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Protect Me From the Things I Think I Want: Stories and Plays
A grieving lover searching for forgiveness …
A dying man hoping for redemption …
A broken father willing to go to any extreme …
A young surfer paddling toward a dark destiny …
A writer and his muse navigating love and codependence …
A pair of famous siblings trapped inside a web of deadly family secrets …
In these stories and plays, lovers connect and break apart, families protect and destroy, and getting what you think you want comes at a price.
Welcome to the sometimes dark, sometimes funny, always deeply skewed universe of Troy Tradup.
Be careful what you wish for.
A dying man hoping for redemption …
A broken father willing to go to any extreme …
A young surfer paddling toward a dark destiny …
A writer and his muse navigating love and codependence …
A pair of famous siblings trapped inside a web of deadly family secrets …
In these stories and plays, lovers connect and break apart, families protect and destroy, and getting what you think you want comes at a price.
Welcome to the sometimes dark, sometimes funny, always deeply skewed universe of Troy Tradup.
Be careful what you wish for.
486 pages, Paperback
Published March 4, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 6, 2022
An unapologetic five-star rating for one of my favorite people. These last few days rereading (and in a very few cases reading for the first time) stories and plays I feel like I grew up with and have known all my life. And maybe some of my favorite new material are the "liner notes." Stories behind the stories that I've never heard before. I won't exhaust anyone with notes and reactions to every single one, but here were some highlights on this reading:
Obligatory Father Story
This one was different than I remember it. I must have read this story a dozen times in the last 25 or 30 years, and this isn't the story I recall. Maybe it's because my own dad died since I read it last. Maybe it's because I haven't read it since I had kids of my own. Whatever it is, I like it differently now. Not better. Not less. Differently.
Life Under Water
I remember reading a draft of this story 20 years ago. In that version there was an image--a shotgun, a rifle?--"coiled" in the carpet next to the rocker as he waited for Melanie to return for Benjamin. I like this better. It's even eerier. Just as inevitable.
Fish Story
It isn't just a fish story. It's a short chapter in what should be a novel. It's the northern Minnesota version of "Nobody's Fool." How did this cast come together? There is a lot more to these characters and this town and its people than these few pages; I want to read them.
The Desired Effect
You know, I'm pretty sure that with the right cutting, "The Desired Effect" could be a really fabulous, state-winning dramatic duo in speech. I think the MSHSL is ready.
My Date With Medea
As I think of it, this is the one of the trilogy I don't think I've ever seen performed (I've only read it). Of the Underwear plays, I think this is the one that needs a 2020s reboot. What an interesting take this would be for a modern audience.
Obligatory Father Story
This one was different than I remember it. I must have read this story a dozen times in the last 25 or 30 years, and this isn't the story I recall. Maybe it's because my own dad died since I read it last. Maybe it's because I haven't read it since I had kids of my own. Whatever it is, I like it differently now. Not better. Not less. Differently.
Life Under Water
I remember reading a draft of this story 20 years ago. In that version there was an image--a shotgun, a rifle?--"coiled" in the carpet next to the rocker as he waited for Melanie to return for Benjamin. I like this better. It's even eerier. Just as inevitable.
Fish Story
It isn't just a fish story. It's a short chapter in what should be a novel. It's the northern Minnesota version of "Nobody's Fool." How did this cast come together? There is a lot more to these characters and this town and its people than these few pages; I want to read them.
The Desired Effect
You know, I'm pretty sure that with the right cutting, "The Desired Effect" could be a really fabulous, state-winning dramatic duo in speech. I think the MSHSL is ready.
My Date With Medea
As I think of it, this is the one of the trilogy I don't think I've ever seen performed (I've only read it). Of the Underwear plays, I think this is the one that needs a 2020s reboot. What an interesting take this would be for a modern audience.
March 18, 2024
This was a wonderful, intimate collection. I really enjoyed the short stories, they had a strong sense of character and mood, and the writing was tight and compulsive. The plays were also a lot of fun.
Sometimes plays don't work as literary pieces on their own, they need to be performed to be appreciated, and sometimes the opposite is true; not all plays straddle the line of being enjoyable both as literary works and as performance pieces. The plays in this collection, for the most part, felt comfortably on both sides of that line. Obviously I don't have any experience of them as performances, but they felt like they were written with performance in mind and I could easily picture what a performance would feel like. The three plays in the middle, the adaptations or re-tellings of other literary works, those didn't work quite as well for me, especially what felt like Dickens via Wilder's "Our Town." However, even these three felt like they could have been quite enjoyable performances, and weren't boring or a drag, they just didn't feel to have the insight or depth that the stories and other plays had.
The author mentions how these pieces weren't written with the intent of a collection, they were written across time and space and he decided it was a good time to collect them all together after the fact... But they feel like a coherent unit, and the whole collection feels like it works well together, especially the journey from the first short story to the final play, and how character relationships grow and expand and evolve through that journey. A wonderful collection, definitely worth your attention!
Sometimes plays don't work as literary pieces on their own, they need to be performed to be appreciated, and sometimes the opposite is true; not all plays straddle the line of being enjoyable both as literary works and as performance pieces. The plays in this collection, for the most part, felt comfortably on both sides of that line. Obviously I don't have any experience of them as performances, but they felt like they were written with performance in mind and I could easily picture what a performance would feel like. The three plays in the middle, the adaptations or re-tellings of other literary works, those didn't work quite as well for me, especially what felt like Dickens via Wilder's "Our Town." However, even these three felt like they could have been quite enjoyable performances, and weren't boring or a drag, they just didn't feel to have the insight or depth that the stories and other plays had.
The author mentions how these pieces weren't written with the intent of a collection, they were written across time and space and he decided it was a good time to collect them all together after the fact... But they feel like a coherent unit, and the whole collection feels like it works well together, especially the journey from the first short story to the final play, and how character relationships grow and expand and evolve through that journey. A wonderful collection, definitely worth your attention!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews