Help Yourself

by Curtis Sittenfeld

Three scalding stories from the bestselling author of American Wife.

Sittenfeld’s wryly hilarious and insightful new collection, Help Yourself, illuminates human experience and gracefully upends our assumptions about class and race, envy and disappointment, gender dynamics and celebrity.

Suburban friends fall out after a racist encounter at a birthday party is caught on video and posted on Facebook; an illustrious Manhattan film crew are victims of their own snobbery when they underestimate a pre-school teacher from the Mid-West; and a group of young writers fight about love and narrative style as they compete for a prestigious bursary.

Connecting each of these three stories is Sittenfeld’s truthful yet merciless eye, as her characters stagger from awkwardness, to humiliation and, if they're lucky, to reconciliation. Full of tenderness and compassion, this dazzling collection celebrates our humanity in all its pettiness and glory.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Short Story Collection, Adult

96 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2020

About the author

Curtis Sittenfeld is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels, including Rodham, Eligible, Prep, American Wife, and Sisterland, as well as the collection You Think It, I'll Say It. Her books have been translated into thirty languages. In addition, her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post Magazine, Esquire, and The Best American Short Stories, for which she has also been the guest editor. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, and Vanity Fair, and on public radio's This American Life.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprise second UK release from Sittenfeld in 2020 after Rodham, this collects three stories that were originally published in O magazine, the New Yorker, and New York magazine. Even though the slender size might make this seem like a cash-in on leftovers, it’s actually a strong follow-up to You Think It, I’ll Say It, her 2018 short story collection. In “White Women LOL,” a Jewish woman who was accidentally racist in a viral video recording tries to atone for her reputation-killing behavior by finding her African-American friend’s missing dog. “Creative Differences” features a young photographer who pulls out of a documentary shoot when she realizes it’s actually more of a marketing campaign. In “Show Don’t Tell,” the only first-person story, creative writing students compete for an exclusive fellowship. The narrator has at least a touch of Sittenfeld in her in that she becomes a “women’s fiction” author. All three stories share a theme of figuring out who you really are, as opposed to what people think of you. They compare favorably to Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

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Even if I wasn't the biggest fan of Curtis Sittenfeld's Eligible I did really like her collection of short stories, You Think It, I'll Say It, so I was looking forward to read Help Yourself. Sadly, I did not find the three stories collected in Help Yourself to be as memorable or evocative as the ones in her previous collection. Two of the stories were probably meant to make the reader cringe, and although they kind of succeeded, they did not really have any interesting to say. Although all three narratives come across as somewhat realistic, and they do touch upon on relevant topics, they ultimately felt superficial, merely skimming the surface of the characters, dynamics, issues they were centring on.

'White Women LOL' : 2 ½ stars
This was easily my least favourite story. We have a forgettable white suburban woman who is filmed while being a total 'Karen'. She doesn't think she's racist, nor that she acted wrongly, if anything she seems to believe that she didn't come across well in the video, and that the whole incident was misconstrued. The dog of her one black friend is missing, and this woman decides that by finding him she might 'redeem' herself or something. This story was very satirical towards a certain type of white American women, a type that I would rather not read about as I do not find their stupidity and cattiness to be even remotely amusing. While I do believe that people like them exist, I wonder why anyone would write a story about them, especially one that is as shallow as this. This story tried and failed to be witty and sharp.

'Creative Differences' : 3 stars
This story was more likeable, but I once again didn't care for the tone of the narrative. We have this millennial from the Mid-West we are meant to root for but I kind of found myself irked by her. The film crew from Manhattan are snobby towards her, and she doesn't really challenge them as the summary for this collection would led you to believe. She sticks to her decision, but it wasn't a particularly subversive act on her part. It seemed weird that the story followed the perspective of just one man from this crew, rather than the whole crew or the Mid-Westerner herself. This guy played a side character role and yet it was through his pov that we were seeing things through. Again, this was a satirical story, this time more focused on the film industry and the art world. It wasn't a bad story per se but it was kind of boring and forgettable.

'Show Don't Tell': 3 ½ stars
The best story in the lot. This felt very autobiographical, and the first person narration added a layer of intimacy and immediacy that the first two stories did not have. I liked the narrator's wry tone, and her dynamics between students who have very different writing styles as well as contrasting views on what good writing is. Here Sittenfeld has something to tell, and it clearly come across (so much so that it doesn't read like fiction).

[Claire Fuller · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first Sittenfeld writing I've read, and these stories won't be the last. They are wonderful. Only three here, but as well as being beautifully packaged, this collection is dense with cringe-worthy characters, situations that made me wonder what I would do, and writing that is razor-sharp. Highly recommended. Thanks to Transworld for the free copy.

[robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

ykw i do love an ‘aren’t women interesting’ short story collection. women ARE interesting! i’m sitting my ass down and listening!

[Hannah W · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved these 3 short stories. Curtis Sittenfeld manages to write in a way that is fun to read, thought-provoking and makes me want to get back into creative writing.

[Roos · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Hilarious, understated, thought-provoking.
Curtis Sittenfeld strikes again. :)

[Pauline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This won’t be as much of a book review as it is an appreciation post for Sittenfeld’s writing and talent for short stories. Her other collection of short stories, You Think It, I’ll Say It, is one of my all-time faves 🙌🏼

In Help Yourself, we’re presented with just 3 stories - which can be easily devoured in one sitting. The first one (shrewdly titled ‘White Women LOL’) felt like it was the strongest out of the 3 for me. We see Jill, a white suburban woman who was filmed being a bit of a ‘Karen’, showing microaggressions to a group of Black people at a party but insisted that she wasn’t being a racist. This one felt very reminiscent of Such A Fun Age where we see an exploration of a white person who shows prejudice against PoC but not realising that they have done so.

A couple of pages into ‘Creative Differences’, i realised that i had heard Sittenfeld herself reading it out on a @thecut episode a little while ago. It’s a satirical story that looks at a young artist in the Mid-West who feels like she’s being exploited by a film crew. I really enjoyed this in the audio format so i’d recommend checking out the podcast ep too if you’re interested!

The last one, ‘Show Don’t Tell’ was the least impactful for me. It follows the dynamics between students in a postgrad creative writing course while competing for a number of prestigious scholarships.

Sittenfeld’s writing is so clever, raw and compelling. All her short stories always feel like they have the potential to be full-sized novels. This little collection is definitely worth picking up, but i would highly recommend giving You Think It, I’ll Say It a go first if you haven’t read it already!

[Aoife Cassidy McM · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of three short stories on (inter alia) race, gender dynamics and self-doubt by Sittenfeld published in October 2020 that hits the mark. The first story White Women LOL is the standout one - it reminded me of Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid - though in truth all three stories are worth a read. The third story Creative Differences feels semi-autobiographical, with its first person narrator a “women’s fiction” author.

I’ve never read a Sittenfeld story I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed. She’s a class act.

This collection is currently on Kindle special for 85p.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhere between 3 - 3.5

[Beth Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

zipped through this on the plane. i love you curtis

[Ronnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Curtis is the master of excruciating interactions. Loved this delicious, sour trio of stories

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just wanted it to be longer!

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*
Three very very good short stories. I need to read more sittenfeld asap

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written of course but they made little impression on me. Perhaps they may appeal to an American reader more.

[Sriya · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent audiobook company on a long sunny walk, i liked the first story the best

[Emer Tannam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a short collection of short stories that I read in a couple of hours, so I enjoyed it well enough but it didn’t make much of an impact.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh how I love Curtis Sittenfeld’s writing. There are three short stories in this collection, and while I didn’t really enjoy two of them because her characters are so flawed, her writing is just as sharp and observant as ever.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5* rounded to 4

[Joshua Glasgow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually write my reviews in the Notepad app on my phone, but this time I’m writing it in Microsoft Word and then copying over to Goodreads. What a different experience this is! It may lead me to be wordier even than usual, but we’ll see. I’ve been deep in a Curtis Sittenfeld obsession since reading Rodham last summer and reviewing her profile on Goodreads I came across this collection of three short stories (“White Women LOL”, “Creative Differences”, and “Show Don’t Tell”). They were apparently posted online but the first was posted on the website for Oprah’s ‘O’ magazine and I was unable to access it without a subscription. I therefore decided to just purchase the collection.

The book is just 79 pages long (83 with a brief Q&A with the author at the end), so I was able to read it in one day. Let me just summarize my feelings up-front: my general impression is that this collection is not her strongest work but it got better as it went along. Each story was a little bit better than the last, with “Show Don’t Tell” being actually as good and as incisive as anything she’s written. Because of both its brevity and its steadily increasing quality, I ended the book craving more—and that’s what you want from a book, isn’t it?

Let’s take it one at a time, shall we? “White Women LOL” is certainly the weakest of the three. It’s about a woman who becomes the star of a viral video in which she appears to be racist. I say “appears to be”, but in fact her behavior was inspired in large part by an unconscious racism – she was filmed approaching a group of Black partygoers at a function she was attending to ask them to leave, knowing they were not part of the party she was attending partly due to their race. I think every book I’ve read from Sittenfeld has a moment where the main character exhibits a bit of unconscious bias, whether on the basis of race, sex, or gender, and I’ve appreciated how she addresses these moments. She typically acknowledges the character’s blind spot on the topic without a pointed critique or the comfort that, well, their intentions are good. It’s apparent their behavior is bad, but it’s presented more as though for all their good intentions these (white, cisgender, typically heterosexual) characters are prone to prejudice nonetheless. It’s unflinching, I guess is the term I would use to describe it, and candidly, as a white, cisgender, typically heterosexual character myself, as embarrassing as it is to admit I can certainly think of times when I’ve acted on ingrained racial prejudice in ways similar to Jill in this story.

Nevertheless, the way Jill’s behavior is treated in this story feels a little too self-conscious. After the incident has gone viral, she worries to herself whether it is acceptable for her to continue listening to Rihanna or Beyonce. There’s also a moment where she reminisces about marching for justice after a 17-year old Black boy was shot in her town, after which Jill made a donation to the NAACP… or she meant to, at least. She can’t remember if she did. But if she didn’t, it was because it slipped her mind – NOT because she chose not to! Those sorts of jokey references to other times the character failed to be self-critical are a little too loud, in my view, though I do appreciate the overall concept of the story, which seems to be that once forced to focus on it Jill recognizes there is a lot more problematic behavior and beliefs underlying what seemed to her an innocuous moment.

“Creative Differences” centers on a member of a film crew who has flown out to Wichita to film an artist for a “documentary” funded by a toothpaste company. The artist, Melissa, went viral twice for photographs she has taken but when it comes time to do the shoot she backs out because she’s realized that it’s essentially a toothpaste commercial. It’s not the fact that it’s a commercial which bothers her, so much as the bait-and-switch. The character through whose eyes we see Melissa admires her for her confidence in herself, the strength of her convictions. Even as she details her disappointment in him (he is an amateur documentarian himself and, she argues, knows the difference between an advertisement and a documentary), he maintains a sense of awe in her presence. And that’s kind of the whole point of the story. I like it! I was also moved by a moment where Melissa admits that going viral did not feel good. She got no money from it, strangers saw photographs which were intimate to her. While the bigwigs at the toothpaste company insist that Melissa is a fool for turning down the exposure, she asserts that she doesn’t want exposure: she wants to find an audience who appreciates her art.

The last of the three stories, “Show Don’t Tell”, is by far my favorite. I wrote down several quotes. Near the start of the story, the protagonist Ruth is cutting a pineapple and there’s an aside about how this always makes her feel like a “splendid tropical queen with no one to witness [her] splendor.” The overall plot of the story is about Ruth, who is a student in a college writing program, agonizing over whether she will or will not receive a prestigious fellowship. At the same time, she’s in a sort of feud with her neighbor Lorraine whose cigarette smoke filters into Ruth’s apartment. At one point, Lorraine calls Ruth a “fucking bitch” because of her behavior, but then leaves a sunflower and an apology note on her doorstep that evening, which left Ruth feeling “queasy and disappointed” because she’d already crowed to her colleagues about the incident. She later finds out that Lorraine had a daughter who died of anorexia and questions whether the feud is somehow an extension of her grief. Let me just get into some of the things I quoted:
- Ruth believes at least one person who receives the fellowship will likely be female. She states that of the 22 students in the writing program, 7 were “girls or women or whatever we were supposed to call ourselves and one another – I myself was inconsistent on that front.”
- Another student, Bhadveer, argues that no great female writers are attractive. Ruth spends some time trying to name women writers who are attractive (“Virginia Woolf was a babe”), but stops after a while because “providing counterexamples felt distasteful rather than satisfying.”
- At a party, Ruth decides not to drink because of her anxiety over whether she will get the fellowship. When everybody else is drunk and she remains sober, she feels like she has an invisibility cloak on and the knowledge that she would not have a hangover the next morning felt like unexpectedly finding a $20 bill in your pocket.
- Near the end of the story, Ruth reveals that she—SPOILER—did get the prestigious fellowship she was so worried about and now, an indeterminate number of years later, has written 7 novels, all but two of which were bestsellers. Her novels are considered “women’s fiction”. Bhadveer is also a successful author, and though he’s sold fewer books his are prominently reviewed and are nominated for awards. “He’s the kind of writer, I trust, about whom current students in the program have heated opinions; I’m the kind of writer their mothers read while recovering from knee surgery,” Ruth says. She then adds, “To be clear, I’m mocking neither my readers nor myself here – it took a long time, but eventually I stopped seeing women as inherently ridiculous.”
- Finally, at the very end of the story, it returns to the night she got home after the party and found the letter announcing she had been awarded the fellowship in the mail. She yelps in joy and Lorraine emerges from her apartment thinking something is wrong. When Ruth tells her she got the fellowship she wanted, Lorraine says she’s so happy for her and hugs her tightly. This ending is reminiscent of the end of “Bad Latch” from Sittenfeld’s longer short story collection You Think It, I’ll Say It, but it has the added impact of Lorraine’s embrace being, on some level, for her own daughter.

As ever, Sittenfeld’s writing is perceptive, honest, funny, and resonant. While I wasn’t in love with the first two stories the way I was with the third, overall this collection nevertheless captures her style and for me reaffirms why I’m such a fan.

[Sam Still Reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

Help Yourself is a slim volume of three short stories by a leader in short story writing, Curtis Sittenfeld. If you’re American, or read The New Yorker, O or New York magazine regularly you may have read these already. But as these magazines are expensive (and hard to get!) locally, I hadn’t read any of them. This volume won’t take you all day to read, but it is thoroughly entertaining.

Sittenfeld’s characters are flawed, sometimes to the point where they are unlikeable. But like them or not, they are fascinating – and recognisable. In White Women LOL, the main character is trying to redeem herself by searching for a neighbour’s lost dog. Race and white fragility come together in this story, while Creative Differences looks at the price of a tiny amount of fame and how willing people are to accept the agenda of big business. (Not to mention complex relationships and trade-offs). Show Don’t Tell is the final story about a group of writers in graduate school, and petty disagreements and competitiveness between them. What makes a writer? What makes a writer successful? Does genre matter?

The stories are sharp, with absolutely no filler. As with You Think It, I’ll Say It, any of these stories could become a full novel. They are raw, and keenly observant of how people act and feel, both good and bad. Definitely worth your time and energy.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com

[Francesca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Curtis Sittenfeld’s writing style. Her short stories are always compelling, often surprising, and linger with you long after you’ve finished them. The way she describes interpersonal interactions always rings completely true, often highlighting uncomfortable realities along the way.
Of the three stories in this compact collection, “White Women LOL” was the stand-out. A story about racism, white fragility and a lost dog, it packs a punch.
The second story in the collection, “Creative Differences”, didn’t have the sense of potency or urgency of the first, and was less memorable. The collection finishes with the bittersweet “Show Don’t Tell,” which has shades of Sittenfeld’s first novel, Prep. The book also includes an interview with Sittenfeld on why she enjoys writing short stories, which makes for an interesting coda.

[Faith Andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

The trilogy as a whole is obviously well written - Sittenfield has never had a problem with that; and to her credit all 3 stories are immersive and interesting. I take issue with the first 2 short stories in this trilogy - neither feel like they have anything important to say. Do I think we always have to learn something from literature? Not necessarily. But in “White Women LOL” it felt almost click-baity, the way we follow Vodka Vicky for the whole story, having to suffer through her pointed lack of self-awareness disguised under a blanket of feigned introspection, for a complete lack of resolution. I didn’t pity her, I didn’t hate her, I felt nothing towards her at all besides an intense want to eye-roll. The second short story is only a smidgeon more tolerable, although mostly forgettable. Melissa’s change of heart is told almost entirely through dialogue and the story felt a bit flat, and was probably my least favourite of the three.

I enjoyed “Show Don’t Tell” so much that I considered giving the collection 4 stars simply for its inclusion - which is a far cry from the two stars I anticipated giving the book after I completed the first 2 stories. Ruth’s self-awareness for the antics of her younger self are delightful and funny. Unlike the other two stories, which feel pointedly negative and keen to paint humanity in an entirely shrewd light, there is an air of acknowledgement for the complexity of relationships between humans towards the end of “Show Don’t Tell” that I found rewarding. I would stay with Ruth for an entire novel given the chance. The final story felt like it achieved what Sittenfield obviously wanted - to depict how grim humans are capable of being, and how self-absorbed often are in the name of being self-aware. “Show Don’t Tell” still delivered this message, but in a way that was less on the nose and more thematically pleasing to me personally (admittedly, any story dealing with the subject matter of academia, femininity, and literature is going to be hard for me to dislike).

[Chloe]

Help Yourself is a collection of three short stories from the legend that is Curtis Sittenfeld. I love her writing so it was a no-brainer for me when I spotted this slim volume in the library.

The first story; ‘White Woman, LOL” is probably the best of the three and is quite timely. A white woman goes viral after aggressively demanding information from a group of black people having a drink in the same bar as her. They film the interaction and before she knows it everyone is (rightly) judging her. She of course insists she’s not a racist and starts going out of her way to find a missing neighborhood dog, of course belonging to a black couple, in the hopes of some public redemption.

