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I Looked Alive: Stories
Acclaimed writer Gary Lutz introduces a new cast of characters in his second wayward fusspots, smart alecks, tank-town boulevardiers, lonely hearts, and underloved, unstable creatures of questionable gender. Desperate for human connection, they listen through walls and engage in such obsessions as collecting hairs left behind by lovers. These 24 passionately and intricately rendered stories secure Lutz's place at the forefront of the contemporary fiction of disaffection.
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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551 people want to read
About the author
Garielle Lutz
16 books186 followersGarielle Lutz is an American writer of both poetry and fiction. Her work has appeared in Sleepingfish, NOON, The Quarterly, Conjunctions, Unsaid, Fence, StoryQuarterly, The Believer, Cimarron Review, 3rd Bed, Slate Magazine, New York Tyrant, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, The Apocalypse Reader (Thunder's Mouth Press), PP/FF: An Anthology (Starcherone Books), The Random House Treasury of Light Verse and in the film 60 Writers/60 Places.
A collection of her short fiction, Stories in the Worst Way, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in November 1996 and re-published by 3rd Bed in 2002 and Calamari Press in 2009. Lutz's second collection of short stories, I Looked Alive, was published by the now-defunct Four Walls Eight Windows in 2003 and republished by Black Square Editions/Brooklyn Rail in 2010. Partial List of People to Bleach, a chapbook of both new and rare early stories (published pseudonymously as Lee Stone in Gordon Lish's The Quarterly) was released by Future Tense Books in 2007. Divorcer, a collection of seven stories, was released by Calamari Press in 2011.
In 1996, Lutz was recipient of a literature grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 1999, she was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.
In 2020, Lutz came out as a transgender woman.
A collection of her short fiction, Stories in the Worst Way, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in November 1996 and re-published by 3rd Bed in 2002 and Calamari Press in 2009. Lutz's second collection of short stories, I Looked Alive, was published by the now-defunct Four Walls Eight Windows in 2003 and republished by Black Square Editions/Brooklyn Rail in 2010. Partial List of People to Bleach, a chapbook of both new and rare early stories (published pseudonymously as Lee Stone in Gordon Lish's The Quarterly) was released by Future Tense Books in 2007. Divorcer, a collection of seven stories, was released by Calamari Press in 2011.
In 1996, Lutz was recipient of a literature grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 1999, she was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.
In 2020, Lutz came out as a transgender woman.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 21, 2007
I Looked Alive is a collection of stories that combines the strange, mundane lives of individuals with sexual perversity and obsession resulting in an overall sentiments of emptiness and fatalism. None of these characters seem to have a preferred sexual orientation nor care to conform to any societal norms about sexuality.
Lutz has a talent for twisting the english language in such a way that it eventually becomes almost an entirely new language of his own. Traditional sentence structure almost completely dissolves in Lutz's writing. Verbs and adjectives interchange and fail to conform to their typical usage. Somehow Lutz is able to do this to a certain extent and still create stories which are readable and make some sense...sorta.
The biggest problem with I Looked Alive is that Lutz's syntax contortion overpowers everything else. Often times, it isn't entirely clear what exactly happenend. While this can sometimes work brillantly, it really holds back alot of these stories. The best stories in this collection come when Lutz momentarily moves away from fucking with language and creates just enough narrative structure and detail to make the story understandable. All other stories feel lacking and almost gimmicky after awhile.
Nevertheless, it was overall interesting and extremely enjoyable at brief moments throughout.
Lutz has a talent for twisting the english language in such a way that it eventually becomes almost an entirely new language of his own. Traditional sentence structure almost completely dissolves in Lutz's writing. Verbs and adjectives interchange and fail to conform to their typical usage. Somehow Lutz is able to do this to a certain extent and still create stories which are readable and make some sense...sorta.
The biggest problem with I Looked Alive is that Lutz's syntax contortion overpowers everything else. Often times, it isn't entirely clear what exactly happenend. While this can sometimes work brillantly, it really holds back alot of these stories. The best stories in this collection come when Lutz momentarily moves away from fucking with language and creates just enough narrative structure and detail to make the story understandable. All other stories feel lacking and almost gimmicky after awhile.
Nevertheless, it was overall interesting and extremely enjoyable at brief moments throughout.
April 10, 2022
"The idea was to marry lightly, not to go overboard or be private about things, just let affections string out as they might."
November 2, 2010
It is a great shame that this book has fallen out of print.* The shame is personal. I feel like it's my fault somehow. Find it used if you can until we all come to our senses.
*This shameful state has now been amended. Buy it, by god, if you have any blood in your veins or bluster in your gut. Read it and know a new world. Here's how some sensible someone describes it:
In his second collection of short fictions, the fiercely original Gary Lutz details a fresh assembly of gravely wayward fusspots, downhearted smart alecks, tank-town boulevardiers, virtuosos of loneliness, underloved lovelies of unstable, contestable gender. Desperate for human contact, Lutz's unforgettable characters listen for noises coming through the walls as well as collect the scraps of hair and skin their lovers have left behind. Written in a tonic prose of singular precision, the twenty-four gorgeously perverse, intensely moving stories of I LOOKED ALIVE place Lutz at the forefront of contemporary fiction's depictors of affection gone awry. From Black Square Editions/Brooklyn Rail
There. Now.
*This shameful state has now been amended. Buy it, by god, if you have any blood in your veins or bluster in your gut. Read it and know a new world. Here's how some sensible someone describes it:
In his second collection of short fictions, the fiercely original Gary Lutz details a fresh assembly of gravely wayward fusspots, downhearted smart alecks, tank-town boulevardiers, virtuosos of loneliness, underloved lovelies of unstable, contestable gender. Desperate for human contact, Lutz's unforgettable characters listen for noises coming through the walls as well as collect the scraps of hair and skin their lovers have left behind. Written in a tonic prose of singular precision, the twenty-four gorgeously perverse, intensely moving stories of I LOOKED ALIVE place Lutz at the forefront of contemporary fiction's depictors of affection gone awry. From Black Square Editions/Brooklyn Rail
There. Now.
July 10, 2008
Gary Lutz is absolutely one of those writers that can write a sentence so powerful and utterly beautiful that you can extract it from the text and hold it to your ear and hear the pain, or beauty or joy screaming from it. That being said his stories are sometimes hard to get through. That is in the sense that there is so much he wants to say, it's almost thrown on the page and you have to sort through it, word, sentence, story, meaning...but it's worth it, it's absolutely worth it.
August 22, 2025
Undoubtedly unique prose but unbearably dry for my taste.
Read
March 21, 2025If you ever want to get absolutely humbled about your own skills just read one single Lutz sentence and watch it ruin your life.
Want to read
January 31, 2021#2
Another night—one is never through enough with one's meal—he called me “sisterfamilias,” then placed a disaffiliating hand over mine.
#10
My father? His gumption went into penciled reckonings of his pension. He went otherwise unexpressed. From him I got my likeliness to tally and retire.
#12
“You bought all my papers,” she got said in a voice that was straining its way upward again from the big, killing, pubertal drop.
#15
She was a worthy opponent of herself. Gray fillings discriminable in the thin teeth during a rare, airy yawn. A depleted comeliness to her face.
#18
But this man, perish the thought, was nobody of mine, though my fingers steal, stole, forever downward everywhere regardless.
#20
They come out of the water, new hair staining their shins. To get them into the house, I tell them I can give birth.
Another night—one is never through enough with one's meal—he called me “sisterfamilias,” then placed a disaffiliating hand over mine.
#10
My father? His gumption went into penciled reckonings of his pension. He went otherwise unexpressed. From him I got my likeliness to tally and retire.
#12
“You bought all my papers,” she got said in a voice that was straining its way upward again from the big, killing, pubertal drop.
#15
She was a worthy opponent of herself. Gray fillings discriminable in the thin teeth during a rare, airy yawn. A depleted comeliness to her face.
#18
But this man, perish the thought, was nobody of mine, though my fingers steal, stole, forever downward everywhere regardless.
#20
They come out of the water, new hair staining their shins. To get them into the house, I tell them I can give birth.
November 23, 2020
It's very written.
August 1, 2007
Poetic but dry.
Read
April 6, 2008i can't put a star-rating on this one because it's in a galaxy of its own. recommended though for anyone interested in proper but utterly unique & compelling style.
May 31, 2008
he's of course insane in the nicest sense of the word, in the vein of robert walser. but, somehow, not insane enough
June 2, 2009
Not as good as his first collection, more of the same and shows little growth as a writer in my opinion.
January 6, 2015
Powerfully worded and quietly poetic. Lutz paints a dark picture of sexuality and suburbia through his words.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews