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Total: Stories
Rebecca Miller returns to short fiction for the first time since her prodigious collection of stories, Personal Velocity , with the arresting, darkly prescient Total .
From Dublin to Martha’s Vineyard, from the anxious comforts of motherhood to a technologically infected near future that mirrors today with dark prescience, each of the seven stories in Total is a world of its own, painted with vivid strokes, whose people and questions stay with the reader long after the story has ended. Joad, one of the first characters we meet, finds onionskin pages crammed in a locked desk drawer while refurbishing a Hudson Valley farmhouse; the terrifying words on the fragile paper haunt Joad and her husband, the woman who wrote them looming over the couple like a malevolent spirit. Her words embody the power of the act of creation and the insidious, untamable force of language once it has left one’s pen.
The author of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and Jacob’s Folly , as well as an award-winning filmmaker, Miller has “the soaring eye of the epicist and the sly instinct of the satirist” ( The New Yorker ), and her talents are on full display in Total . Each voice and life captured in these haunting stories is unforgettable.
From Dublin to Martha’s Vineyard, from the anxious comforts of motherhood to a technologically infected near future that mirrors today with dark prescience, each of the seven stories in Total is a world of its own, painted with vivid strokes, whose people and questions stay with the reader long after the story has ended. Joad, one of the first characters we meet, finds onionskin pages crammed in a locked desk drawer while refurbishing a Hudson Valley farmhouse; the terrifying words on the fragile paper haunt Joad and her husband, the woman who wrote them looming over the couple like a malevolent spirit. Her words embody the power of the act of creation and the insidious, untamable force of language once it has left one’s pen.
The author of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and Jacob’s Folly , as well as an award-winning filmmaker, Miller has “the soaring eye of the epicist and the sly instinct of the satirist” ( The New Yorker ), and her talents are on full display in Total . Each voice and life captured in these haunting stories is unforgettable.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published July 12, 2022
33 people are currently reading
1457 people want to read
About the author
Rebecca Miller
84 books98 followersRebecca Miller is an American film director, screenwriter and actress, most known for her films Personal Velocity: Three Portraits, The Ballad of Jack and Rose and Angela, all of which she wrote and directed.
Daughter of playwright Arthur Miller and photographer Inge Morath.
Miller married the actor Daniel Day-Lewis in 1996.
Daughter of playwright Arthur Miller and photographer Inge Morath.
Miller married the actor Daniel Day-Lewis in 1996.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
August 30, 2022
Filmmaker and writer Rebecca Miller’s latest book contains seven, very short, stories, the entire collection barely more than a hundred pages. Miller returns over and over to overlapping themes around creation and creativity, Motherhood is a recurring preoccupation, as is the process of reading and writing. Mostly set in America, Miller’s stories abound with close-ups of characters who border on stereotype, often privileged, solipsistic, self-obsessed: the wayward teenager, the “promiscuous” woman cured by parenting; the anxious middle-class mother threatened by the values and behaviour of her lower-class housekeeper. I wasn’t always clear whether this strategy of framing her characters in such obvious ways was deliberate and would-be subversive, or not.
Except for the washed-up writer Ciaran in “She Came to Me” – currently being adapted for the screen - Miller’s key figures are women. “Mrs Covet” revolves around Daphne, who has two small boys and is pregnant with her third child. Unable to cope with domestic life, her mother-in-law hires a nurse/housekeeper, Nat aka Mrs Covet, partly to help and partly as an implicit judgement on Daphne’s supposed failings as a wife and caregiver. Their story follows a familiar trajectory, class conflict, clashes in values and an expose of lurking, middle-class anxieties. At times it reads like a variation on the kind of ‘fear of the other’ story made popular through films like The Hand that Rocks the Cradle and more recent novels like The Nanny, at others it seems to be critiquing this kind of narrative – mainly because of the uncertainty about the reliability of the self-deluding narrator Daphne who prides herself on being liberal but is revealed to have quite conventional views about gender. It’s intriguing and well-observed but for me it never quite manages to transcend its overworked territory.
The title story “Total” is the only one to eschew realism in favour of SF. Total Phones were a form of immersive technology, now scrapped because their use led to the birth of children with Total Syndrome, elfin-like, short-lived, uncommunicative, doll-like forms. The sister of one such child decides to liberate her from the Total facility where she’s expected to live until her death, but the consequences are disastrous. Here Miller flirts with ideas about technology and responsibility, as well as the impact of forms of surrogate parenting. Again, it’s an interesting, readable piece but somehow lacking in any real substance or force.
Miller also draws on outside sources for her pieces, sometimes reworking ideas from other genres or writers, as in “The Chekhovians.” “Receipts” draws on Erica Jong’s once-notorious Fear of Flying while “Vapors” central character Justine has more than a little in common with the Justine of de Sade’s novel.
