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Sound of Holding Your Breath: Stories
The residents of The Sound of Holding Your Breath could be neighbors, sharing the same familiar landscapes of twenty-first-century Appalachia—lake and forest, bridge and church, cemetery and garden, diner and hair salon. They could be your neighbors—average, workaday, each struggling with secrets and losses, entrenched in navigating the complex requirements of family in all its forms. Yet tragedy and violence challenge these unassuming A teenage boy is drawn to his sister’s husband, an EMT searching the lake for a body. A brother, a family, and a community fail to confront the implications of a missing girl. A pregnant widow spends Thanksgiving with her deceased husband’s family. Siblings grapple with the death of their sister-in-law at the hands of their brother. And in the title story, the shame of rape ruptures more than a decade later. Accidents and deaths, cons and cover-ups, abuse and returning veterans—Natalie Sypolt’s characters wrestle with who they are during the most trying situations of their lives.
- GenresShort Stories
156 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 8, 2018
Natalie Sypolt's The Sound of Holding Your Breath is a masterfully-written collection of stories entrenched in small-town West Virginia. The characters are real and vivid. I felt like I knew them as more than fictional. They are lost, struggling, coming to grips, often somber and confused, but always human and purely West Virginian. The tone of the stories reminded me a lot of Dan Chaon--that sense of bleakness that permeates even the most basic of scenes. Unlike Chaon, though, I felt uplifted after reading many of these, despite the fact they often didn't end on high notes. There are small-town preachers and hucksters with dark secrets and ulterior motives. A kindergarten teacher struggles with her monotonous life. Two personal favorites were "My Brothers and Me" and the title piece. In the first, a family has difficulty coping with the unspeakable crime of a brother--something all too common here, and likely everywhere else. The title piece shows how childhood trauma can hang around and haunt the victim, causing things later in life that are just as harmful. That depiction of the human nature is what makes these stories so great.
Highly recommended reading.
Highly recommended reading.
November 6, 2018
I tried to read slowly and savor these amazing stories, but I couldn't stop reading, sometimes flipping back to re-read a new favorite. Natalie Sypolt's writing is poetic and haunting, sincere and generous. As the blurb on the cover from Wiley Cash says, "This is an important book by an important writer." I couldn't agree more.
My favorites are "Flaming Jesus" and "The Sound of Holding Your Breath" (title story), but I can't stop thinking about so many of the other stories. "Diving" and "My Brothers and Me" won't get out of my head. I feel lucky to have read this collection right when I needed it most.
My favorites are "Flaming Jesus" and "The Sound of Holding Your Breath" (title story), but I can't stop thinking about so many of the other stories. "Diving" and "My Brothers and Me" won't get out of my head. I feel lucky to have read this collection right when I needed it most.
January 2, 2019
I’m going to try my best, but I’m not sure that I can actually put into words how much I enjoyed this collection of short stories.
Every story caused me to stop and think about what I’d just read. The characters are so “real” that I felt connected to them, and their pain, joy, heartache, and reflections were my own.
These aren’t exactly feel-good stories, but they aren’t necessarily dark and twisty either (although some could be described that way). My favorites were definitely “Flaming Jesus,” “My Brothers and Me” and “The Sound of Holding Your Breath.” Every story is complicated and sucks you into the small town Appalachia families they portray. Every family is different, but somehow the same. With struggles, hopes, dreams, failures, and fears.
The characters are all so complex that even they seem to be struggling with who they are and who they’re going to be. I found myself asking at the end of more than one story, was that character good or bad? Would I go that far in the same situation?
I read Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio” for the first time not too long ago. To be honest (and I realize this is a very unpopular opinion), I wasn’t impressed. I had a hard time connecting with the characters, the stories were at times dull and lost my attention. Basically, it was as far away from what I’d been told to expect as it could possibly get.
But Natalie Sypolt’s The Sound of Holding Your Breath was everything I wanted Winesburg, Ohio to be. While there isn’t a central character in The Sound of Holding Your Breath, and the stories all take place in different towns, they could have easily all taken place in the same community. Where Winesburg left me depressed, TSOHYB left me with hope and a feeling that things could still get better.
I received a copy of this book from WVU Press, which in no way influenced my review or opinions. Full review can be found at Combing Through the Pages
Every story caused me to stop and think about what I’d just read. The characters are so “real” that I felt connected to them, and their pain, joy, heartache, and reflections were my own.
These aren’t exactly feel-good stories, but they aren’t necessarily dark and twisty either (although some could be described that way). My favorites were definitely “Flaming Jesus,” “My Brothers and Me” and “The Sound of Holding Your Breath.” Every story is complicated and sucks you into the small town Appalachia families they portray. Every family is different, but somehow the same. With struggles, hopes, dreams, failures, and fears.
The characters are all so complex that even they seem to be struggling with who they are and who they’re going to be. I found myself asking at the end of more than one story, was that character good or bad? Would I go that far in the same situation?
I read Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio” for the first time not too long ago. To be honest (and I realize this is a very unpopular opinion), I wasn’t impressed. I had a hard time connecting with the characters, the stories were at times dull and lost my attention. Basically, it was as far away from what I’d been told to expect as it could possibly get.
But Natalie Sypolt’s The Sound of Holding Your Breath was everything I wanted Winesburg, Ohio to be. While there isn’t a central character in The Sound of Holding Your Breath, and the stories all take place in different towns, they could have easily all taken place in the same community. Where Winesburg left me depressed, TSOHYB left me with hope and a feeling that things could still get better.
I received a copy of this book from WVU Press, which in no way influenced my review or opinions. Full review can be found at Combing Through the Pages
January 2, 2019
Sypolt's debut short story collection is an excellent primer for how to build striking portraits of Appalachian life through fiction. These characters, all of which circulate in small town West Virginia, are haunted and driven by the past and necessary hope for the future. I found each story compelling, especially when lives and conflicts carried across stories and characters. For those teaching Appalachian or Southern Literature courses, consider adopting this highly relevant collection.
July 21, 2019
This collection of short stories focuses on family disruption, but especially men and women who begin with passion and end with missed connections and sometimes violent disconnections. The stories are set mostly in the northern Appalachian region among people who often live in those much-maligned mobile homes. Sypolt, however, has no patience with and cuts no slack for readers who don't identify with all people. She opens the second story, "Flaming Jesus" (what a great title) by laying out her landscape: "This is a place where no one cares if you live in a trailer. No one even thinks twice about it....My mother always had wallpaper. We'd replace it every spring....the roadsides are thickly-wooded, branches nearly scraping my car on both sides...Only the roadway is light, golden...."
The community where most of the stories take place is called Warm , and Sypolt's character makes the distinction that while fire is hot, ashes are warm, and the narrator's first boyfriend calls Warm a trap and says if he doesn't get out now, he never will.
While the experiences and growing and realizations come mostly to the women in the stories, the focus is often on men, as in in "Get Up June" where the narrator's father, "a man of addictions," first drinks too much, then for a while makes money trying out drugs for a drug company. His final addiction is, perhaps predictably but profoundly appropriate, is religion. The narrator's mother at the end says, "'I hope you will not forget the good parts of your daddy....take those good parts of him and the good parts of me, and try to push out the bad parts....'" That is perhaps emblematic of what all the stories are about: A lot of bad stuff, but Sypolt pushes through to the good, as best she can, without undermining the truth.
One of my favorite stories is "Home Visit," which takes on a clash between the Establishment, as it were– a teacher doing her visits to all the families of her students-- and the student's father. The family lives in a trailer, of course, and the teacher tries to hide even from herself her contempt for people who live in the trailers. She knows trailers, too: "what it would be like inside, long rooms that always looked a little cramped, a little too full of stuff....Sinks leak into the towel cabinets underneath....Ceilings grow round brown circles..." Of course, the trailer she is describing is the one she grew up in, and she finishes her home visit by falling apart in a horribly embarrassing way.
