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Difficult People
Manipulators, liars, egomaniacs, bullies, interrupters, condescenders, ice queens, backstabbers, hypocrites, withholders, belligerents, self-deceivers, whiners, know-it-alls, nitpickers: these are some of the characters you’ll encounter in the collection of stories, Difficult People.
As these characters fumble through their quests for freediving fame, stand-up glory, romantic love, stable employment or anyone who can tolerate them, they reveal that we are all, in our own ways, difficult people.
Praise for Catriona Wright’s recent book of poetry, Table Manners:
“... a baroque feast of juicy diction and inventive wordplay that explores food as social ritual and slippery signifier of desire.”
—Barb Carey, The Toronto Star
“Deft, dark, and unflinching, Catriona Wright’s work is stand-up comedy for the mind.”
—Emily Schultz, author of The Blondes
“If you've ever Instagrammed your lunch, or directed distain toward somebody who has, this is the book for you. The poems are vivid, surprising, and pretty much devourable.”
—Kerry Clare, 49th Shelf
“Tightly woven and elaborate in their conceit, the poems in Table Manners linger both on the mind and palate.”
—Gillian Sze, Montreal Review of Books
As these characters fumble through their quests for freediving fame, stand-up glory, romantic love, stable employment or anyone who can tolerate them, they reveal that we are all, in our own ways, difficult people.
Praise for Catriona Wright’s recent book of poetry, Table Manners:
“... a baroque feast of juicy diction and inventive wordplay that explores food as social ritual and slippery signifier of desire.”
—Barb Carey, The Toronto Star
“Deft, dark, and unflinching, Catriona Wright’s work is stand-up comedy for the mind.”
—Emily Schultz, author of The Blondes
“If you've ever Instagrammed your lunch, or directed distain toward somebody who has, this is the book for you. The poems are vivid, surprising, and pretty much devourable.”
—Kerry Clare, 49th Shelf
“Tightly woven and elaborate in their conceit, the poems in Table Manners linger both on the mind and palate.”
—Gillian Sze, Montreal Review of Books
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
171 pages, Paperback
Published May 15, 2019
2 people are currently reading
1466 people want to read
About the author
Catriona Wright
3 books29 followersCatriona Wright is the author of the poetry collection Table Manners and the short story collection Difficult People. Her poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, the Walrus, and Magma, and they have been anthologized in The Next Wave: An Anthology of 21st Century Canadian Poetry and in The Best Canadian Poetry 2015 and 2018.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 15, 2018
I loved this book. Well-written, hilarious, deeply moving. Like her poems, each story digs deeply into its chosen subject matter before invariably revealing something surprising, funny, and all too real.
May 29, 2019
I picked up this book intending to read a story every now and then, perhaps even take a few weeks with it, but Catriona's stories are so gripping, immersive, and - strangely - deeply relatable that I finished it in just a few days. The characters in Difficult People are delightfully and disorientingly unique, difficult, and alienating, while also being completely plausible and believable: I ached for them, hated them, feared I might be them. The writing is clear, crisp, rhythmic, almost transparent; it feels as though there is none of the author there (in a skillful and deliberate way), which is kind of refreshing in literary fiction at this exact moment in time. I honestly can't recommend this book enough; I feel there is absolutely something for everyone here.
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October 11, 2018http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2018/1...
Review by Meg Borthwick
In Catriona Wright's Difficult People, her debut short story collection, one might expect to find an assortment of narcissists, pathological liars and other challenging characters we encounter in our every day lives. Instead, what we have are ordinary people dealing with difficult and occasionally bizarre situations in less than ideal ways. Wright's characters are, in this way, not unlike our flawed selves, as viewed through a kaleidoscope.
We see a collection of characters who range from quirky to dysfunctional, struggling either to find meaning in friendship and intimate connection, or avoiding it altogether. In "The Unofficial Calculation Museum," George and Laurel are uniquely dysfunctional siblings who struggle to protect their precious collection of calculators as a tornado bears down on them. George is devoted to the calculators (most of which he stole) while Laurel, a gambling addict, is disdainful of George's efforts. Their inherent weirdness is seen through the lens of a young couple, who are initially delighted by the collection but become increasingly wary as they witness the siblings' odd relationship in the face of an impending natural disaster.