Miller’s prose is often polished and lucid, and there are numerous instances of memorable, vivid imagery. Her stories are clever, sometimes pleasingly perverse, but they can also feel overly-compressed, reading a little like script synopses peppered with breathless, expositional passages, that rush through the critical events of their protagonists’ lives, experiences that have seemingly shaped their attitudes and current life choices. Sometimes too, Miller’s concept of what it is to be a mother was just too alien, hard for me to grasp or relate to, rooted in a very particular set of cultural assumptions that I don’t personally subscribe to. Although that could also make her pieces oddly fascinating.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Canongate Books for an ARC
Except for the washed-up writer Ciaran in “She Came to Me” – currently being adapted for the screen - Miller’s key figures are women. “Mrs Covet” revolves around Daphne, who has two small boys and is pregnant with her third child. Unable to cope with domestic life, her mother-in-law hires a nurse/housekeeper, Nat aka Mrs Covet, partly to help and partly as an implicit judgement on Daphne’s supposed failings as a wife and caregiver. Their story follows a familiar trajectory, class conflict, clashes in values and an expose of lurking, middle-class anxieties. At times it reads like a variation on the kind of ‘fear of the other’ story made popular through films like The Hand that Rocks the Cradle and more recent novels like The Nanny, at others it seems to be critiquing this kind of narrative – mainly because of the uncertainty about the reliability of the self-deluding narrator Daphne who prides herself on being liberal but is revealed to have quite conventional views about gender. It’s intriguing and well-observed but for me it never quite manages to transcend its overworked territory.
The title story “Total” is the only one to eschew realism in favour of SF. Total Phones were a form of immersive technology, now scrapped because their use led to the birth of children with Total Syndrome, elfin-like, short-lived, uncommunicative, doll-like forms. The sister of one such child decides to liberate her from the Total facility where she’s expected to live until her death, but the consequences are disastrous. Here Miller flirts with ideas about technology and responsibility, as well as the impact of forms of surrogate parenting. Again, it’s an interesting, readable piece but somehow lacking in any real substance or force.
Miller also draws on outside sources for her pieces, sometimes reworking ideas from other genres or writers, as in “The Chekhovians.” “Receipts” draws on Erica Jong’s once-notorious Fear of Flying while “Vapors” central character Justine has more than a little in common with the Justine of de Sade’s novel.
Miller’s prose is often polished and lucid, and there are numerous instances of memorable, vivid imagery. Her stories are clever, sometimes pleasingly perverse, but they can also feel overly-compressed, reading a little like script synopses peppered with breathless, expositional passages, that rush through the critical events of their protagonists’ lives, experiences that have seemingly shaped their attitudes and current life choices. Sometimes too, Miller’s concept of what it is to be a mother was just too alien, hard for me to grasp or relate to, rooted in a very particular set of cultural assumptions that I don’t personally subscribe to. Although that could also make her pieces oddly fascinating.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Canongate Books for an ARC
July 10, 2022
I really enjoyed this collection of 7 short stories, mostly about women and their relationships with men and within their families. It’s such good writing that it drew me into the stories and kept my interest often without fully explaining everything, there’s things left unsaid which makes them stick in my mind. My favourites(hard to choose actually) included the first story ‘Mrs Covet’ about a mother pregnant with her third child and not coping maintaining her household and organised housekeeper, Nat arrives to put things in order; and ‘Receipts’ with references to Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, about a working woman’s relationship with her boyfriend and colleagues. An interesting read.
August 19, 2022
Thank you to Canongate Books for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Rebecca Miller is easily a new favourite writer. While the collection has its ups and downs, I felt that each story was consistently strong and had me wanting them to be novella or novel length as I felt very attached to the characters and her unusual plots. Her writing was also highly addictive and readable, I'd often find myself reading two stories at a time. She carefully crafts nuanced characters in such short spaces - such as the woman with an addiction to love, the Van Camp/Chekhovian family, E's sister - as they struggle with weird relationships and situations which put pressure on major aspects of their lives. I know short fiction is something most people don't like, but this collection will certainly change your mind about it. I hate to be so vague but you really need to read this collection with as little knowledge as possible because it is simply fantastic and entrancing. I am eager to read Miller's future works and her backlog.
My personal favourite stories were (in order): The Chekhovians, Total and She Came To Me.
Rebecca Miller is easily a new favourite writer. While the collection has its ups and downs, I felt that each story was consistently strong and had me wanting them to be novella or novel length as I felt very attached to the characters and her unusual plots. Her writing was also highly addictive and readable, I'd often find myself reading two stories at a time. She carefully crafts nuanced characters in such short spaces - such as the woman with an addiction to love, the Van Camp/Chekhovian family, E's sister - as they struggle with weird relationships and situations which put pressure on major aspects of their lives. I know short fiction is something most people don't like, but this collection will certainly change your mind about it. I hate to be so vague but you really need to read this collection with as little knowledge as possible because it is simply fantastic and entrancing. I am eager to read Miller's future works and her backlog.
