Baby and Other Stories

by Paula Bomer

Paula Bomer is a dangerous writer. The short stories in her debut collection are subversive portraits of the modern American family. From a husband who traces his internal crisis to witnessing his wife giving birth, to a mother who forces her young son on a rainy walk through a cemetery as she contemplates the detritus of her marriage, Bomers characters are hauntingly familiar. Their fear and rage, their failures and desires are our own.

The mother of his children --
The shitty handshake --
She was everything to him --
If there were two boats --
Baby --
A walk to the cemetery --
Superstition --
The second son --
A galloping infection --
Homesick

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2010

About the author

I'm the author of the novels Tante Eva and Nine Months (Soho Press), the collection Inside Madeleine (Soho Press), Baby and Other Stories (Word Riot Press), I grew up in South Bend, Indiana and live in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

A REVIEW AND A COMMENT ABOUT THE DAMN BLURB

Suppose a guy writes a book of short stories about lawnmowers. You’d have to say he had a particular interest in them, I’d say. But suppose all these lawnmowers were either broken or leaking oil all over the lawn or aggressively running over someone’s foot and severing a toe, you’d be forgiven thinking that the author had some bad grass-cutting experiences which he was working through by means of his art.

So here’s a book of ten stories which are all relentlessly punishingly laser-focussed on the topic of women who 1) have married the wrong guy and now hate him, 2) who have no intention of ever having sex with him ever again, 3) who have either one or two kids which they now think was on balance a disastrous idea because they don't really like them any more; 4)who live in Brooklyn and 5) are alcoholics.

This is the demographic of nine out of the ten of the stories in Baby.

If there is anything autobiographical about these stories, and far be it from me to make a facile assumption, but please see the above motorised gardening equipment related paragraph, then one might be predicting early death from cirrhosis of the liver or 20 to life for spousal homicide for Paula Bomer. So I am exercising my compassionate nature and hoping – hoping! – that these stories are products of her vivid yet melancholy imagination.

For all you miserablists out there this will be like mother’s milk.


THE COMMENT ABOUT THE DAMN BLURB


I quote :

Paula Bomer is a dangerous writer. The short stories in her debut collection are subversive portraits of the modern American family.

Huh – what? Noooo, not again! Subversive – really, someone has got to take this word outside and set it up against a wall and let it smoke a last cigarette, I’m sure it will want to as smoking is now so subversive – then shoot it, shoot this damn word and get a doctor to confirm it’s dead, then scrape up the remains and tip them into a box and haul the box all the way down to Mexico and up the side of Mount Popocatapetl, which is an active, violent volcano, and throw the box over the side, into its fiery bowels. End of.

This word is now the most meaningless of all known adjectives – once so useful, once alluring, palely, febrilely fascinating, but now irredeemably debased by the collective laziness and uncaring witlessness of all the world’s marketing consultants, copywriters and blurbmeisters. What this word now means is hey, you’re a cool person ain’t chew – wanna read a cool book? Yeah sure you do. Then go see a cool movie. Yeah.

I made a 30 second search of the Guardian newspaper and I got this:


Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi, a subversive as well as satisfying, book.…

Poetry should be subversive

How to be subversively funny

Peter King’s subversive fantasy

That is one of the more interesting subversive possibilities of film.

Channel 4's original 'subversive, bold, risk-taking spirit is there to be reawakened'.

Then I made a 20 second search of Goodreads and I got these titles :

Teaching as a Subversive Activity

Film as a Subversive Art

Subversive Spirituality

Subversive Cross Stitch : 33 Designs for your Surly Side

Don’t tell the Grown Ups : The Subversive Power of Children’s Literature

The Underground Church : Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus

So please note, there’s nothing left to subvert now we’ve done for Jesus and knitwear. Find another word. This one has left the building.

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories are what would happen if Mary Gaitskill characters got married and had kids. Brilliant, subversive, psychologically rich stuff.

[Portal in the Pages · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF after 2 stories

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Bomer's second book of short stories, INSIDE MADELINE, and I enjoyed this book as well, though not as much. I have realized that her stories, when collected, lose some of their magic because they have such similar subject matter and characters.

[Magalí Etchebarne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leí la traducción de Momofuku. Me encantó, es salvaje. No es la soledad de los solteros ni de los divorciados, ni la tristeza de los vínculos que se terminan o que no se pueden; son todos infiernos en familia. El drama de las parejas con bebés. Me pareció feroz cómo narra la maternidad, creo que te aleja mil kilómetros del deseo de ser madre o padre.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paula Bomer is fearless. Her stories are thrilling in the strangest ways.

[Melanie Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

If your first reaction to a book is that you liked it because you related to the characters, I feel like you're not reading diversely enough. I can't relate to the characters in Baby at all. Most of them I didn't like. But Bomer also asks me to be empathetic toward characters who have reached their limits, characters who find themselves attached--for life--to people they never wanted in their lives in the first place, namely children. Other characters expect life to be one way based on their privilege, like the mother in the titular story, and find out that motherhood is ridiculously hard no matter what your economic status.

These stories reminded me of a dark thread I found on Reddit, one that asked members to explain what they would never tell someone else that they experienced--or are still experiencing--during parenthood. Remember, these are real people who are too afraid to share their stories with their real names because they know how society will react.

The one story that sticks with me is about a woman who had an unplanned pregnancy, stuck with it, had the baby, and kept her child for about 7 years. She didn't love her child at all. Everyone told her they would support her and that she would grow to love her daughter, but the mother realized that 7 years was definitely enough, and that by keeping custody of a person she didn't love was damaging to the girl. The custody rights of the child were signed over to the woman's parents, and she went her own way. That story, to me, is heartbreaking from all points of view, but it also captures a different experience that most of us don't want to acknowledge because we start to think it could happen to us. Let's face it, having a baby is risky for 1,001 reasons. I think Bomer gets into the heads of people like that mother from Reddit.

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paula Bomer is a master of subtle touches, of choosing the precise word or image or idea to capture the difficult emotional truth of her characters. In depicting people at the very edge of their known limits, she shows how thin the line can be between civility and hostility, and the yeoman efforts required to preserve one’s own dignity in the face of revealed truth, hard and unsparing.

Her scenarios are often deceptively prosaic: a man confronting the stasis of his marriage and ugly feelings about family and fatherhood; a woman at the moment she realizes a friendship is not what it seems to be…but in those situations, she comes at the reader from startling and unusual angles, and writes with unremitting frankness on these oft-trammeled environs, with a bluntness about unpleasant emotions, revealing the currents hidden, oft unbeknownst to their host, just below the surface.

And in much of her writing, there is that: the insistence to reveal, and the struggle we all face when deciding, for ourselves, for those we love and care for, as she puts it in one of her most moving short stories: “Everyone, yes, everyone, was wrestling with it all, with rage and love, with want and fear, with the lies, with how to appear one way when feeling another. What to show, what to hide.” In her able hands, Paula Bomer makes us want to see, to feel, to recognize ourselves in her struggling, striving, suffering, sometimes transcending characters.

[Anush · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a bit ambivalent about this book, because even though I think the writing is good, and the stories are easy to read and full of human emotion, the book is a real downer. These are stories about husbands hating their wives, mothers full of resentment towards their children, families devoid of happiness and affection. The one that got to me the most was the story of the husband feeling disgusted and apathetic towards his wife's lung infection, to the point where he ignores her waking up in the middle of the night coughing up streams of blood, to find her dead in the morning, but instead of feeling any kind of guilt he is relieved by her death.
Even though the mitigating factor in these stories is that they are a work of fiction, it is still enough to confirm my phobia of the married life. I'm guessing that this would be a good comforting read for a cold cloudy day while one's unemployed husband is drinking away the month's welfare check.

[Casey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have to say, I think I basically hated this book. It was a collection of the world's most depressing short stories, and each story featured completely unlikable characters. If it were funnier, I wouldn't mind the depressing aspects, but it only made me laugh a few times. Also, I found them kind of indistinguishable from one another. Look, here's a story about how marriage won't make you happy if you're already unhappy. Look, here's another! AND ANOTHER! I got it.

I read this collection right after I read another depressing collection, Vanishing, which I also didn't love. I'm thinking maybe I have a problem with short story collections in general--I like short stories on their own, but put them with nine others that share themes and character archetypes, and I get bored. Still, though, maybe it's just these two books, because Olive Kitteridge amazed me and I can read Hemingway or Bradbury stories all day long.

[Cait S · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually am not a short story anthology kind of person. I just feel like they never give me enough to be memorable or to really make me care. But these ones! Holy crap.

Maybe it's a really bad thing considering the subject matters but I kept reading going "Oh my god, that's me." "Oh my god, I've thought that exact same thing." "Oh my god, she put that thing I feel into words." It was eerie and also awesome because if someone can write about it, it's not just me!

I really enjoyed this and will definitely be checking out the author's other work soon.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is so dark it won't be for everyone, but I really liked its realistic portrayals of the darker sides of believable characters. I could imagine meeting any one of the characters out on the street, and it's interesting to know that these thoughts could be running through those random people's heads. Character development was excellent, and the subject matter was sometimes harsh and raw but also relatable and honest.

[Kate]

Jackie says, "These stories are what would happen if Mary Gaitskill characters got married and had kids. Brilliant, subversive, psychologically rich stuff."

Must find because I'm totally intrigued.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliantly sick and twisted stories told in a raw and incredibly honest way. Bomer has serious insight into some despicable characters and tells it like it is whether you want to hear the darker side of life or not. Gut wrenching read about some unfathomably horrible people!

[María Jimena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Las historias son un diez pero la traducción de la edición de Momofuku es bastante mala, tiene errores ortográficos.

[Meki Werner]

Buenos cuentos. Crudo. Real.

[Chris Parsons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bomer is a very underrated author.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

A series of short, character sketches, each independent, mostly centered around mothers and relationships with their husbands, children, families. I was not expecting such raw accounts of mostly negative feelings toward the characters' closest relations. Most examine how relationships turn sour and/or how the characters' hopes in relationships are not realized and the negative feelings that fill their lives instead.

There was not one uplifting story in these. Most of the characters are bitter and unlikeable. In the most benign, the author shows us realistic portraits of how life does not always pan out as we have dreamed it to and recognizes realistic feelings of disappointment and what the character makes of those feelings, the questions that come to mind. In some, it seems to give license to fess up to those unwanted, unexpected negative thoughts and feelings of disappointment / resent that we all feel at times, but these stories go overboard in this, making these feelings the primary focus and often going so far in these thoughts and feelings to make the character simply hateful.

I think I would have liked this more had I not been looking for something that was more uplifting. The character sketches are detailed and tell alot in a very short story. They really give the reader a true sense of these unlikeable people.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my book club pick and I'm sure there will be adamant haters of this book. But, I thought the writing was better than many others' and there were pieces in each story that were relatable for me. This is definately not a happy book; it may be the darkest writing that I've ever read. That said, the cynicism and disillusionment seemed real unlike other writers who just come across as pissed off. Bomer uses the "c" word in a way that doesn't make you say, "Now, was that really necessary?". There are many things that can be said both positively and negatively about Bomer's subject matter and tone, but if nothing else she comes from a place of truth.

I do have to lay out a blanket warning for this one...be prepared for some really dark sh*t. In other words, if you're suicidal don't read this book.