Several of the late stories are about damage to men: In "Wanting a Baby," a woman, pregnant with her dead husband's child, visits his family and feels conflicting emotions about them and her place in a traditional family Other stories are about men damaged by war, mentally and physically. One has lost his arm in the Middle East and seems to have lost his center as well. One, part of another extended, rooted family, goes looking for a white deer to kill, and in the process fills the yard with dead animals.
Many of the stories are told in the present tense, but that last story with the dead animals, "Stalking the White Deer," takes an interesting long, retrospective view. The narrator is speaking from old age, or near it, and it is about why she and her husband have stayed together. That staying together, for better or for worse, is a theme we don't write about as much as about spectacular break ups and violence.
Sypolt's collection is about a deep loyalty to people and a place. Her approach is open-eyed and complex, but for all that, no less loyal.
The community where most of the stories take place is called Warm , and Sypolt's character makes the distinction that while fire is hot, ashes are warm, and the narrator's first boyfriend calls Warm a trap and says if he doesn't get out now, he never will.
While the experiences and growing and realizations come mostly to the women in the stories, the focus is often on men, as in in "Get Up June" where the narrator's father, "a man of addictions," first drinks too much, then for a while makes money trying out drugs for a drug company. His final addiction is, perhaps predictably but profoundly appropriate, is religion. The narrator's mother at the end says, "'I hope you will not forget the good parts of your daddy....take those good parts of him and the good parts of me, and try to push out the bad parts....'" That is perhaps emblematic of what all the stories are about: A lot of bad stuff, but Sypolt pushes through to the good, as best she can, without undermining the truth.
One of my favorite stories is "Home Visit," which takes on a clash between the Establishment, as it were– a teacher doing her visits to all the families of her students-- and the student's father. The family lives in a trailer, of course, and the teacher tries to hide even from herself her contempt for people who live in the trailers. She knows trailers, too: "what it would be like inside, long rooms that always looked a little cramped, a little too full of stuff....Sinks leak into the towel cabinets underneath....Ceilings grow round brown circles..." Of course, the trailer she is describing is the one she grew up in, and she finishes her home visit by falling apart in a horribly embarrassing way.
Several of the late stories are about damage to men: In "Wanting a Baby," a woman, pregnant with her dead husband's child, visits his family and feels conflicting emotions about them and her place in a traditional family Other stories are about men damaged by war, mentally and physically. One has lost his arm in the Middle East and seems to have lost his center as well. One, part of another extended, rooted family, goes looking for a white deer to kill, and in the process fills the yard with dead animals.
Many of the stories are told in the present tense, but that last story with the dead animals, "Stalking the White Deer," takes an interesting long, retrospective view. The narrator is speaking from old age, or near it, and it is about why she and her husband have stayed together. That staying together, for better or for worse, is a theme we don't write about as much as about spectacular break ups and violence.
Sypolt's collection is about a deep loyalty to people and a place. Her approach is open-eyed and complex, but for all that, no less loyal.
January 11, 2019
The characters in this book felt so familiar to me that I couldn’t stop feeling. People who value nature, community, and one another. A wonderful weave of characters confronting or realizing the fear of themselves.
February 8, 2019
The cover claims it's an "important book by an important writer." I agree. I don't think I've ever cared about more people in an average of 10 pages or less than I did in this collection. Wonderful book.
May 1, 2020
A really great story collection that paints a more accurate picture of life in West Virginia than what’s given from the stereotypes that get lazily tossed around all the time. The stories are relatively short, but Sypolt still packs a lot of emotional depth into her characters, making it feel a bit like you’ve just read a novel and kept the important bits. A strong voice in claiming West Virginia’s right to belong among what people consider southern literature.
January 25, 2020
Five plus plus stars. I can’t believe that this is the author’s first collection, so masterful is this writing, and cannot wait to read more from her. Dark and raw. If you want to read something Appalachian start here. But Sypolt’s writing and her characters are universally engrossing.
May 22, 2020
I love this collection of short stories! The writing sucked me in from the beginning! All of the stories were so unique in their own way!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews