Tell Me 30 Stories

by Mary Robison

Chosen from Robison's three long-unavailable collections, along with four new stories, Tell Me reflects the early brilliance as well as the fulfilled promise of Mary Robison's literary career. In these stories (most of which have appeared in The New Yorker), we enter her sly world of plotters, absconders, ponderers, and pontificators. Robison's characters have chips on their shoulders; they talk back to us in language that is edgy and nervy; they say "all right" and "okay" often, not because they consent, but because nothing counts. Still, there are small victories here, small only because, as Robison precisely documents, larger victories are impossible. Here then, among others, is "Pretty Ice," chosen by Richard Ford for The Granta Book of American Short Stories, "Coach," chosen for Best American Short Stories, "I Get By," an O. Henry Prize Stories selection, and "Happy Boy, Allen," a Pushcart Prize Stories selection. These stories-sharp, cool, and astringently funny-confirm Mary Robison's place as one of our most original writers and led Richard Yates to comment, "Robison writes like an avenging angel, and I think she may be a genius."

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, The United States Of America, Literary Fiction, Short Story Collection

278 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Mary Robison is an American short story writer and novelist. She has published four collections of stories, and four novels, including her 2001 novel Why Did I Ever, winner of the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction. Her most recent novel, released in 2009, is One D.O.A., One on the Way. She has been categorized as a founding "minimalist" writer along with authors such as Amy Hempel, Frederick Barthelme, and Raymond Carver. In 2009, she won the Rea Award for the Short Story.

Reviews

[Jenn(ifer) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely a solid 3.5 for this collection of stories. It didn't blow me away, but I did enjoy it! I wouldn't go as far as to say I reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally liked it, but there were some good stories in there. My only problem with this collection is that most of the stories just ended too abruptly. Short story writing is an art -- and great short story writers manage to say all that needs to be said briefly but with an impact that doesn't leave you feeling cheated.

[Ligeia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dimmi pure, che tanto io non ti dico nulla, al massimo ti mostro qualcosa

racconti o anche più precisamente momenti, stile Antrim, nel senso che immagino che Donald Antrim si sia ispirato a questo stile, in ogni caso sono istantanee di storie, per la maggior parte lente e dolorose, di gente sconfitta e che non ne vuole sapere di rialzarsi, gente che non ci prova più e se mai ci ha provato ha fallito, famiglie di quelle che Franzen ci costruirebbe sopra una carriera alternativa a quella di birdwatcher, un certo numero di fuori di testa e normalità rurale americana del secolo scorso

nonostante quel che si dice per me Carver no, manco da lontano, più come un Bukowski assai più educato e senza "il sesso per vendere"

tutto qua

fate voi, a me è piaciuto

[Emad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is in fact a collection of Robison's stories from her other books. Only four stories were new: The Help, Father, Grandfather, What I Hear, and Likely Lake.

All of these four new stories were great. But Likely Lake was awesome among them.

[David]

A great retrospective from a criminally unsung writer. Show me a story that accomplishes more in three pages than the heartrending “Yours” and I’ll eat my hat.

[Abril Camino]

Abandonado al 45% porque realmente lo estaba leyendo casi «por obligación». No me ha gustado nada, me han aburrido la mayoría de los cuentos y, aunque están muy bien escritos, no he entendido en la mayoría qué era lo que la autora quería transmitir.

[Javier · Rating 4 out of 5]

En la estela del realismo sucio y el minimalismo norteamericano, encontramos la obra de Mary Robison; una prosa sin rodeos y hasta simple en la manera de contar la anécdota, pero cautivante y poderosa a la hora de decirnos lo que no está escrito.

Este volumen de treinta relatos, cuenta con piezas breves que nos recordarán mucho a Raymond Carver: concisos, ominosos, emplazados en los suburbios y otros más robustos, muy al estilo de Richard Yates: con detalladas descripciones de los lugares, diálogos precisos y decadencia en los personajes.

Sería difícil aislar a Robison de su época y decir que su brillo es único e inconfundible; es mucho más justo decir que logra elevar una voz femenina, no solo autoral, también temática. Siempre hay mujeres: mujeres en posiciones límite, mujeres debatiéndose; mujeres de la vida real, con vidas propias.