[Lautaro Vincon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paula Bomer logra, a través de sus relatos, provocar una cercanía inusitada con el lector, y lo hace a pesar de su sequedad al narrar –sin metáforas, sin vueltas–, detalle que la aproxima mucho más a la vida cotidiana. Cada cuento es como un cachetazo, un baldazo de agua fría, desplomando la realidad para rearmarla en un ordinario espejo perfecto de desamores y dudas que se tejen en silencio y esperan a punto de estallar en la cara de los protagonistas. ¿Qué esconde cada mirada, cada paso, cada palabra guardada en la punta de la lengua? Bomer hilvana preguntas y vuelve a cada respuesta posible una presencia que puede atemorizarnos y quitarnos el sueño, porque, aunque no haya espacio para elementos terroríficos, lo mundano también puede ser fuente de miedos.

Tres estrellas que podrían ser más si tuviera otra traducción.

[Shaaru Retnakumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

While reading itself is voyeurism reading this collection is sort of like being in someone's house where you have no business being and looking through their things and judging and feeling good that they suck and your life is awesome. The characters are almost always in some throes of suffering and hatred and also, mothers. I found it quite convincing. The main drawback however is that all characters in the end are indistinguishable, they merge and morph into a few details common to all stories. But all that said it was still a pleasure because the stories themselves were unapologetic and raw and honest.

[Luisa Fer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took it from the library and read halfway through between yesterday afternoon and evening.

It has been a long time since I read something that stabbed me in the gut. With fiction you always have the consolation that someone invented it, but in these stories, real life isn't made up,it's the truth.

Real life can only be portrayed and, like a photograph, her writing is extremely faithful to reality.

A book like this could make many people think twice before wanting the white picket fence fantasy.

[Katie Cruel · Rating 2 out of 5]

From a craft perspective, these aren't poorly written short stories, but nothing about them strikes me as interesting, unique, or special. Most of them seem variants of the same situation and characters and the lack of diversity was underwhelming.

I guess my main thought while trudging through this book was that the writer lacks a understanding of subtlety and momentum. These stories don't allow themselves room for development; everything from meaning, to plot, to characterization, hits the reader like a shovel, oftentimes at the very beginning of the story.

[Patrick Probably DNF · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is why I read fiction. To examine the inner life of other human beings. To measure the depth and height of our emotions. And to awaken from a strange and perfect dream. The stories here are intense, brutally honest, and provocative. Thematically, the author focuses on the dynamics between mothers and children, as well as husbands and wives. The prose is pitch-perfect and absolutely gorgeous. This book is a knock-out punch of great fiction, and I'm still dizzy, reeling, and smiling.

[Carly Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dark collection of stories that examine the underbelly of contemporary parenting. I didn't read every story in the collection, but the ones that I did really captured the mental and physical exhaustion of parenting young children, and especially the unhappiness and misery that results in strained marriages.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

OK, I put off finishing this book for a couple of weeks but could put it off no longer. 'Baby' is a collection of painful, almost horror stories about the ugly thoughts women have about themselves and how men see them. The writing was excellent, and I look forward to seeing what Ms. Bomer does next.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was almost embarrassed while reading some of these stories either because they drew out my greatest fears about myself as a person and the parent I'm about to become or because they made me question the motives of the people of significance in my life right now.

It was really well written. And uncomfortably honest.

[Andrea DeAngelis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. The brutal ring of truth in Paula Bomer's narrative style is harsh but addictively humorous. This is an eviscerating collection of short stories, it will take your heart and throw it into a meat grinder and the shreds that you are left with are violently vulnerable morsels that remain embeddened in your memory forever.

[Andrea DeAngelis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This was a brutal but entertaining read. These difficult and at times despicable characters are seared on my brain forever. When you think Bomer won't go there, she does with abandon and aplomb. Can't wait to read what she does next.

[beentsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the dark nasty bits of relationships are hiding in this book of short stories. It's like peeking in to the medicine cabinets and bedside tables of strangers. Creepy, wrong-feeling, but impossible to resist.