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Ampersand: stories
Winner of the William Rosenfeld Chapbook Prize in 2009 and Richardson's debut chapbook, this volume collects "Crooked," "Rabbit, Rabbit," "Circulation," "Save Money, Live Better," "A Cloud of Elk," "As Serious as Your Life," and "Primavera." Limited edition print.
140 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 23, 2009
"I believe / In tongues that tell and hands / That hold, curling around like / Ampersands, connecting."
These stories have a gripping integrity to them; you have to wonder how it's possible the author came up with all of this in her head, because there's no way this was her life and it's all true. But it is. And it's fiction, and it's truth.
The prose is masterful. This writing makes you love the flaws in people. Richardson makes terrific use of synecdoche, using single, focused details to describe an entire character or situation. Her style and characters are informed by indie tastes, providing fervently eclectic images that linger and then sink in.
The only lack is that sometimes motivations and directions in plot are subsumed by great lines. Some endings are rushed and cut off abruptly or characters meet their deaths before they absolutely must: for the sake of design. And in these cases, the presence of the author's hand is missing a judgment or message which might justify explicit choices made.
Conceptually, the stories are organized in a progressive, both in that we are taken around America and the world from page to page, and in that the "boys" and "girls" sections age respectively with each story. The coda, "Primavera," is a post-graduation story which gathers the book's riffs: of being an outsider, of escaping, of the lines between desire and reality. Blythe from "Primavera" brings us to earth on a flight back home, as the world "suddenly settles into actuality . . . too aware of how the plane is a tiny vessel trapped above an endless ocean, how there is nowhere to go but down." Yet the book ends with the comfort of sleep and dream, of hope: that there does exist a passage between the country of what we imagine & the country of what is actually there before us in our hands.
These stories have a gripping integrity to them; you have to wonder how it's possible the author came up with all of this in her head, because there's no way this was her life and it's all true. But it is. And it's fiction, and it's truth.
The prose is masterful. This writing makes you love the flaws in people. Richardson makes terrific use of synecdoche, using single, focused details to describe an entire character or situation. Her style and characters are informed by indie tastes, providing fervently eclectic images that linger and then sink in.
The only lack is that sometimes motivations and directions in plot are subsumed by great lines. Some endings are rushed and cut off abruptly or characters meet their deaths before they absolutely must: for the sake of design. And in these cases, the presence of the author's hand is missing a judgment or message which might justify explicit choices made.
Conceptually, the stories are organized in a progressive, both in that we are taken around America and the world from page to page, and in that the "boys" and "girls" sections age respectively with each story. The coda, "Primavera," is a post-graduation story which gathers the book's riffs: of being an outsider, of escaping, of the lines between desire and reality. Blythe from "Primavera" brings us to earth on a flight back home, as the world "suddenly settles into actuality . . . too aware of how the plane is a tiny vessel trapped above an endless ocean, how there is nowhere to go but down." Yet the book ends with the comfort of sleep and dream, of hope: that there does exist a passage between the country of what we imagine & the country of what is actually there before us in our hands.
May 24, 2010
Not a bad story in the bunch. Definitely my favorite collection that I've read recently. I feel like it's hard to find short stories that aren't about older people, so I appreciated that this was young. I was also impressed with how natural it seemed for her to write from both a male and female perspective.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews