Senseless Women

by Sarah Harris Wallman

Exploring the darker side of optimism, Sarah Harris Wallman’s debut collection shows women attempting to build durable havens from reality, struggling to keep relationships intact, and reinventing themselves. A lonely music teacher at a Nashville Christian academy awaits the miracle of love; a Jane Doe recalls the affair that sustained, and ended, her; a new mother brings life into the world during a bleak election party; young girls are exploited by a nightclub owner in death, as in life. Alone or in weird sisterhood, some of these women are senseless because they refuse to feel, others because they’ve been deprived of stimuli and attention. As these twelve stories prove, there’s no sensible way to fall in love, raise children, or escape. This is Senseless Women.

Genres: Short Stories

208 pages, Paperback

Published February 17, 2020

Reviews

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an original book of stories. The first one about dead girls was inventive and thought provoking, and the one about the co-ed dorm and the missing snake ended in a powerful way. I could spend whole book club meetings discussing just these two stories, so imagine the mileage you could get out of discussing the whole collection!

I admire the author’s head-on tackling of the subject of women and their relationship to food and desire, along with Wallman’s keen eye for relationships and the feelings of disconnection that can happen within relationships.

I got tearful toward the end of the last story. Wallman has a new devoted fan in me.

Bizarre, creative, insightful, and with a curious kind of distance from the narrator that brings more connection to the reader rather than less. I’m all in. Highly recommend.

[David Keaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just missed reading a book for Women in Horror Month, so how about Women in Genre-Hopping Month (sometimes Horror Adjacent) instead? I guess this would mostly be considered "literary" fiction, but these stories creep effortlessly into other areas, even Harry Crews territory, wherever that is (I mean, what genre would you call his novel about a guy who eats a goddamn car anyway?). For example, those "Neo Eden" short stories are a thing, right? And you get one of those here, too. I'm not talking about that sci-fi ending where "They were on Earth all along!" or whatever, I mean one of those modern-day fables where snakes fuck up a good thing (Crews' A Feast of Snakes is probably my favorite version of this exercise/exorcism), and the snake story in this book *might* be my favorite short story in this collection (or "The Dead Girls Show"), because as the escaped python was wreaking havoc on the lost-innocence of those dorms I was smiling the whole time. Animals weave their way through other stories as well; snakes, dogs, heartbreaking/life-affirming turtles. "The Dog Sense" has some great Karen Russell vibes, specifically the incongruity of Russell's story "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," and in some ways, "The Dog Sense" almost felt like a world-weary sequel, though less of a fable and more of a cliffhanger (Chuck Kinder would have called this a "French ending."). There's also the requisite social-media story, woven together with the first of two requisite childbirth stories, which greatly amplifies each (the second childbirth story (a story about stories actually, like a turducken of warts-and-all conception moments, or a slippery parenthesis within parenthesis, ends the collection). Though this book is by design (and name) female-centric, it still contains scalpel-sharp observations about dudes, such as all coffee tasting like the breath of sarcastic men (ouch!) and how a grown man making a pouty face is always disgusting (absolutely true, and I swear I'll never do it again). The book's climax is the literal "senseless" woman story, numb to the world but swimming in observations, sort of the opposite of the men in here, come to think of it (the author beautifully skewers a certain kind of "can I get a hug?" gently-abusive shitbag that will probably be familiar to most). This fantastic collection of short fiction, like many books, seems to be a pandemic casualty though, the only explanation why I don't hear more about it. Now's your chance.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah Harris Wallman's Senseless Women is a collection of eleven short stories, some of whom have been published before (in Great Jones Street, Prada Journal and Frualein, Hobart, Lady Churchill's Roesbud Wristlet, storySouth, Masters Review), but all of them benefit from being in such an engrossing, amazing, truth-filled book. I had a really hard time putting it down.

Each short story pulled me in quickly, richly saturated the senses, and left me wanting more.This maybe best exemplified by one of my favorites "Forbidden Fruit," which follows June as she grows up sneaking food against her own moral ethos. Stalked by Hades (Pluto for the Latin inclined), June is the quintessential struggling girl, woman, mom lured and then abandoned by sugar. I don't know a woman alive today who wouldn't instantly recognize the reality in this story.

Another one of my favorites, "Birth Stories" follows a group of mom friends who regale themselves with their moments of birth and pain (okay, actually of their children- but we all recognize it is our birth stories, and not our children's that we are narrating). So, to be honest, my birth story was used in part for inspiration for this story (with my blessing). I really did have to argue with my insurance against two ambulance rides after the birth of my daughter, when we only took one. My husband really was in the library and missed my call when I was in labor. And Sarah Harris Wallman was really there when I gave birth. If you want to know more, buy the book.

I loved the book. You will too.

[Virginia Brackett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah Wallman is an astonishingly talented writer, tackling worn-out gendered issues with a fresh approach. Although her tone in Sensless Women may prove too cynical for some readers, overshadowing her undeniable skill and uniqueness of voice, others will find her stories captivating, as did I. She writes one of the best stories from the point of view of a dead person in Carly that I've encountered, without a single note of maudling melodrama. Wallman also creates a new Southern Gothic with her story of Shana, reshaping time-honored but tired characters and symbolism to fit her ruthless pursuit of truth through fiction. Most of her protagonists are terribly appealing - as in appealing in a terrible way - although few triumphs over their circumstances in any definable manner. Collectively, their undeniable spirit and tenacity prove nevertheless admireable. I was surprised to realize after completing each story that these characters, shaped with total disregard for sentimentality, still touched me. This is one of the most powerful contemporary short story collections I've read.

[Katharine Phenix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Karen Russell went to the dark side. Or Alice Munro on acid?

[Ruth Garcia-Corrales · Rating 3 out of 5]

Senseless Women a book of short stories leaves you with a lot of loose ends. Stories that you cannot knit together until the end of them. Some cruel and senseless as the title reminds you.

[Ginny Gabel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea but I read first 2 stories & last 2 stories. Total waste of my time except for Birth Stories but then I’m a OB/NICU nurse. Certainly a Senseless Book!