[L · Rating 5 out of 5]

i don't think there's another writer who's stories weigh on me quite like these. mary robison's stories are so strong.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's fascinating to peg this work in Robison's career trajectory -- I'm more familiar with her later work like Why Did I Ever and One D.O.A., One on the Way, which is spikier and structurally more exciting. These stories are solid but ordinary literary fiction for the most part. There are hints, in some of these tales, of what would be forthcoming... but this collection also makes me reconsider reading her farther-back-list because after a while, I mostly just shrugged. None of these stories are bad, don't get me wrong, and some of them are even quite excellent -- but mostly, I just said, "Okay." and moved along.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this a lot, though with both of Robison's novels that I've read, I have reservations. This was nothing like One D.O.A. or Why Did I Ever, except for one story which kind of resembled those novels, and except the dialogue is similar, naturalistic, Don DeLillo, etc. These were clearly New Yorker stories—very mannered, very . . . well, very New Yorker. Toward the end, when the stories started to feel a little formulaic (maybe they aren't meant to be read all together), there was a big Lish-via-Carver feel, and but the problem was Robison's endings were sort of anticlimactic. And not in a Hollywood sort of way, just in a "Well, that just doesn't really do it for me" sort of way. What the collection overall resembled most, though, and this surprised me, was Salinger. And BIG time.

Anyway. Still worth reading. Overly mannered and occasionally same-y, but still very enjoyable. Great dialogue. Robison, I'm deciding, is no Lydia Davis or Amy Hempel and certainly no Lorrie Moore, but she's still really good.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someone once told me that a cookbook is never wasted if you find one great recipe in it; likewise, one exceptional short story can redeem an entire collection. The last story in this collection, Yours, is stunning. Well-chosen imagery and an unconventional relationship create a story that left me crumpled, exposed, and utterly concerned for the characters.

[Rodrigo Vigo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gusta su prosa, desprolija, directa. Sus personajes están de paso en una especie de limbo personal, recién llegados o prestos a dejarlo. Los problemas subyacen siempre bajo capas de tranquilidad y vidas aparentemente despreocupadas.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book was like stepping inside my head. It's a bit scattered, but quite entertaining.

[Rocío Quiñones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Llegué a Mary Robison por una referencia que se hacía en una reseña del libro de Amy Hempel -autora a la que admiro mucho-, así que me lancé a por el libro como una loca.

Soy muy fan de la escritura minimalista que es capaz de decir mucho con pequeños detalles, que arranca todo lo superfluo para que juegues con las pistas y vislumbres el mundo que se esconde detrás, a través de la cerradura. No me parece nada fácil hacer esto. Limpiar un texto hasta dejarlo en el equilibrio exacto, en ese punto en el que, al terminar cada historia, quiero saber qué pasaba por la mente de la autora. La escritura es directa, pero igualmente detallista y hermosa.

El libro se compone de una selección de treinta cuentos elegidos de sus tres colecciones de relatos. Cada cuento ahonda en la psicología de los personajes y mediante lo cotidiano exprime la naturaleza humana, las relaciones de pareja y de familia.

En Guía de noche para aficionados

Habla de una extraña relación madre e hija, donde los roles están intercambiados y se aprecia la carga que, en este caso, experimenta la hija ante una madre muy inmadura. Me ha encantado.

Bonito hielo.

Uno de mis preferidos. Un relato sencillo en el que los diálogos muestran el cambio de la protagonista. Me encanta cómo desmiga el tema principal con una simple anécdota: la de ir a recoger al tren a su prometido con su madre. Como trasfondo, el cómo condicionan la visión de nuestros padres cada una de nuestras decisiones y también el conformismo. A través de una metáfora de situación que entiendo como un recorrido a la estación vamos descubriendo la desidia y el agotamiento. Hacer esto es muy difícil y ella lo consigue de una forma brillante, sin florituras, pero regalándonos una bella manera de relatar.

Tengo veintiuno

Es un relato muy bonito, breve, sencillo en el estilo de Marie Robinson con unos diálogos que van destripando la manera que tiene la protagonista de ser extremadamente estricta consigo misma y la carga que arrastra.

Lo que oigo

Me ha encantado este breve relato en el que nos habla sobre la difícil situación de una madre que finalmente decide quedarse en el lugar adecuado a pesar del miedo y del dolor.El desapego del "novio" apático y enamorado de su exmujer para volver a su hija, enferma. Dejándonos entrever que ella debió experimentar algo parecido y por eso quizá permaneció un tiempo en la penumbra.

El lago Likely

Un cuento muy bello sobre el dolor de perder a un hijo y cómo cada uno buscamos la forma de huir del dolor.

[Tyler Barton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each of these stories is funny, memorable, so sharp in detail that I want to live inside. However, if there is a spectrum of "what does it all mean" and to the right is a story explained fully and everything adds up with a perfectly tied bow and to the left is a random assortment of word salad, Robison is farther to the left than most story writers. Not saying it's a bad thing. It's purely her own vision, aesethetic. That said, it makes it so that certain stories don't really LAND, they just trail off. Though there were a few that knocked me out. Reading Robison is like reading Carver but you're laughing more.

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I have never owned a car nor learned to drive, but I had a low opinion of my mother’s compact. My father and I used to enjoy big cars, with tops that came down. We were both tall and we wanted what he called ‘stretch room.’ My father had been dead for fourteen years, but I resented my mother’s buying a car in which he would not have fitted.” - "Pretty Ice"

[Frank]

Well, Robison’s publisher or agent does her no service. She's not likely to receive a rating or a review very soon if they restrict the sale of the ebook editions of her work to the US only. Her work is not well-known enough to be translated here (in the Netherlands), and the digital editions remain unavailable. What does the publisher (let alone the author) have to gain by that?

[Sophie Abromowitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

she does so much with so little!!

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy Robison's novels, but her short fiction is where it's at. Each of these gems shines a brilliant spotlight even as it cuts deep.

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mary drops the reader into random situations and one is made to see that anything can be a story. Her characters tend to be almost exclusively white, east coast middle class or upper class on their way down. They smoke, drink and the stories are quotidian in some ways with very loaded dialogue that feels very authentic and to hell with exposition.

This volume is sort of a greatest hits collection. I've read many of the stories already.

[Paul Cockeram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories like this begin somewhere past the middle, near the ending. They don’t give you the backgrounds of the characters, outside of a few sentences about the way the characters are related or maybe their age. Their histories are rationed carefully and often just half true. What can you really know about people? Robison lets you listen to the way they talk, observe their hair style, see the limp or beard or frizzy hair that distinguishes them in a crowd. Everything else, you’ll have to pick up by paying attention, by reading between the lines. The pregnant woman lives in a filthy, messy squalor that we learn about by watching the expression on her neighbor’s face, by listening to her brother’s complaints when he visits. Charlie and Don are lovers who found each other late in life, you suppose, because one agrees to fly kites in a hurricane with the other.

You learn just enough about the way these characters doubt one another to understand why they worry, and then we’re on to the next tale. The style might be hyper-minimalism, but I wouldn’t call it flash fiction. Every word hints toward the others beyond it; most of the story lies in those hinterlands.

What are these stories about? They end, sometimes, late enough to tell; more often, earlier. Robison must have been listening carefully when Hemingway said the right place to end a story was before the big thing happened—Hemingway’s example was finishing his story before the old man went and hung himself, because readers could already tell the old man was going to hang himself so there was no point in following it through. The danger, of course, is that readers couldn’t tell exactly that the old man was going to hang himself; rather, they sensed something bad was going to happen, some desolation or despair hovering in the background. But maybe the fun was speculating what it was for themselves.

For Robison, it’s not so much about suicide or despair. It’s more about people figuring out the precise way in which they are stuck, or trapped. “Pretty Ice” is a prime example of that motif, which runs through many of these stories. I’ve read it half a dozen times and there is always more to see inside it. Robison’s stories need the reader to finish them this way, to make connections and observe the patterns and connect the dots. Maybe her stories are more pointillist than minimalist. The main thing is to trust that everything you need is there, in the details and language. Observant readers only need apply. Their time will be richly rewarded.

[Matias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Más que probable que este libro no merezca 4/5, pero se los voy a poner igual porque esta ha sido de esas felices veces en las que una cosa te encuentra en el momento ideal de tu vida para tener el mayor impacto posible sobre ti. En este caso porque aprendí muchísimo, no sólo a nivel técnico sino también en un plano clave de la prosa.
El minimalismo de este compendio de relatos acerca de la lánguida vida común, a veces melancólicos, a veces nostálgicos, también desesperados, me ha dado muchas pistas para mejorar mi voz narrativa. Lo que no quiere decir que este libro sea significativo desde un punto de vista esencial porque no creo que sea así, desde luego que yo pretendo escribir mejor que esta mujer.

La mejor literatura es sutil porque se parece mucho a la vida, que puede darte un mordisco materialmente devastador pero que es realmente fascinante porque te deforma y socava, segundo a segundo, grano a grano, gota a gota. Y es horrible, y es bella.

La belleza de la sutileza.

[G · Rating 2 out of 5]

Generally, Goodreads doesn't disappoint when it comes to recommendations of short story collections. But not this time.

With this exception of a few standouts, I found this collection by Mary Robison to be unimpressive. The dialogue is often clunky, jarring and unnatural. Many of the stories end abruptly as though the author simply tired of them. Quick endings can be impressive of course. Lucia Berlin in particular had endings that came from nowhere, and many times caused me to rethink the story I'd just read, or made me imagine what happened beyond the last word. Here however, many stories just stop without even the impression of a resolution or the need to ponder what happens next. Maybe the stories are doing more than I can see and I simply am not smart enough to tease out the real meaning.

[Sara Comuzzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mary Robison, pressochè sconosciuta in italia, è una scrittrice di grande talento.
questo libro è una raccolta di una trentina di racconti, alcuni anche molto brevi, di qualche pagina, in cui vengono aperti spaccati delle vite delle persone o delle famiglie o delle situazioni in cui stanno vivendo. in essi vi è un che di minimalista, di umano che va oltre la maggior parte degli scrittori di racconti conosciuti
una donna che anche con poche parole, e spesso senza dire tutto, riesce a sorprenderci e a farci dire, cavolo, è proprio brava.
storie familiari, di rapporti tra madri e figlie, tra coniugi, ma non solo
è una buona raccolta di racconti, una delle migliori che ho letto.
si direi Carver al femminile e anche con qualcosa in più.

[Miles Efron · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories are understated and quiet. Just HOW quiet, I never fully absorbed until I read the whole collection. Before, I had read one or two anthologized Robison stories. But taken as a whole, they really “breathe” and open up.
Robison is so artful at characterization and scene setting.
Death pervades almost every story in this collection. As a whole, the collection is obsessed with how real people experience death (of loved ones, neighbors, themselves) in real life, alongside all the other experiences and emotions life brings.
If you like the short story as an art into itself, do yourself a favor and read this collection.

[Alissa Hattman · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this collection of short stories, Robison truly shows that “less is more.” Robison splits her short stories into sections, revealing only the flashes scenes we need to understand the underlying of the story. An excellent collection showing examples of narrative voice, tone, irony, relevant detail and dry humor.

[Meridith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how to list this in "currently reading," but I am. I pick up her stories, a few at a time, bit by bit. I always find pleasure in reading collections this way. Who can resist, "An Amateur's Guide to the Night?"

[Catherine Corman · Rating 3 out of 5]

"You say I lie?" Phil said.
"No, Phil," Jackie said.
I sucked in a breath. "It's just that people, they don't ever do what they don't want to do. And they can't ever be what they aren't already."

-Mary Robison, "Smart"

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

okay okay, so mary robison is a genius short story writer. Her characters especially, feel real, are trying really hard, get slapped down most of the time. that doesn't make me resent her any less. jjk, hah.

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of 30 stories some of which are good others really not super good. Many of the stories seem to feature separated or divorced couples. Many take place in Rhode Island. Many about the arts. Overall a good collection but not a must-read.

[Pia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short story writers go to school in these stories. I sure did/do.