The second story; Creative Differences is about a film crew making a documentary, whose subject turns on them when she realises it’s more of an advertising campaign rather than the true art she thought it was.

Lastly, Show Don’t Tell, is about a post grad taking part in a writing program and hoping for a prestigious scholarship for her second year. She’s also involved in an ongoing feud of sorts with her downstairs neighbour.

All three are incredibly easy reads, they flow well and kept me interested. There’s an interview with the author at the end of my copy and I really enjoyed reading her perspective on writing short stories;

“I love how short stories can be intense all the way through. Most novels, including mine, have some slackness, but a short story can remain tight and propulsive. Frankly, I also find them easier and more manageable to write, much less messy than writing novels.”

So there you go!

[Jillwilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tiny little collection of stories which makes you long for more. I loved it. The first story White Woman LOL features Jill, a middle -class white woman who attempts to eject five black people that she mistakenly assumes have crashed her friend’s birthday party. “When she becomes fixated on finding the missing shih tzu of a local black celebrity, is Jill’s bid for redemption deluded, farcical or poignant? Hard to decide exactly…” (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...) Jill grapples with some excruciating memories that probe our relationship to race. “Around that time, she made a donation to the NAACP. Well, she thought of making a donation to the NAACP. She can’t remember if she actually did.” The stories are quietly funny in this way.

Creative Differences looks at the price of a tiny amount of fame and how willing people are to accept the agenda of big business. In the third and final story, Show, Don’t Tell, a successful author of “women’s fiction” is part of a group of writers in graduate school. It explores the competitiveness between them. One reviewer says: “its depiction of women wrestling honestly with self and society lends the stories real heft.” Another: “Ultimately Sittenfeld’s stories revolve around how quickly — and how accurately — we judge ourselves and others.“ (https://www.ft.com/content/4c8447d7-7...) All the stories feature a grapple with some form of status anxiety.

It's the type of collection that makes you want to read more books by this writer.

[Amarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.25 stars

Book one in my series of performative reading (picking short books from the library to increase my books read count… arrest me).

This book was a collection of three short stories and in all honesty, I can never form an opinion on short stories.

Story One: White Women LOL

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (out of 5 stars). This story is about a white woman going viral for seemingly being racist in a video. However she did not have racist intentions, or at least she thinks so. As the story progresses she questions her unconscious prejudices towards black people. And yeah I didn’t find this one funny, profound, beautifully written but I also didn’t hate it hence the three stars.

Story Two: Creative Differences

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (out of 5 stars). I guess this story shows how obsession can grow from being rejected, even professionally, and the superficiality and bizarreness/ out of touchness of people in Hollywood. Not much more to it than that.

Story Three: Show Don’t Tell:

⭐️.5 (out of 5 stars). I don’t understand the point of this story.

-
Overall I think the stories lacked direction and included WAY too many characters and names for only being 20 pages each. This book just feels too American performative millennial white woman and I don’t completely know what I mean by that but if you read it, I think you’d understand.

I’m going to end my performative reading series here (I think) because there’s no value in reading books you don’t care about, just because they’re short, even to increase your book count…

[Kirsty Keddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Be aware this book is no more than a slither of pages. Printed like a kids book, a small size with big font. It must be the highest cost/word book I’ve ever purchased! After the brick that was Rodham I was expecting more.
That said, these tightly crafted three short stories are a please to read. So cleverly done. The opening White Women LOL in particular I loved.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rarely read short stories so this was a refreshing break from what I usually read. I was not disappointed. Sittenfeld's writing is really punchy and effective- using a short story format meant that every part of the book felt like a well-articulated little window into the lives of the protagonists.

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Curtis Sittenfield and I like short stories. Perfect marriage indeed. So three very engaging, immediate and very impressive stories. The first with not so subtle racism but beautifully managed the second clever issues of honesty and PR versus what is art and the third a joyous celebration of the tensions writing school. Very impressive.

[Stacey Handler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Sittenfeld's style, she's so clear and concise, so deceptively easy. These three short stories are female centred, about how the world reveals itself to women and how women connect to the world. I will say it is very 'modern America' but not overwhelmingly so. Sittenfeld is subtler that that. But she also falls easily into line. I hope she will one day write something unexpected, something unsubtle and go against the party line. But she writes so well, even the predictable is entertaining when she writes it.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved Sittenfeld's previous collection of short stories, You Think It, I Say It, and was not disappointed by those in Help Yourself. White Woman LOL, the opening story, was the strongest. My only criticism is that this "collection" contained only three stories. Still, was well worth the afternoon I spent reading them.