also stories with a sense of possibility. In my favorite story, Historic Tree Nurseries, a queer couple consisting of a younger woman and an older woman drive to Ohio to adopt a dog: there is a lot of tension, but the ending is a moment of something like grace.

Even in the stories I liked less, there were a whole lot of good sentences/phrases: someone asks a character what it's like being a teenager, and her response is that "Everyone wants what you have so they try to control you" (17). Another character is "addicted to her own charm" (29). Someone thinks about how she "hates the way people in her neighborhood seem to lecture each other on dates" (78). When two characters get on a plane after a series of stressful experiences, there's this, which I like a whole lot:

And it was a surprising relief to enter the familiar capsule, to know that now nothing was expected of them. Even the lift-off was pleasant, easy to succumb to. They simply sat there, letting the rumbling machine have them, then the sky. (102-103)

And there is something really satisfying about a lot of the dialogue, which feels very funny and true, like this conversation between a pair of best friends in "Another Breed":

Cory could have smiled or sobbed but did neither. "Am I a needy person?"
"Yes."
"Am I the neediest person in your life?
"No. You're just the most willing to express it." (48)

[Kasey Jueds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Subtle and lovely, often sad, often funny, with beautifully-drawn characters. Some of the very shortest stories (2-3 pages) felt a bit slight compared with the longer ones, which seemed as rich and deep as little novels. I especially loved "The Trip" and "Historic Tree Nurseries" and "Paradise." Leopoldine Core's ability to make believable, lovable-but-not-always-likable characters of all ages really struck me - the older middle aged couple in "The Trip" and the older of the two women in "Historic Tree Nurseries" are as real and sympathetic as the very young characters that inhabit many of the other stories. I hope she'll write a novel...

[Sophie Caligiuri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these stories are fantastic. Some are utterly bland and completely lack oomph. Some could’ve been cut entirely, some I’ll really remember. An interesting concept to frame a story around: the sensation of watching others and the ways we are watched. Felt a little self congratulatory that all the characters were writers, but I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m just bitchy. Core does really know how to write last lines.

[Amber Chase · Rating 4 out of 5]

Revelation of the human psyche.
Loved the amount of focus on women, the realities of the human mind and mundanity.

[Justine · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5! Easy breezy read! But every character was secretly a writer?

[Navya Yagalla · Rating 5 out of 5]

devoured this 🍊

[Jessica K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great writing, good character development, thoughtful ideas - I just didn’t connect with this collection personally.

[Chris Naish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable book of short stories. I eagerly await Core's next book.

[Cristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some beautiful prose and short stories on relationships and identity.

[Celeste Deliyiannis · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Sarah Burnley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a poignant and moving collection of stories! I saw bits of myself in each of Core’s imperfect characters. The desire for more than a typical life is, after all, a widely shared aspect of the human condition. My favorites were When Watched and George Harrison and the End of the World. I’m giving this four stars because a few of the stories I found much less engaging.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
I absolutely loved every story in this book - a beautiful collection that really captures and illuminates every day experiences and emotions