Fraternity: Stories

by Benjamin Nugent

In a Massachusetts college town stands a dilapidated colonial: Delta Zeta Chi. Here, we meet Newton, the beloved chapter president; Oprah, the sensitive reader; Petey, the treasurer, loyal to a fault; Claire, the couch-surfing dropout who hopes to sell them drugs; and a girl known, for unexpected reasons, as God. Though the living room reeks of sweat and spilled beer, the brothers know that to be inside is everything.

Fraternity celebrates the debauched kinship of boys and girls straddling adolescence and adulthood: the drunken antics, solemn confessions, and romantic encounters that mark their first years away from home. Beneath each episode lies the dread of exclusion. The closeted Oprah's hero worship gives way to real longing. A combat veteran offers advice on hazing. An alienated young woman searches for a sanctuary. And the shadow of assault hovers over every sexual encounter.

Voiced by an off-kilter chorus of the young and desperate to belong, Benjamin Nugent's provocative collection pries the fraternity door off its hinges, daring us to peer inside with amusement, horror, and also with love.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, LGBT, Gay, Short Story Collection

145 pages, Hardcover

First published July 7, 2020

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been anticipating this collection since the opening story "God" showed up in the Paris Review in 2013. "God" is a masterclass in voice and pathos--its balance of humor and sadness is really remarkable. I've taught it in intro to lit classes and it nearly always kills.

The rest of the collection is not quite so strong, perhaps in part because so much of the power of "God" lies in how unexpected it is, and many of the other stories pick up a similar rhythm. It is also a very slight collection, at less than 150 pages, with large leading and blank pages between stories (I think at least 3 of the 8 have already appeared in other venues). But each story is nevertheless effective and still worth reading on its own, especially if you retain some connection to and/or affection for college life: they are by turns entertaining, funny, voice-driven, and--at their best--true, sad, sweet, and troubling. Plus, the narrator of "God" makes a very brief return in one of the later stories that (if you were a fan of that story) is almost worth the price of admission alone.

[Rachel B. Glaser · Rating 5 out of 5]

These funny and melancholy stories explore the mating rituals and coping mechanisms of thoughtful, homoerotic frat brothers. Wandering around Amherst, Massachusetts, troubled, self-conscious minds confess weird theories. Endearing freshmen high-five and then feel ashamed they high-fived. With streaks of brilliance, Nugent conjures thoughts and sensations I've never seen articulated before, as his characters' intimate connections dissolve into loneliness. "She was broad-shouldered with hair that hung straight like Snoopy's ears." "Her labia tasted like crying and fingertips." "The moment I felt that we had made a breakthrough, that we had found a nonverbal language, that the barriers between us had fallen and we were unified in a single feeling, this turned out to be the moment that I had left my partner behind and slipped away into a private euphoria."

[Sarmat Chowdhury · Rating 5 out of 5]

I normally never read short stories, but I had heard great review about this collection, and being a fraternity man myself, I am always fascinated at reading the fictional takes on Greek Life, especially the brothers that are a part of the chapter (and not the smut books - but more the character studies). Nugent and his short story collection are a prime example of that; at its onset, you would't expect to find a myriad of depth and introspection.

The stories do not follow any linear pattern, instead they are snippets of the brothers and what they are going through. Whether its finding acceptance, brotherhood, relationships, consent, the power of language, and also finding themselves unable to cope without their preconceived notions of brotherhood and place in society.

Nugent writes each short story in a different light, and does a good job in adopting the tone and inflection of active brothers, utilizing a jargon and cadence that outside of the fraternity world would make no sense, but does serve to explain to the reader the state of the boys and, more importantly, the girls that appear in the stories. For it is the girls that appear in the story that stand out even more so then the brothers - how they are able to navigate the world that, from other characters, say will treat them poorly and terribly, yet they are able to find their own groove in that environment, in spite of the brothers not being on the more refined side.

Even if you have no connection to Greek Life, I highly recommend this collection of short stories to get a sense of the literary powers that Nugent utilizes on these New England Greeks in their quest to find their place in the world.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd been waiting a while for this book to come out — three of these eight stories were published in The Paris Review over the past several years, so I knew more or less what to expect, and of I course devoured it in a few sittings. (The weird supernatural horror story "Ollie the Owl" was a surprise, but not an unwelcome one.) This book works the way any good collection of linked stories ought to, as when the narrator of one story reappears as a minor character several stories later, etc. Nugent is a disarmingly engaging writer, and most of the stories work splendidly when the author makes room for character and empathy and allows his technique to fade into the background.

I love the story with which Nugent chooses to end the collection. I already knew it — "Safe Spaces," the only story with a female protagonist — from the Paris Review, but placed here, as the ending, it got me (I admit) a little verklempt. The book is more than the sum of its parts.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is funny, homoerotic and smells of state beer.

I went into this collection expecting something a little bit different... maybe a little more criticism of greek life. Nugent definitely toed the line with consent in a couple stories, but didn't go far enough for me. The book is not meant to be a criticism though. Benjamin Nugent is a really good writer, but he simply could not make me care about frat guys. I adore!!!! this cover, though.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

[kissy poku · Rating 2 out of 5]

the only reason i got this book was becuz 1) it was near another book i wanted and caught my eye 2) it caught my eye cuz it was green. other than those two points i had no business reading short stories about a frat. this book is meh :/

[Marcella Wigg · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

for a short story collection centered around frats, there are so many genuinely thought-provoking kind of beautiful lines and memorable scenes and i think i liked it so much because of how surprising that is. its such an interesting blend of self-aware humor (the author is constantly commenting on the guys’ obsessions with their muscles) and melancholy: the characters are so desperate to belong somewhere that they forget themselves. there’s also so much commentary on the complications and mistakes and crises that can arise from intimate moments. and all of these serious topics are stitched together with so much funny shit

the one about the possessed owl statue was a no…. but the rest of em i lowkey ate up

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I imagined that, wherever these kids had grown up, they'd found their friends by refusing to conform. They'd belonged to tight little bands of persecuted weirdos. And even if they hadn't belonged to tight little bands, at least they'd had their persecution, which was a form of attention. Now that they found themselves in a place where nearly all behavior was acceptable, they were lonelier than they'd ever been at home."

These eight stories are uniformly well-written, memorably voiced, and acutely observant, but I kept waiting to be blown away, and I never was. I would nominate "Basics" and "Cassiopeia" as the best stories, though I know "God" is the consensus fave.

That said, I've always viewed fraternities (and frat culture) as fundamentally lonely places, strange given their constant (and performative) efforts at socialization. Nugent does get at that dynamic pretty well here, I thought.

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the single story in this collection that takes place away from the campus (seemingly UMass Amherst, c. 2016), one character's girlfriend asks what the appeal of fraternities is - aren't those guys just boorish drunks and sexual predators? It depends, her boyfriend replies, on the kind of guys running the frat. If they do it right it's like having older brothers, who guide the pledge through the shoals of 18-22, confusing years of finding identity and coming of age.

This book is not exactly pro-frat, but it is sympathetic, and approaches them from a quite unexpected angle. The "Deltas" are an endearing (if not quite plausible) combination of raucous bros and soft-hearted teddy bears. For many, sexual orientation is unstable, in flux; though no-one is "out". But even the totally straight president (nicknamed "Nutella") is a passive and sensitive soul, somewhat unmanned by his tiger-like older girlfriend, an indie director and minor celebrity. They're aware of the new laws of consent - one character frets after waiting "five to ten seconds" to pull out of a girl, worried he may have committed sexual assault. (He calls his mom.) In the final story, they bond with a homeless autistic lesbian coke dealer over video games.

The best thing about this book is Nugent's precise, sharp and funny writing, which conveys with aching precision the phenomenology of campus life, social masculinity, and loneliness. One story, about a demonic owl, is surreal and comic. But all the others are masters of realism. You can find one of the stories online ( Cassiopeia ) and hear Jesse Eisenberg read God on this podcast. But still, you should buy it! Nugent is at the top of his game.

[Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing isn't bad, but the book felt unsatisfying, with each story consistently falling short of the writer's obvious potential. I suspect, but do not know, that the culprit here was the choice of a frat house as the setting. The stories read like the author wanted to write lighthearted literary coming-of-age fare but felt like the setting required him to Say Something Serious About Fraternities, so the result is that the stories end up being larded with pretty preposterous stuff (pledges being made to do the "elephant walk," a guy being made to perform a public sex act as a sort of quasi-celebration for his having been elected chapter treasurer, etc.) Ultimately the book felt heavy-handed and cartoonish at the same time.

[Aleah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm honestly surprised at how much I enjoyed this collection.

[Jenn Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a quirky collection of loosely connected short stories. I liked it, but didn't love it, and I'm not sure who I would even recommend it for.
The fraternity is what linked all of the characters and their stories, but not very much of the book was actually about fraternity life itself.
3.25

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Michelé · Rating 4 out of 5]

Echoing other reviewers, "Ollie the Owl" was weird, and not in a good way. Being the only surrealist story did not work, and I also just didnt understand the point. I got worried after the first two were really good and the next two were really not. But the last three brought it home, so I'm happy to give it 4 stars.

I loved the level of gayyy in so many stories.

There were definitely racist aspects, but I think that was the point--a criticism of fraternities. I thought the blurred lines of consent were well-written, as was the exploration of desire. A quick, enjoyable read.