Read more here: http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2018/1...
Review by Meg Borthwick
In Catriona Wright's Difficult People, her debut short story collection, one might expect to find an assortment of narcissists, pathological liars and other challenging characters we encounter in our every day lives. Instead, what we have are ordinary people dealing with difficult and occasionally bizarre situations in less than ideal ways. Wright's characters are, in this way, not unlike our flawed selves, as viewed through a kaleidoscope.
We see a collection of characters who range from quirky to dysfunctional, struggling either to find meaning in friendship and intimate connection, or avoiding it altogether. In "The Unofficial Calculation Museum," George and Laurel are uniquely dysfunctional siblings who struggle to protect their precious collection of calculators as a tornado bears down on them. George is devoted to the calculators (most of which he stole) while Laurel, a gambling addict, is disdainful of George's efforts. Their inherent weirdness is seen through the lens of a young couple, who are initially delighted by the collection but become increasingly wary as they witness the siblings' odd relationship in the face of an impending natural disaster.
Read more here: http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2018/1...
May 5, 2020
Content Moderator: 4 stars
The Unofficial Calculation Museum: 2 stars
Uncle Harris: 3 stars
The Emilies: 5 stars
Lean into the Mic: 2 stars
Constant Weight Without Fins: 5 stars
Love Lasts Forever But a Tattoo Lasts Longer: 2 stars
The Copy Editors: 3 stars
Olivia and Chris: 2 stars
Difficult People: 4 stars
Major Prude: 3 stars
Them: 4 stars
The Unofficial Calculation Museum: 2 stars
Uncle Harris: 3 stars
The Emilies: 5 stars
Lean into the Mic: 2 stars
Constant Weight Without Fins: 5 stars
Love Lasts Forever But a Tattoo Lasts Longer: 2 stars
The Copy Editors: 3 stars
Olivia and Chris: 2 stars
Difficult People: 4 stars
Major Prude: 3 stars
Them: 4 stars
December 15, 2022
Intense, and very well written. Being a person of a different generation and an introvert in general, some of the characters’ moves are a total nuclear blast for me … I think they would be even if I was that same age. But the general theme is too familiar across the human species - starving for human contact, searching for one’s authentic self, safety and acknowledgement, offering and being appreciated for care and friendship is anyone’s game, really. The stories are written crisply, masterfully and with a mixture of raw edge and compassionate humor that makes the reader involved in the emotions described - they will stay with you for quite a while and make you reflect on your own human condition.
August 5, 2022
These stories were all about exactly what the title advertises, but not in a gimmicky way—we all know someone who's at least a little bit like every one of Wright's difficult folks. They push you more in the direction of compassion than derision, and encourage a little thought about the calibration of your own social-emotional gyroscope. Good stuff.
September 1, 2021
This is a nice collection of short stories. As short stories do tend to be, they lean to the bleak and airless. But there are some moments of joy and park and freedom. And after all life is hard, and art mirrors life, so naturally stories are often a bit hard. The people who populate these stories are indeed difficult. They make bad choices and do wrong things. But sometimes they still come out alright, and what was definitely a wrong choice turns out to be somewhat right. And that is for sure how life often plays out!
Some of the stories are quite dark and look at people at their very worst. The author has done a nice job of positing that, from the inside, doing the very worst thing to another often has been rationalized to the point where it’s not clear they if the do-er is even still aware of the horrible thing they are doing. (Content moderator and major prude, eg.)
Other stories are just lost souls trying to make it through to a good place but burdened down with their own brokenness. (Olivia and Chris, Them, Lean Into the Mike).
And some are just kind of inexplicably dark and bleak. (The Copy Editors, love lasts forever but a tattoo lasts longer, difficult people).
I like the style of the book, it’s just basic and practical, with good clear descriptions and pretty sympathetic characters.
Overall, I’d recommend this book of you like the genre of short stories.
Some of the stories are quite dark and look at people at their very worst. The author has done a nice job of positing that, from the inside, doing the very worst thing to another often has been rationalized to the point where it’s not clear they if the do-er is even still aware of the horrible thing they are doing. (Content moderator and major prude, eg.)
Other stories are just lost souls trying to make it through to a good place but burdened down with their own brokenness. (Olivia and Chris, Them, Lean Into the Mike).
And some are just kind of inexplicably dark and bleak. (The Copy Editors, love lasts forever but a tattoo lasts longer, difficult people).
I like the style of the book, it’s just basic and practical, with good clear descriptions and pretty sympathetic characters.
Overall, I’d recommend this book of you like the genre of short stories.
April 25, 2019
Fantastic and enlightening read. I really enjoyed this wonderful light but very fulfilling book. A collection of short stories...ordinary people faced in life with difficult and trying situations and experiences. Well written and quite witty these stories don't feel like stories. It feels like a complete book of a world of people that you want to know about.
Highly recommend.
Thanks to the good peeps of goodreads and Author Catriona Wright for my free book won via giveaway. I received. I read. I reviewed this book honestly and voluntarily.
Highly recommend.
Thanks to the good peeps of goodreads and Author Catriona Wright for my free book won via giveaway. I received. I read. I reviewed this book honestly and voluntarily.
December 31, 2019
With The Madness of Grief and Rabbits for Food, one of the books I most enjoyed reading in 2019.
November 25, 2018
The whole time I was reading this I kept saying to myself that I don't like short stories. But I've read other short stories before and didn't really feel the same way. I think what I didn't like about these ones is that they were so interesting and well-written that I wanted them to keep going, and I was annoyed when they were suddenly over. I would love to read a full novel by this author.
October 20, 2022
The Copy Editors decided not to pay back their student loans. This decision wasn't motivated by lack of funds--though between them their bank statements didn't read above four hundred dollars and their combined Visa bills were triple that--no, it was a matter of principle. Who would pay someone who sent a letter that read, please be advised that your balance are outstanding? Surely, the twins reasoned, such egregious subject-verb disagreement rendered any contract null and void.
This collection of short stories by Catriona Wright is about difficult people, those who don't mind bending the rules or using a friend or blowing up their own lives to make a point. These are fantastic stories as long as you don't require your main characters to be likable or even tolerable. It's not that they are all bad people, it's just that they aren't good, necessarily, and might always prioritize their own wants and impulses. I wouldn't want most of them in my house, or even living in the same neighborhood, but they do make for a good short story. From a woman with a terrible job who contemplates the bonus she gets for recruiting friends, to a woman who fails to support a friend when she is most needed, each of Wright's characters betrays the people who love them most.
This collection of short stories by Catriona Wright is about difficult people, those who don't mind bending the rules or using a friend or blowing up their own lives to make a point. These are fantastic stories as long as you don't require your main characters to be likable or even tolerable. It's not that they are all bad people, it's just that they aren't good, necessarily, and might always prioritize their own wants and impulses. I wouldn't want most of them in my house, or even living in the same neighborhood, but they do make for a good short story. From a woman with a terrible job who contemplates the bonus she gets for recruiting friends, to a woman who fails to support a friend when she is most needed, each of Wright's characters betrays the people who love them most.
September 26, 2019
This one was okay. Some of the stories were really interesting and some weren’t. Most of them seemed to end about a paragraph or two too early and felt almost incomplete.
October 5, 2020
I loved this book. Each story was surprising in its inventiveness and depth. Superb, clear writing.
May 15, 2022
This was a fun little read. There were 2 stories that I didn’t care for, but the other ones I enjoyed. Catriona has a unique way of making me want to root for the ‘bad’ guy.
July 19, 2022
Witty, spiky stories about cranky, prickly people. Delightful collection.
November 25, 2018
In Wright's debut story collection we get to meet characters that are fairly ordinary, somewhat quirky to dysfunctional that come up against difficult and odd situations and see how they handle themselves.
I enjoyed every story. Which you don't usually get from a story collection. I find a lot of them are hit-and-miss.
I loved her use of language! This was poignant, well written, sexy, and wildly funny! This one completely took me by surprise! I can't wait for more from this author.
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I enjoyed every story. Which you don't usually get from a story collection. I find a lot of them are hit-and-miss.
I loved her use of language! This was poignant, well written, sexy, and wildly funny! This one completely took me by surprise! I can't wait for more from this author.
•
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews