Hunger: Stories

by Eaton Hamilton

Released pre-Goodreads. Short stories. LGBT studies. Lesbian. Queer.

Dry, witty and graceful, these stories from Jane Eaton Hamilton's second collection of short fiction are stories about longing and loss.

"Jane Eaton Hamilton is a superb writer. Those who know her deem her to be among the brightest lights on the Canadian literary landscape. Those who do not know this ought to read and judge for themselves. I wholeheartedly recommend her work." -Joy Kogawa

"These stories will grab you by the throat and not let you go. Highly original, gripping, sharp and deeply moving, they deserve the prizes they have won, and those to come." -Emma Donoghue

"Jane Eaton Hamilton is a fine and accomplished writer." -Carol Shields

"Hamilton explores themes of longing and loss in the lives of lesbians, heterosexual men and women. …marvelously quirky. Hamilton successfully weaves humour with pathos in the lean, accomplished style reminiscent of short stories in the New Yorker." --Nairne Holtz, University of Western Ontario

"Accusation," "Goombay Smash," and "How to Have Heart Disease (Without Really Trying)" were first published in Prism International. "How to Have Heart Disease (Without Really Trying)" was later a Notable in Best American Short Stories. "Accusation" and "How to Have Heart Disease (Without Really Trying)" were both winners of the Prism International short-story contest, and "Goombay Smash" won the first prize in 1998, as well as appearing in 98: Best Canadian Stories. "Territory" originally appeared in This Magazine, wining the Great Canadian Literary Hung in 1998, and was reprinted in The Journey Prize Anthology. "Graduation was first published in The Malahat Review and reprinted in the The Journey Prize anthology. "Graduation" was first published in The Malahat Review and reprinted in The Journey Prize Anthology. "Kiss Me or Something" was orginally published in Room of One's Own. "You Just Sit Here, Little Daddy" first appeared in The Missouri Review. "Hunger" won the Paragraph erotic fiction award and was first published in Paragraph.

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Eaton Hamilton is the queer disabled Canadian author of ten books (incl 2 chapbooks) of short fiction, poetry and memoir. They are non-binary, go by "Hamlton" and are legally " Eaton Hamilton." Their novel ,‘Weekend,' called a "tour de force" by the Vancouver Sun, appeared in 2016. Their memoir ‘Mondays are Yellow, Sundays are Grey,’ retitled ‘No More Hurt,’ was a Sunday Times bestseller (UK) and included on the Guardian's Best Books of the Year list. Their books have been shortlisted for the MIND Book Award, the BC Book Prize, the VanCity Award, the Pat Lowther Award and the Ferro-Grumley Award. They are the two-time winner of Canada's CBC Canada Writes Award for fiction (2003/2014). Their work is included in The Journey Prize Anthology, Best Canadian Short Stories, Best Canadian Poetry and was a Notable in BASS and6 times a Notable in BAE. Words in Salon, NYT, Gay Mag, Seventeen, The Rumpus, The Sun, Guernica, LARB, Medium, and many others. They edit for Many Gendered Mothers. They live near Vancouver.

Jessica's Elevator, children's
Body Rain, poetry
July Nights and Other Stories, short fiction
Steam-Cleaning Love, poetry
Mondays are Yellow/No More Hurt, memoir
Going Santa Fe, poetry chapbook
Hunger, short fiction
Love Will Burst into a Thousand Shapes, poetry
Weekend, novel
Would You Like Some Gramma On That?, fiction chapbook

Reviews

[Eaton Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

SOME REVIEWS RECEIVED:

“Jane Eaton Hamilton is a superb writer. Those who know her deem her to be among the brightest lights on the Canadian literary landscape. Those who do not know this ought to read and judge for themselves. I wholeheartedly recommend her work.” –Joy Kogawa

“These stories will grab you by the throat and not let you go. Highly original, gripping, sharp and deeply moving, they deserve the prizes they have won, and those to come.” –Emma Donoghue

“Hamilton explores themes of longing and loss in the lives of lesbians, heterosexual men and women. …marvelously quirky. Hamilton successfully weaves humour with pathos in the lean, accomplished style reminiscent of short stories in the New Yorker.” —Nairne Holtz, University of Western Ontario”

Hunger, Jane Eaton Hamilton, Oberon, 2002:

The woman on the cover of this book is painted in vibrant tones of orange and red. Only one eye is visible, and it stares with an intensity that you feel might never quit. The other eye is obscured by her hands, clasped together in a vulnerable and disconcerting pose. And there, captured in the proverbial nutshell, are the stories contained in this excellent little collection. From the honesty, painfully contained and restrained, in “Accusation,” the opening story, where a woman tests the boundaires of her marriage when she draws her husband into her flirtation (read connection) with a younger man at work, to the closing story, from which the collection takes it title, where a manipulative lesbian lover physically and verbally intimidates her partner into staying with her, Jane Eaton Hamilton confronts the lies we may or may not choose to live with on a day-to-day basis.

Hunger is Hamilton’s fifth book, and the most assured foray to date into the genre by this multi-talented writer (she is a noted gardener and writer of poetry also). Her short stories have been nominated for numerous awards; they are included in anthologies; they have appeared in Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Anthology, and in many literary journals, including The Fiddlehead. Hamilton has also been short-listed for the Best American Short Stories and The Pushcart Prize. Hunger was a finalist in the Publishing Triangle Awards NYC 2003.