[Hayley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A few short stories I loved and a few I really didn’t. Good characterizations, though.

[Deniz Yılmazer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unexpectedly deep. Saw this at an airport bookstore and thought it was going to be the book version of crazy college frat life movies. I was very wrong, it was a great collection of stories.

[Nerdette Podcast · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this would be a bit more wild and fun but it ended up being quite ... forlorn? Still enjoyed it, but it wasn't quite the mood lift I'd anticipated.

[phoebe · Rating 3 out of 5]

some of these were funny, some were weird. liked it well enough

[Humberto V. · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I feel like my life had been a dream in which nothing mattered, and finally, I was waking up into a world that was real, a real world where people fought. It was really true that I was alive."

A quick, vibrant, and funny short story collection about young men in fraternities.
Sadly, this one didn't wow me as I expected. Most of the stories follow the same pattern and they lacked a distinctive voice. The writing was sharp enough to keep going but nothing write home about. I appreciate the commentary of the all-male fraternity and its traditions, social dynamics, and the uncertainty of the future after college. Also, this book has such homoerotic vibes, and... that was a plus for me.

[Veronique · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was honestly really confused by the inclusion of Ollie The Owl and Safe Spaces and how they fit into the book, but I really liked the other stories. Ben Nugent has a very distinguished voice in this book.

[Lydia Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 My fav stories were God and Cassiopeia and Safe Spaces

[Luke Hillier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't let the title mislead you into expecting a raucous print-version of Animal House –– these stories are moody, melancholic, and even ominous at times. Unlike some other reviewers, I actually appreciated that this didn't read as a hit piece on Greek life, not because I'm preferential to it but because that just feels didactic and ham-fisted. Instead, Nugent embraces subtlety, nuance, and moral ambiguity throughout the collection, and largely to great effect. In "Fan Fiction," the former Delta president acknowledges that fraternities have the capacity to either be like living with twenty older brothers looking out for you or a barbarian tribe, and it depends on who's leading the helm. Instead of landing at one end of the spectrum or another, these stories seem to reflect a tenuous middle ground between the two, which makes them all the more interesting.

I think Nugent is at his best when he's subverting and playfully mocking our expectations. The clearest example is in the final story, "Safe Spaces," which follows Claire, the only female narrator of the collection. She is an autistic, homeless, drug-addicted lesbian who's had to drop out of college, and there's a sly irony to the fact that despite her many vulnerable identities, she's kicked out of the campus's Progressive Democrats meeting for making people uncomfortable only to be welcomed in and given a place to sleep by the fraternity. Of course, Nugent doubles down on the moral complexity by portraying Claire as a realistically toxic presence rather than a primarily sympathetic victim, but her vulnerabilities are nonetheless real. Two stories circle around consent in similar fashion, though they are left with a lot less resolution and genuinely left me with a feeling of my skin crawling. (In one of the most memorable moments of the collection for me, a character calls his mother immediately after a woman leaves his bedroom to receive coaching and consolation regarding his fear that he may have assaulted her.)

Ultimately, I'm impressed with these stories abilities to feel grimy in the way I'd imagine a dirty frat house would; it speaks to Nugent's ability to convey atmosphere, characterization, and tone for sure. That said, while I really enjoyed reading these, I finished the collection feeling a little shorthanded and unsure why. Maybe I wanted a few more stories, or a few of them to be longer? What I really wish is that he'd committed to them being interconnected. We have a few characters who recur (justice for Oprah! I'd follow a whole book about him), but most stories have a standalone cast while still taking place at the same fraternity. I think I could feel the potential for a greater richness and depth from being able to follow a truly interconnected cast of characters and the loss of that potential.

[Garrett Zecker · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his newest collection of short fiction, Ben Nugent has captured the spirit of America’s disassociation with the true gravity of twenty-first century college life. In generations past, books like Valley of the Dolls, The Things They Carried, Election, The Outsiders, Perks of Being A Wallflower, Carrie, Ghost World, The Virgin Suicides, The Chocolate War, A Separate Peace, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (among many, many others since then), have given us a peek into the traumatic and debilitating internal lives of high schoolers – the very same lives that either we were spared from, or have chosen to suppress deep in our minds. Nugent’s Fraternity, however, exists in a post-Brock Turner world; one where the sheer magnitude of the Updikean post-grad traumatic existence, the very shore we build our future selves upon, is a pile of dirt where one can wear a similarly garbage crown of shit for a short time span that will last them for the rest of their lives.

The world we live in is different now. One where our graduates are assumed to attend college and then enter this new universe of beleaguered suffering and emotional intransience. One where the boundaries of rape and the narrow alleyways of ‘adulting’ are difficult to navigate. Where hearing a ‘no’ and not saying it in front of a crowd of people can have reverberations for decades.

And it is through the lend of these decades, and the brilliantly constructed emotional worlds of Nugent’s characters that we get the true mirror of Fraternity reflecting our current world. We live in a world that is a result of the mistakes, escapes, and pure humiliations of these stories. Nugent’s characters seem to bleed off the page into our hands, as we have experienced this very world either in entertaining the whims of our bosses, spouses, successes, and failures. We watch the same choices being made over and over again, and seem to careen our cars off the same cliffs as if we learned the somethings he writes about when we were in the driver seat of our similarly energetic and indeterminable fates.

We didn’t know what we were doing then, and I am not sure we know any more about our mistakes today... But Nugent’s captivating portrait of these young, directionless, and forgivable undergraduates seems to be the same strange universe we are a part of today, as if the ribbon of time has remained connected and pulled us back to show us what tremendous neuroses we have inflicted upon ourselves and our culture... and precisely, fundamentally where they began.

[Misha · Rating 4 out of 5]

"No one would say anything to me. No one would want to take anything from me. But brotherhood would be taken, in the end. The ease with which my brothers spoke to me, the readiness with which they spilled their guts in times of humiliation - this would be withdrawn."

This collection of stories revolves around a fictional frat. I came across this book when someone recommended it as being a similar read to Real Life by Brandon Taylor. I kind of understand why, in that they both portray toxicity of privilege.

These incisive, humorous, sometimes bizarre stories are often sociological depictions of masculinity, the loneliness of 'macho' masculinity and being absolutely psychologically alone even in the mist of a supposed brotherhood; and also the associated privilege and misogyny. In 'God', our narrator struggles with his sexuality and fears the loss of brotherhood being outed would entail. In 'Basics', the protagonist is unsure if he has just crossed the line of consent, more concerned about the implications of sexual assault to his own future. In 'The Treasurer', consent is again explored intertwined with toxic masculinity, as the main character struggles to accept that he has been sexually assaulted, encouraged by his 'brothers'.

This is a complex, empathetic collection of the often murky topic of frats, even when admitting to the all the wrongness that arises out of fraternities.

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Literarianism

[William · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have not enjoyed a book so little in quite some time. Fortunately, it is mercifully short (actually short enough that I am a little surprised it was published).

The writing is okay, and full of credible details on fraternity life. Part of the problem here is that it is a tall order to write about some kind of upside in male Greek life. I don't see Nugent taking on that challenge here.

These are all dark stories, some bordering on weird. There is a a lot of uniformly joyless sex, gay and straight, some of it forced on a participant. There is in all the stories an aura of loneliness and sadness. I have to admit I cannot point to a story I liked, but I actively disliked "Ollie the Owl: (just too weird) and "Safe Spaces" (a huge downer).

Some of the stories are connected, and there is a group of frat guys with silly nicknames, many of whom do things I see as inappropriate, and they are uniformly forgiven because "They are good guys." I just did not see much good in any one of them.

I have to admit to a bias against fraternities, having worked in higher education. Nothing in these stories moved me to a more positive perspective, and, actually, this might be a very effective case against the existence of fraternities. Maybe that's the book's only upside for me.

[Audrey Approved · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was pretty excited for this collection of short stories, all loosely connection and centered on the male college students of a particular fraternity. While I enjoyed the writing, and the stories frequently started promising, I finished most wanting more. There's nuance, but very few pieces were rounded and whole. Most deal with themes of sex (both hetero and homosexual relationships), gender performance standards, and insecurity. I do like the author's emphasis on isolation and loneliness within the broader arms of what fraternities are supposed to be - institutions of brotherly camaraderie. Also worth noting that this is white AF, and the only POC are made fun of.

In terms of the stories themselves, "God" is by far the best, and it seems like most reviewers on Goodreads agree. "Hell" was another solid piece, probably my second favorite. "Ollie the Owl" is the only surrealist story of the piece, and is horrible. It also stands out in a bad way, as all the other pieces are realist. The rest of the stories are quite forgettable.

[Kerrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of short stories is more emotional/sensitive than I anticipated, but that improved the entire reading experience for me. I liked that the stories were loosely connected to each other, and they were very well written. However, I lost interest while reading some of the stories in the middle of the book. I would say that my favorites would have to be "God" and "Casseopeia."

Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy in return for an honest review.

[Mei · Rating 4 out of 5]

surprising. I expected to hate these stories because I hate the idea of frats but instead they’re sensitive and well-written

[Sharvari Johari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moments of brilliance and lovely writing. Wished there was a little more depth. I really enjoyed the use of a fraternity as the lens into explorations of youth and masculinity.