My personal favourite stories were (in order): The Chekhovians, Total and She Came To Me.
September 19, 2022
Years ago I read and enjoyed The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, and by sheer coincidence earlier this year I picked up a secondhand copy of Rebecca Miller’s first collection of short stories Personal Velocity, also her first book.
Browsing @netgalley recently, I saw she had a new collection of short stories called Total, an imaginative, arresting work consisting of seven short stories. I thought it was excellent.
The stories in Total are mostly about women and their relationship with themselves, the men in their lives and their families.
The standout story for me was the eponymous Total, about a young girl who rescues her Total sister (a sister born with several physical and intellectual disabilities arising from their mother’s involvement in the creation of the Total phone, a weird invention that allows people to experience an orgasm over the phone). It’s quirky, vividly imagined and very poignant.
The opening story is also cracking - a woman about to give birth to her third child and struggling to cope with the demands of a busy house and family is gifted a housekeeper/childcare by her mother in law with startling results.
A short collection I devoured, this is perfect for anyone who likes an offbeat, unsettling, perfectly formed short story. Miller has a knack for hitting a nerve, for finding a raw emotion and exploiting it with dark humour and mischief. 4/5 ⭐️
*Total was published on 1 September by Canongate books. Many thanks to the author, publisher and @netgalley for the ARC. As always, this is an honest review.*
Browsing @netgalley recently, I saw she had a new collection of short stories called Total, an imaginative, arresting work consisting of seven short stories. I thought it was excellent.
The stories in Total are mostly about women and their relationship with themselves, the men in their lives and their families.
The standout story for me was the eponymous Total, about a young girl who rescues her Total sister (a sister born with several physical and intellectual disabilities arising from their mother’s involvement in the creation of the Total phone, a weird invention that allows people to experience an orgasm over the phone). It’s quirky, vividly imagined and very poignant.
The opening story is also cracking - a woman about to give birth to her third child and struggling to cope with the demands of a busy house and family is gifted a housekeeper/childcare by her mother in law with startling results.
A short collection I devoured, this is perfect for anyone who likes an offbeat, unsettling, perfectly formed short story. Miller has a knack for hitting a nerve, for finding a raw emotion and exploiting it with dark humour and mischief. 4/5 ⭐️
*Total was published on 1 September by Canongate books. Many thanks to the author, publisher and @netgalley for the ARC. As always, this is an honest review.*
June 10, 2024
2.5⭐️ the style reminded me a lot of ishiguro‘s, not just because of the topic of one particular short story - sadly, i could not really connect to the writing even though miller touches on topics peripheral for my being lately
April 28, 2022
Rebecca Miller is one of my go-tos. In the past, her fiction as well as her films have proved provocative and involving, and here, she continues that streak. These seven stories all hold interest, and according to the musings of one of the characters, "What a weird thing reading is." As I've said before, a well written volume of short stories can be more involving and challenging than a novel of equal length since it requires more effort on the part of the reader, but whoever picks up this book will be rewarded, happy they did so.
November 27, 2022
When I first read Personal Velocity twenty years ago, Miller was a bright shining star in my eyes - she could do no wrong. I didn’t just want to read more of her work, I wanted to write women the way she did: unforgiving and ugly and twisted, living in a world not at all made for them. But the countless authors and pages I’ve read since then, the experiences that shaped my own womanhood - who I have become since that collection released - all make it so I can see this new collection for what is: each story a glass of 2% alongside mayo on white.
September 27, 2023
Reading was like watching a new season of Black Mirror, maybe low budget BM, but still great! Total was my favourite story.
April 10, 2025
not a fan of short stories as a genre, but these were solid. mix of odd, female-driven narratives—helped me out of my slump, but won’t linger.
March 6, 2022
Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. This is a fun book of seven short stories. My favorites were a study of two families living in old houses on Martha’s Vineyard, as one family’s fortunes steady rise while the other’s crumble, an aging novelist desperate to find a new story gets snared in an unlikely adventure, a woman randomly meets an abusive old boyfriend on the street and replays in her mind other former partners to see how she got where she is right now. A smart book with rich characters you’d follow in stories twice their length.
December 29, 2022
Good collection of short stories. Similar to other short story collections, I had some favourites. MRS COVET and SHE CAME TO ME are my favs
March 19, 2023
“What a weird thing reading is”
Ermm … you can say that again Rach!
Total is a short, succinct and sharply written series of subtly unnerving -and at times, highly disorienting stories. All of which, centre around a majority of complexing conflicted, contradictory, female characters.
One thing I will flag up, is although I appreciated the variety of stories Miller covered, the patently female lead perspective -especially the stories pertaining to motherhood and marriage, were slightly less captivating and relatable for me personally.
That said, you can most definitely tell that Miller has a background in film (even though I took me a wee while to realise she is in fact the daughter of esteemed playwright Arthur Miller -I know, but in my defence, I didn’t want to assume just cause they share the same surname!) as her presenting of each of the seven stories, felt vividly drawn and cinematic in evocation. Creating familiar and seemingly innocuous scenarios, that nearly all of which, culminated in surprisingly unpredictable -and often unnervingly drawn out, turns of events.
Total captures a level of discomfort, disassociation -and even perhaps dissatisfaction, that is a persistently pervading presence in living within this modern (alienating) age. Miller astutely captures a small slice of the many daily struggles and sacrifices women make (or don’t make) for the promise of “more” in life.
Though I will say, it did really make me really question whether these sacrifices are ever truly worth it (or even satiable enough for these women) in the end …
3.5 stars
Ermm … you can say that again Rach!
Total is a short, succinct and sharply written series of subtly unnerving -and at times, highly disorienting stories. All of which, centre around a majority of complexing conflicted, contradictory, female characters.
One thing I will flag up, is although I appreciated the variety of stories Miller covered, the patently female lead perspective -especially the stories pertaining to motherhood and marriage, were slightly less captivating and relatable for me personally.
That said, you can most definitely tell that Miller has a background in film (even though I took me a wee while to realise she is in fact the daughter of esteemed playwright Arthur Miller -I know, but in my defence, I didn’t want to assume just cause they share the same surname!) as her presenting of each of the seven stories, felt vividly drawn and cinematic in evocation. Creating familiar and seemingly innocuous scenarios, that nearly all of which, culminated in surprisingly unpredictable -and often unnervingly drawn out, turns of events.
Total captures a level of discomfort, disassociation -and even perhaps dissatisfaction, that is a persistently pervading presence in living within this modern (alienating) age. Miller astutely captures a small slice of the many daily struggles and sacrifices women make (or don’t make) for the promise of “more” in life.
Though I will say, it did really make me really question whether these sacrifices are ever truly worth it (or even satiable enough for these women) in the end …
3.5 stars
August 3, 2022
The titular story is tolerable. The remainder of the stories are awful. The characters are thoroughly unlikeable and worst of all, the situations that they insipidly stumble into are not compelling in the very least.
February 20, 2023
Nothing new here, I'm afraid.
August 23, 2023
Well, that was pointless.
August 28, 2022
One of the most important things to a short story collection is how well the first story grabs you and this one had me.
The stories ranged from the anxiety of motherhood, to sci-fi that emulates todays conspiracies around the effects of 5G, to the power of language.
Rebecca Miller perfectly balanced beautiful prose with engaging plot lines that leave you pondering over the stories for hours after.
If you enjoyed Cursed Bunny (Bora Chung), Homesick For Another World (Ottessa Moshfegh), or Life Ceremony (Sayaka Murata), I think you will also enjoy this.
The stories ranged from the anxiety of motherhood, to sci-fi that emulates todays conspiracies around the effects of 5G, to the power of language.
Rebecca Miller perfectly balanced beautiful prose with engaging plot lines that leave you pondering over the stories for hours after.
If you enjoyed Cursed Bunny (Bora Chung), Homesick For Another World (Ottessa Moshfegh), or Life Ceremony (Sayaka Murata), I think you will also enjoy this.
October 13, 2022
Engaging and so well-written. It's rare to enjoy every story in a collection, but each of these was good.
November 17, 2023
the written version of black mirror. very easy to read!
3.5⭐️
3.5⭐️
Read
December 19, 2024got to story #3 and couldn't be hooped to read anymore. interesting ideas, but technically poor.
March 10, 2025
3.5. Total and receipts completely carried this collection. The rest were average but enjoyable.
August 4, 2024
Heel interessant
January 9, 2023
I mean her ideas were great and like there was a lot of potential but in each and every story something didn’t sit well, and I understand that short stories don’t need big plots but they do need some plot. Total is a truly sweet story, and at times the book is amazing, but something just doesn’t click throughout each and every story
November 10, 2022
Honestly kinda of a flop. I loved the first story, and the title story held my interest, but I had to DRAG myself through every other story. There was almost no humor, no drama, no stakes, nothing interesting in the rest. Ugh.
November 23, 2022
There were a few well-written and well thought out short stories in this book and then others were just overly focused on cheating on spouses and people constantly seeking to corrupt their perfect/average lives. Just found those stories to be a bit disheartening.
October 19, 2024
Rebecca is a good writer. Her short stories are easy to read, but somehow I didn’t really care for them.
May 11, 2024
I am shocked anyone could call this good writing. I tried reading this aloud to others and all said the same thing - the writing is terrible and the sentence structure is abhorrent. Miller has a love for the grotesque and describing everything in this fashion, using vocabulary that seems as though she has used a thesaurus to sound fancier than needed, often making the writing seem more clumsy and complicated than necessary . It becomes hard to read when the unusual descriptions find themselves contradicting or not making clear sense of what she's trying to say. It comes across rambled like she's using these words to avoid getting to the point. Sometimes using a thesaurus to find an unusual word isn't needed. Just say what you mean!
I don't understand how anyone could enjoy this extremely negative collection of 7 stories that centre around classist, homophobic at many points, and unsettling characters with no real purpose to the plot. It felt pointless, like Miller doesn't have a defined point of view other than making female characters ugly, twisted and ultimately unlikable with no personality, defining characteristics other than vapid and irrational behaviour. Extremely disappointed. I kept putting the book down because it was so much effort to try and get through this unenjoyable experience of reading.
1. Mrs Covet
Really interesting story, well paced with a quick twist and ending but easy to understand. A strong start to the book about a pregnant mother who is overwhelmed by domestic labour and is gifted a housekeeper/nanny/nurse by her Mother-in-Law who takes over the house. The husband is a wet fish who is irrelevant to the story.
2. I Want You To Know
Probably the most awful story I have ever read. I really wanted to give up on this book immediately as I read the first couple of pages of this story of a woman named Joad (yes really) who live in a dilapidated farm house bought off a man who lives with his Mother who sexually pleases her dog (I didn't appreciate that description) and gets day drunk, to discover a typewriter and letter about a woman who joined the army because she wanted free boots, got married and then killed her children. This felt so disconnected and all over the place and then went back to the original, incredibly boring story where Joad freaks out about living in a murder house.
Is long for the sake of being long, a lot of words about nothing but a woman masterbating a dog, then a story within about a woman who has shitting lions in her mind. Awfully random with no real substance or point. It was 2/3 stories in one and just felt so uncomfortable to read and underdeveloped as an idea, like she didn't know what she was writing as she was going and trying to make something stick.
3. Vapours
The main character Justine is a serial cheater on men who are nice and mean well, very into her with guys who are so dull and uninteresting (one guy repeatedly throws sand in her face on a beach date!?). There is a page where we find out she cheated on her high school boyfriend Hal, went to college and got a new boyfriend Elliot, broke up with him and got back together, meanwhile she went on a work trip and hooked up with her ex boyfriend Carlos, who she got together with by cheating on her boyfriend at the time Ben but Carlos ended it because she cheated on him with a guy named Larry. So she went back to her college boyfriend Elliot and cheated on him with Carlos and Hal. As if that is totally normal behaviour. Then we are introduced to Joseph, a weird ill looking photographer who takes pictures of dead things, skulls and her naked on plates of sausages!? She describes sex in this awful line "There was a slight bondage-y aspect to the sex, but that was really nothing compared to the bondage of everyday life." and then goes on to describe threatening, toxic and violent behaviour from him that is abusive to her.
Elliott gets married and notices Justine is being abused, tells her father who sends her to France. She meets a French horse vet and gets pregnant 6 months later.
She doesn't describe the men at all apart from Joseph and slightly Hal, but Elliot deserves more expansion as he seems nice and stable but that's me projecting as there is no description of him other than he cares for his brother's sick dog whilst his brother works at a hospital.
Justine is not described either as anything other than a photographer and a girl who smoked at school. There are no qualities that we as a reader can connect or clutch to. It's just a basic describing of events with extensive vocabulary. Hardly good writing.
4. Total
An unusual sci-fi story about a mother who invents a phone that curses women with alien babies who have deformed triangular heads, big eyes and tiny teeth - unable to care for themselves and have to go to a facility to be cared for until they die.
The 16 year old sister of this 'Total' named E breaks her out of the care centre with her friend at boarding school and takes her on a tour bus with a band to LA where she has a crush on one of the guys and whilst giving a blowjob in this music venue E tries to fend for herself and bleeds to death.
We then jump to the sister Roxanne pregnant with a fear of having a Total but in the space of a paragraph has the child who is normal and healthy and describes how amazing breast feeding is and the story ends.
The writing has a mix of over complicated description and repetitive language, some words literally next to each other and dialogue described as 'he said, I said, he said, I said' which is so boring. The fact some of the sentences are over fussing makes it difficult to get a sense of flow and read with a nice pace. Especially as the story is packing a lot of different scene changes, characters and movements in, most of whom are totally unnecessary and add nothing to the story or narrative. It's like a lot of abandoned ideas strung together and pushed into one plot. There's a real focus on how sexy she finds her friend Holly, constantly describing her body (even though she's a minor) and her doing sexual acts with boys and drugs and aspirations to be a stripper. Placing these characters as school girls who run away with a band is just odd.
This story alone took me so long to read as I kept putting the book down and just couldn't bring myself to finish it.
5. She Came To Me
An ironic story about a novellist looking for their next book in such poor writing that is just filled with description and no substance. Three descriptive words in a row for a single sentence that is out of context forming unnecessary barriers to understand what is actually being said. Again more he said, she said to describe a single interaction.
The novellist goes to town and the opening is the longest way to describe parking I have ever read. He picks up his old book and puts in back, goes to a pub meets an ugly American girl who pays for his drink and sandwich he doesn't eat and he cheats on his long term marriage and children with this random woman who he claims he doesn't want to have sex in and has no interest in. There are no redeeming qualities to any of the characters, they are simple there being unlikable and weird. The American is an obsessive who bought a separate hotel room to have sex with strangers and becomes attached to him so he literally runs home to his wife.
If the character didn't want to sleep with the American, why did he? There's no reason or justification, he describes all the gross things about her and how he doesn't want to experience her. But does.
This has potential to be more interesting as a story but fell short figuratively and literally as it was one of the shorter stories in the book.
6. Receipts
The opening is as a jumpy as a frog in a box, chaotically trying to pull sentences together like a train of thought that isn't connected. Referring to a child as it rather than they was a grammatical annoyance that really sets up the rest of the writing. The editing of this book is so poor and this story is no exception. Things that shouldn't be in the same paragraph pushed together incoherently. If you ever had doubts about writing a book, this is proof that anything can get published.
In her cups and termite queen as normal phrases about a girl telling a story of her parents at a party when she's a child, then on an aeroplane leaving her partner alone on their anniversary to sell inhalers at a conference before flirting with a sales rep and when he kisses her and she sees it as one sided, instead of stopping she blows him.
She goes home, her partner has ordered them food and wants children, they break up and 10 years later she is happy in her dream apartment with her own company. The title is so forced based on a few lines and if this story wasn't so short it may have had more depth to go somewhere but it just felt rushed like she had a word count and was trying to pack as much in as she could.
7. The Chekhovians
One of the more readable stories jumping between 2 families, one new money with wealth, one old money without as next door neighbours. Where the new money family are celebrating the marriage of a girl Alex and her partner Mac who doesn't know she's rich and does a charcoal drawing on a white sofa and then leaves a black mark on it (why of all the places to use charcoal you would choose a white sofa is just annoying) and then the second family are made into a joke where the author fat shames a pubescent 14 year old who somehow in 8 months has gone from being skinny and flat chested to over weight and clumsy knocking into things because she's so huge. It's really uncomfortable to read her shaming a child so horribly.
The jumps between the families is a bit random in some parts but not too bad, it just feels very disconnected at times.
The scene were she details her breasts and people looking at them is weird and just not needed. There's so much focus on sexualising her it's odd. Then the groom kisses this child on the beach, again gross. Then she goes home and sleeps.
I don't understand how anyone could enjoy this extremely negative collection of 7 stories that centre around classist, homophobic at many points, and unsettling characters with no real purpose to the plot. It felt pointless, like Miller doesn't have a defined point of view other than making female characters ugly, twisted and ultimately unlikable with no personality, defining characteristics other than vapid and irrational behaviour. Extremely disappointed. I kept putting the book down because it was so much effort to try and get through this unenjoyable experience of reading.
1. Mrs Covet
Really interesting story, well paced with a quick twist and ending but easy to understand. A strong start to the book about a pregnant mother who is overwhelmed by domestic labour and is gifted a housekeeper/nanny/nurse by her Mother-in-Law who takes over the house. The husband is a wet fish who is irrelevant to the story.
2. I Want You To Know
Probably the most awful story I have ever read. I really wanted to give up on this book immediately as I read the first couple of pages of this story of a woman named Joad (yes really) who live in a dilapidated farm house bought off a man who lives with his Mother who sexually pleases her dog (I didn't appreciate that description) and gets day drunk, to discover a typewriter and letter about a woman who joined the army because she wanted free boots, got married and then killed her children. This felt so disconnected and all over the place and then went back to the original, incredibly boring story where Joad freaks out about living in a murder house.
Is long for the sake of being long, a lot of words about nothing but a woman masterbating a dog, then a story within about a woman who has shitting lions in her mind. Awfully random with no real substance or point. It was 2/3 stories in one and just felt so uncomfortable to read and underdeveloped as an idea, like she didn't know what she was writing as she was going and trying to make something stick.
3. Vapours
The main character Justine is a serial cheater on men who are nice and mean well, very into her with guys who are so dull and uninteresting (one guy repeatedly throws sand in her face on a beach date!?). There is a page where we find out she cheated on her high school boyfriend Hal, went to college and got a new boyfriend Elliot, broke up with him and got back together, meanwhile she went on a work trip and hooked up with her ex boyfriend Carlos, who she got together with by cheating on her boyfriend at the time Ben but Carlos ended it because she cheated on him with a guy named Larry. So she went back to her college boyfriend Elliot and cheated on him with Carlos and Hal. As if that is totally normal behaviour. Then we are introduced to Joseph, a weird ill looking photographer who takes pictures of dead things, skulls and her naked on plates of sausages!? She describes sex in this awful line "There was a slight bondage-y aspect to the sex, but that was really nothing compared to the bondage of everyday life." and then goes on to describe threatening, toxic and violent behaviour from him that is abusive to her.
Elliott gets married and notices Justine is being abused, tells her father who sends her to France. She meets a French horse vet and gets pregnant 6 months later.
She doesn't describe the men at all apart from Joseph and slightly Hal, but Elliot deserves more expansion as he seems nice and stable but that's me projecting as there is no description of him other than he cares for his brother's sick dog whilst his brother works at a hospital.
Justine is not described either as anything other than a photographer and a girl who smoked at school. There are no qualities that we as a reader can connect or clutch to. It's just a basic describing of events with extensive vocabulary. Hardly good writing.
4. Total
An unusual sci-fi story about a mother who invents a phone that curses women with alien babies who have deformed triangular heads, big eyes and tiny teeth - unable to care for themselves and have to go to a facility to be cared for until they die.
The 16 year old sister of this 'Total' named E breaks her out of the care centre with her friend at boarding school and takes her on a tour bus with a band to LA where she has a crush on one of the guys and whilst giving a blowjob in this music venue E tries to fend for herself and bleeds to death.
We then jump to the sister Roxanne pregnant with a fear of having a Total but in the space of a paragraph has the child who is normal and healthy and describes how amazing breast feeding is and the story ends.
The writing has a mix of over complicated description and repetitive language, some words literally next to each other and dialogue described as 'he said, I said, he said, I said' which is so boring. The fact some of the sentences are over fussing makes it difficult to get a sense of flow and read with a nice pace. Especially as the story is packing a lot of different scene changes, characters and movements in, most of whom are totally unnecessary and add nothing to the story or narrative. It's like a lot of abandoned ideas strung together and pushed into one plot. There's a real focus on how sexy she finds her friend Holly, constantly describing her body (even though she's a minor) and her doing sexual acts with boys and drugs and aspirations to be a stripper. Placing these characters as school girls who run away with a band is just odd.
This story alone took me so long to read as I kept putting the book down and just couldn't bring myself to finish it.
5. She Came To Me
An ironic story about a novellist looking for their next book in such poor writing that is just filled with description and no substance. Three descriptive words in a row for a single sentence that is out of context forming unnecessary barriers to understand what is actually being said. Again more he said, she said to describe a single interaction.
The novellist goes to town and the opening is the longest way to describe parking I have ever read. He picks up his old book and puts in back, goes to a pub meets an ugly American girl who pays for his drink and sandwich he doesn't eat and he cheats on his long term marriage and children with this random woman who he claims he doesn't want to have sex in and has no interest in. There are no redeeming qualities to any of the characters, they are simple there being unlikable and weird. The American is an obsessive who bought a separate hotel room to have sex with strangers and becomes attached to him so he literally runs home to his wife.
If the character didn't want to sleep with the American, why did he? There's no reason or justification, he describes all the gross things about her and how he doesn't want to experience her. But does.
This has potential to be more interesting as a story but fell short figuratively and literally as it was one of the shorter stories in the book.
6. Receipts
The opening is as a jumpy as a frog in a box, chaotically trying to pull sentences together like a train of thought that isn't connected. Referring to a child as it rather than they was a grammatical annoyance that really sets up the rest of the writing. The editing of this book is so poor and this story is no exception. Things that shouldn't be in the same paragraph pushed together incoherently. If you ever had doubts about writing a book, this is proof that anything can get published.
In her cups and termite queen as normal phrases about a girl telling a story of her parents at a party when she's a child, then on an aeroplane leaving her partner alone on their anniversary to sell inhalers at a conference before flirting with a sales rep and when he kisses her and she sees it as one sided, instead of stopping she blows him.
She goes home, her partner has ordered them food and wants children, they break up and 10 years later she is happy in her dream apartment with her own company. The title is so forced based on a few lines and if this story wasn't so short it may have had more depth to go somewhere but it just felt rushed like she had a word count and was trying to pack as much in as she could.
7. The Chekhovians
One of the more readable stories jumping between 2 families, one new money with wealth, one old money without as next door neighbours. Where the new money family are celebrating the marriage of a girl Alex and her partner Mac who doesn't know she's rich and does a charcoal drawing on a white sofa and then leaves a black mark on it (why of all the places to use charcoal you would choose a white sofa is just annoying) and then the second family are made into a joke where the author fat shames a pubescent 14 year old who somehow in 8 months has gone from being skinny and flat chested to over weight and clumsy knocking into things because she's so huge. It's really uncomfortable to read her shaming a child so horribly.
The jumps between the families is a bit random in some parts but not too bad, it just feels very disconnected at times.
The scene were she details her breasts and people looking at them is weird and just not needed. There's so much focus on sexualising her it's odd. Then the groom kisses this child on the beach, again gross. Then she goes home and sleeps.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 26, 2022
I whipped through this very enjoyable book of six contemporary short stories, along with title story "Total," which unlike the other six stories in the collection, is set in the near future and gestures to science fiction but still feels mostly believable and accessible despite the genre leap. The writing in all of the stories is vivid, perceptive, and at times quite funny. I found myself delighted by engaging characters, beautiful imagery, compelling similes, and bursts of humor. These stories are populated by people who are quirky and odd, just as I and everyone I know are quirky and odd, regardless of whether we choose to reveal our quirks and oddities to others. Luckily, in this collection, the quirks and oddities of the characters are set forth with an accepting naturalness and credibility that underscores the idea--and one of my own personal mottos--that everyone is indeed a weirdo.
Here's one brief passage that provides a sense of the allure and persuasiveness of the writing: "One by one, with amazing efficiency, operating entirely by instinct, Joseph was removing the things that had made Justine believe in herself. And she allowed him to do this, allowed it like a person whose home is broken into and watches, silent and afraid, as all their valuables are taken." Miller nails the description of acquiescing to one's own dismantling, just as she nails descriptions of other human conundrums in the collection. In regard to the weirdos and humor, here's a passage about a female salesperson arriving by plane at her destination that feels both weird yet emotionally convincing, and also funny: "Once off the plane, I rolled my small suitcase and carried my sample case down the plastic corridors of the airport with that feeling of lightness I always have when I get somewhere new and smell the fried food and fresh-baked cookies and see the people with their slightly foreign dressing habits, in this case the tanned Floridians in their perma-casual outfits in bright hues like aqua and fuchsia and lots of white." It seems odd to be cheered by the commonplace smell of airport fast food and the probably tacky perma-casual tropical outfits of the local Floridians, but it is also true that these humble, prosaic airport scents and visions can indeed be cheering, and it is both weird and fun to be cheered by the little and far from glamorous experiences that underscore that we have arrived in a different place. Again and again in reading the collection, I encountered moments that were kookily surprising, yet also spot-on true and in many instances funny.
One aspect of this wonderful collection that fell short for me was the way in which some of the stories ended. In a few instances, the endings felt a bit too sudden, abrupt, and incomplete. Even though I would have liked for the conclusions of the stories to have landed with more of a sense of anticipation, wholeness, and inevitability, this is a small complaint when balanced against the overall pleasure of reading the stories. It is a wish for a bit more in the way of endings rather than an objection to an undermining flaw.
Although Total was a very fun collection to read, it importantly also had its own substance and gravity, a difficult combination to achieve. Imagine caviar and cotton candy as nourishing and satisfying foods, which they are not. But if they somehow were, for me the stories of Total would belong in that category of experience: things that are light and exquisite, but also give sustenance.
Here's one brief passage that provides a sense of the allure and persuasiveness of the writing: "One by one, with amazing efficiency, operating entirely by instinct, Joseph was removing the things that had made Justine believe in herself. And she allowed him to do this, allowed it like a person whose home is broken into and watches, silent and afraid, as all their valuables are taken." Miller nails the description of acquiescing to one's own dismantling, just as she nails descriptions of other human conundrums in the collection. In regard to the weirdos and humor, here's a passage about a female salesperson arriving by plane at her destination that feels both weird yet emotionally convincing, and also funny: "Once off the plane, I rolled my small suitcase and carried my sample case down the plastic corridors of the airport with that feeling of lightness I always have when I get somewhere new and smell the fried food and fresh-baked cookies and see the people with their slightly foreign dressing habits, in this case the tanned Floridians in their perma-casual outfits in bright hues like aqua and fuchsia and lots of white." It seems odd to be cheered by the commonplace smell of airport fast food and the probably tacky perma-casual tropical outfits of the local Floridians, but it is also true that these humble, prosaic airport scents and visions can indeed be cheering, and it is both weird and fun to be cheered by the little and far from glamorous experiences that underscore that we have arrived in a different place. Again and again in reading the collection, I encountered moments that were kookily surprising, yet also spot-on true and in many instances funny.
One aspect of this wonderful collection that fell short for me was the way in which some of the stories ended. In a few instances, the endings felt a bit too sudden, abrupt, and incomplete. Even though I would have liked for the conclusions of the stories to have landed with more of a sense of anticipation, wholeness, and inevitability, this is a small complaint when balanced against the overall pleasure of reading the stories. It is a wish for a bit more in the way of endings rather than an objection to an undermining flaw.
Although Total was a very fun collection to read, it importantly also had its own substance and gravity, a difficult combination to achieve. Imagine caviar and cotton candy as nourishing and satisfying foods, which they are not. But if they somehow were, for me the stories of Total would belong in that category of experience: things that are light and exquisite, but also give sustenance.
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