The stories in Hunger are superbly character driven; the characters we encounter are not always lovable. At times demanding and selfish, they are searching for something more than what they have, and for that we find them interesting, perhaps even admirable. Hamilton’s wry observations on the human condition are poignant, and can be quite witty when they deal with those unfortunate lovers who are about to be dumped. In the darkly tragic, therefore slightly comedic (seemingly inseparable states), take “Goombay Smash,” one half of a lesbian partnership is desperately trying to keep the relationship together, and she takes both herself and her partner off to a gay resort. On the first morning, at breakfast, she is watching the other—apparently happy and contented—couples around her and tries to identify a common element in their seemingly successful relationships. She comes up with the wild notion that matching hairdos may be the answer to true coupledom bliss:

Maybe this is how American lesbians celebrate their anniversaries, you think. Never mind paper, silver, gold: American lesbians have hair anniversaries. If they make it two years, they part on the same side, five years and they spike, ten and they bob. Twenty and they both wear buns in snoods.

“Psst,” you say. “Marg, look over there.”
Marg says, “What, Joyce?”
You point out the women with the waterfall hair and try and explain about hair anniversaries, and how the two of you should get matching buzz cuts, but Marg just frowns and goes back to scraping out her grapefruit with a stumpy-handled spoon.

One of the most original stories is “Lifeboat” which, with complete clarity, catalogues the less than comforting reactions of a husband whose wife has lost a breast to cancer. She refuses to do anything cosmetic to disguise this fact, a situation he finds alternately selfish and frustrating, or gutsy and admirable. His life is significantly altered by his wife’s experience with the disease and the cancer machine of support groups, alternative therapies and the ubiquitous cancer convention. The author pulls no punches in her exploration of the husband’s character, yet we can feel sympathy for this man who cries What about me? The end holds a moment of redemption; anyone who has been there, cancer wise—done that, worn the t-shirt—with any member of her family, will certainly recognize it, and anyone lucky enough not to have been there will surely recognize and appreciate the sense of loss—acutely juxtaposed with the feeling of hope—for what might yet be salvaged.

My particular favourite in this bunch of marvellous incursions into the depths and occasional heights of human experience is “Kiss Me or Something,” the story of a gay woman who falls for a straight woman, or, as I prefer to think of it, the story of a woman trying on different identities to see which one best fits her. Unfortunately, when people experiment with people, someone usually gets hurt along the way, and this story reveals just how deep that hurt can be. The betrayal of one woman is presented to the other as a gift, as something that will bring them both closer together. As the relationship heads toward disaster, it is painful to keep reading, yet read on we must, just as the two women must keep up the charade between them until the bitter end. We may wonder at the cruelty of one human being who willfully dupes another, and we further wonder at the capacity of human beings to dupe themselves:

How could I resist her? She kissed my cheek and my chin, small adorable kisses, and I folded my arms around her, pressed myself against her still taut stomach, groaned.

“Please,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

Now I knew who it was, I wanted Dorianna in a territorial way. I wanted to mark her, claim her, leave my scent on her. Drunk and confused and overcome by instinct, I felt like an animal. I pushed Dorianna down on her bed and made love to her like a beast, without taking off my clothes, lost in a haze of insane, itchy carnality.

An instinctive response to loss and betrayal, drawn with the kind of honesty that Hamilton is able to wield, her stories chronicle lives we may find uncomfortably familiar."

–Paula Thomas, Fiddlehead autumn 2003 No 217

“Most of the characters in “Hunger” – women and men, gay and straight – inhabit a world roiled by emotional turbulence. Love evades them; their relationships are disintegrating; partners betray them; their lives are defined mostly by loss, longing, confusion, uncertainty. In “Goombay Smash,” a Key West vacation meant to breathe new life into the dispirited domesticity of a lesbian couple instead disintegrates into days of wrong turns, crossed signals, long silences, and denied sex. In “Kiss Me or Something,” a lifelong lesbian disdains the cautionary fretting of friends, so sure is she that the once-straight woman who now proclaims a Sapphic love eternal will never leave her for a man. In this uniquely voiced collection, nothing about matters of the heart is easy, or obvious, or even settled. The magic of these 10 short stories, though, and of Canadian writer Jane Eaton Hamilton’s insightful, fluid – and often disarmingly witty – prose is that, in elegant, edgy fiction as in messy real life, sorrows of the soul are redeemed by a resilience of spirit.” —Richard Labonte

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of short stories grabbed me from the very beginning and refused to let go. Overall full of loss, heartbreak, and resilience, each story appeared as if from a place in the heart rarely visited in this particular way. From classic lesbain heartbreak, to the experiences of a new father, to more complex stories of loss of love and health and meaning, each story felt like an entrypoint into a (sometimes strange) and interesting world. Sometimes in a familiar world, sometimes in a world I'd never even contemplated the existence of, I felt transported.
The writing was simple and beautfiul, full of metaphors and descriptions that were mostly seamless and captivating.
I gave it four stars because I never give anything full "marks" but the fact that I couldn't put it down is testimony that you should read this book.