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Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry: Stories
The ten stories in this striking debut collection examine the perils of love and what it means to live during an era when people will offer themselves, almost unthinkingly, to strangers. Risks and repercussions are never fully weighed. People leap and almost always land on rocky ground. May-December romances flourish in these stories, as do self-doubt and, in many cases, serious regret. Mysterious, dangerous benefactors, dead and living artists, movie stars and college professors, plagiarists, and distinguished foreign novelists are among the many different characters. No one is blameless, but villains are difficult to single out—everyone seemingly bears responsibility for his or her desires and for the outcome of difficult choices so often made hopefully and naively.
168 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 2010
12 people are currently reading
643 people want to read
About the author
Christine Sneed
25 books258 followersChristine Sneed's fifth book, Please Be Advised: A Novel in Memos, was published in October 2022, along with a short fiction anthology she edited, Love in the Time of Time's Up. Her seventh book and third story collection, Direct Sunlight: Stories, was published in June 2023.
Her other works of fiction include The Virginity of Famous Men, which was a finalist for the 2016 Chicago Review of Books Award for best fiction and winner of the Chicago Writers' Association Book of the Year Award. Her novel Paris, He Said was an Illinois Reads selection for 2016 and is set in contemporary Paris and New York. The main character, Jayne Marks, is an artist who moves to Paris to live with a French gallery owner who is worldly, generous, and unfaithful.
Her first book, a story collection titled Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry, won AWP's 2009 Grace Paley Prize; Ploughshares' award for a first book, the John C. Zacharis Prize; the Chicago Writers Association book of the year (for traditionally published fiction); was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (first-fiction category), and was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.
Her second book, the novel Little Known Facts, was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice selection in 2013. It centers on a successful Hollywood actor and the effects of his fame on the people to whom he's closest. Little Known Facts was a Booklist top-ten debut novel of 2013 and received the Society of Midland Authors Award for Best Adult Fiction.
Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2008, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2012, New England Review, Southern Review, Ploughshares, American Literary Review, Meridian, Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, Third Coast, Barrelhouse, TriQuarterly Online, South Dakota Review, Greensboro Review, Story, and a number of other journals.
She lives in Pasadena, CA and teaches for Northwestern University, UCLA Extension, Stanford Continuing Studies, and Regis University's low-residency MFA program. She attended Georgetown University for an undergraduate degree in French language and literature and Indiana University for a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing.
Her other works of fiction include The Virginity of Famous Men, which was a finalist for the 2016 Chicago Review of Books Award for best fiction and winner of the Chicago Writers' Association Book of the Year Award. Her novel Paris, He Said was an Illinois Reads selection for 2016 and is set in contemporary Paris and New York. The main character, Jayne Marks, is an artist who moves to Paris to live with a French gallery owner who is worldly, generous, and unfaithful.
Her first book, a story collection titled Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry, won AWP's 2009 Grace Paley Prize; Ploughshares' award for a first book, the John C. Zacharis Prize; the Chicago Writers Association book of the year (for traditionally published fiction); was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (first-fiction category), and was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.
Her second book, the novel Little Known Facts, was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice selection in 2013. It centers on a successful Hollywood actor and the effects of his fame on the people to whom he's closest. Little Known Facts was a Booklist top-ten debut novel of 2013 and received the Society of Midland Authors Award for Best Adult Fiction.
Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2008, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2012, New England Review, Southern Review, Ploughshares, American Literary Review, Meridian, Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, Third Coast, Barrelhouse, TriQuarterly Online, South Dakota Review, Greensboro Review, Story, and a number of other journals.
She lives in Pasadena, CA and teaches for Northwestern University, UCLA Extension, Stanford Continuing Studies, and Regis University's low-residency MFA program. She attended Georgetown University for an undergraduate degree in French language and literature and Indiana University for a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
February 9, 2012
I had to give my book 5-stars - no use in pretending I don't think it rocks! It was a true pleasure to write these ten stories and I'm glad that Portraits is out there in the world, meeting readers.
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February 18, 2016Hmmm. I am tempted to use the gr star rating system because relying on stars helps me avoid writing more meaningful reviews. And I am ambivalent about reviewing this book (with or without stars), partly because I am ambivalent about the book itself. I hesitate to write a critical review. Lately I really want to find the kernel of what people are trying to communicate and to focus on what is unique about a writer's awareness and sensibilities, rather than attending to what does not work for me. That said, I am not, I don't think, a fantastically generous reader. I am trying.
One thing I will say for this book. The title is spectacular. I was a little disappointed by the rest. I think the title led me to believe this collection would have a certain sense of humor or wit. The title is a bit of a misrepresentation, somehow, of the ethos of the book.
The first story is quite good, the best in the collection in many ways. It's a spare, finely crafted little horror story in which violence comes over time in subtle ways -- mainly in the form of emotional withdrawal, withholding of affection and information, and a cold and dangerous unwillingness, of an apparently powerful older man, to end an affair with a younger, more vulnerable female protagonist, who, over time, finds herself attracted to and repulsed by his offers of infrequent and finite sexual contact. They go to hotels, have sex, and he gives her mystifying handfuls of cash. Does he see her as a daughter? a lover? a sex worker? something else? How does her confusion about his intentions and perception of her influence how she sees herself? Their small, dubious intimacies, remain at an unnameable distance from the messy, intimate, imperfections of more engaged love. Lyndsey finds herself at first drawn in by the strange and neat lines of their connection, until these lines blur and blur into something quite sinister. At a certain point she can no longer read the meaning of things at all (his actions, her feelings, what it is that led her down this road, and whether there is an exit on this highway to hell.) Seems like some people see this as a cautionary tale about getting involved with strangers? Something along the lines of, this woman put herself in harms way by having an affair with this man, and the author is holding her accountable for her actions? Eek. I hope to god that this isn't the point or the attitude of this story. I certainly didn't read it that way. I think it has subtler considerations about intimacy, patterns of behavior that create deeper and deeper grooves in the pathways of our lives. There are unspoken, unaddressed things that can turn into dangerous undercurrents because we cannot or will not become adequately conscious of them until the currents are already too strong to break free of.
After the first story, I found the stories less and less compelling. The prose gets messier and the themes and language repetitive. Nevertheless, I appreciate the characters and their attempts to understand their own mysterious relationships to love, sex, affection, connection. These are smart and curious explorations of relationships, mainly romantic ones, in which people's motives are unclear to each other, and even themselves. There is some mystery in each story about the laws or facts or possibilities of attraction.
One thing I will say for this book. The title is spectacular. I was a little disappointed by the rest. I think the title led me to believe this collection would have a certain sense of humor or wit. The title is a bit of a misrepresentation, somehow, of the ethos of the book.
The first story is quite good, the best in the collection in many ways. It's a spare, finely crafted little horror story in which violence comes over time in subtle ways -- mainly in the form of emotional withdrawal, withholding of affection and information, and a cold and dangerous unwillingness, of an apparently powerful older man, to end an affair with a younger, more vulnerable female protagonist, who, over time, finds herself attracted to and repulsed by his offers of infrequent and finite sexual contact. They go to hotels, have sex, and he gives her mystifying handfuls of cash. Does he see her as a daughter? a lover? a sex worker? something else? How does her confusion about his intentions and perception of her influence how she sees herself? Their small, dubious intimacies, remain at an unnameable distance from the messy, intimate, imperfections of more engaged love. Lyndsey finds herself at first drawn in by the strange and neat lines of their connection, until these lines blur and blur into something quite sinister. At a certain point she can no longer read the meaning of things at all (his actions, her feelings, what it is that led her down this road, and whether there is an exit on this highway to hell.) Seems like some people see this as a cautionary tale about getting involved with strangers? Something along the lines of, this woman put herself in harms way by having an affair with this man, and the author is holding her accountable for her actions? Eek. I hope to god that this isn't the point or the attitude of this story. I certainly didn't read it that way. I think it has subtler considerations about intimacy, patterns of behavior that create deeper and deeper grooves in the pathways of our lives. There are unspoken, unaddressed things that can turn into dangerous undercurrents because we cannot or will not become adequately conscious of them until the currents are already too strong to break free of.
After the first story, I found the stories less and less compelling. The prose gets messier and the themes and language repetitive. Nevertheless, I appreciate the characters and their attempts to understand their own mysterious relationships to love, sex, affection, connection. These are smart and curious explorations of relationships, mainly romantic ones, in which people's motives are unclear to each other, and even themselves. There is some mystery in each story about the laws or facts or possibilities of attraction.
May 21, 2011
The title is deceptive. Theses stories are not about people anyone made cry. A secondary character in one story has given that title to some graphic sketches.
Some of these stories are first person, others third person narrowly following the protagonist. The stories are set in contemporary America, but vary in social milieu from sophisticated upper bohemians to working class uneducated. The protagonist in many is a thoughtful, somewhat rueful woman dealing intelligently with winding her way among career and romantic issues. Sneed pays attention to the erotic, and many of the stories are sexy, without usually being very explicit. Many of them involve couples where one partner is notably older than the other, usually, but not always, the man. Several involve the effect of the prospect of glamour, or the effect of a glamorous person on the lives of people around him/her, but here is nothing trivial about these stories.
What I like most about the stories is the rich reality of the characters. No caricatures like Dickens or stereotypes like T. C Boyle; these folks, even many secondary characters, walk right off the page and inhabit your mind. The stories are not slices of life; you get a sense of the whole life of the main characters, really quite an achievement and the short form. The prose is clean; it does its job well without calling attention to itself, but can rise to moving occasions. The plots are thoughtfully constructed and are notable for reflecting the character of the protagonist. You come away both with the feeling you have learned a little about how people navigate life (or fail to), and that you have more questions. Detailed descriptions of settings from time to time add to the depth of texture - not exactly in style of Balzac, but in his tradition.
The series are not experimental; this is mainstream fiction. However in one story, my favorite, the narrator describes a series of interviews between her and some one who is researching the life of her glamorous late husband. Her account illuminates: her relation with her husband, with the interviewer, with her whole past, and with erotic involvement very reflectively and ingeniously.
Some of these stories are first person, others third person narrowly following the protagonist. The stories are set in contemporary America, but vary in social milieu from sophisticated upper bohemians to working class uneducated. The protagonist in many is a thoughtful, somewhat rueful woman dealing intelligently with winding her way among career and romantic issues. Sneed pays attention to the erotic, and many of the stories are sexy, without usually being very explicit. Many of them involve couples where one partner is notably older than the other, usually, but not always, the man. Several involve the effect of the prospect of glamour, or the effect of a glamorous person on the lives of people around him/her, but here is nothing trivial about these stories.
What I like most about the stories is the rich reality of the characters. No caricatures like Dickens or stereotypes like T. C Boyle; these folks, even many secondary characters, walk right off the page and inhabit your mind. The stories are not slices of life; you get a sense of the whole life of the main characters, really quite an achievement and the short form. The prose is clean; it does its job well without calling attention to itself, but can rise to moving occasions. The plots are thoughtfully constructed and are notable for reflecting the character of the protagonist. You come away both with the feeling you have learned a little about how people navigate life (or fail to), and that you have more questions. Detailed descriptions of settings from time to time add to the depth of texture - not exactly in style of Balzac, but in his tradition.
The series are not experimental; this is mainstream fiction. However in one story, my favorite, the narrator describes a series of interviews between her and some one who is researching the life of her glamorous late husband. Her account illuminates: her relation with her husband, with the interviewer, with her whole past, and with erotic involvement very reflectively and ingeniously.
January 6, 2011
A very good set of short stories with a terribly incorrect description here on Goodreads. The idea of "romantic love" enters into a couple of the stories, but for the most part these stories are about attachments and attractions and the holes that people try to fill with other people's lives. There's a single line in the story "You're So Different Now" that pretty much sums up the subject of all the stories: ".....knowing there are countless ways to be a part of someone else's life...", and with relationships based on lust ("Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry", a need to escape ("Portraits Fully Developed"), and adventure gone sadly wrong "Quality of Life"), this book covers a lot more than romantic love. A few of the stories lack intensity ("Alex Cross, Inc." especially), but the character development is so strong in all of them that you'll be left wondering what happened next, and what's a short story without that sense of hit-and-run?
March 1, 2017
Really enjoyed this collection.
May 10, 2023
Mixed bag of decent stories and really uninteresting ones.
The frequent trope of naive girl falls for guy that is treating her poorly became annoying quickly.
Even though I didn’t love this book, there was one really good quote-
“In the hidden, velvet-lined chambers of my own heart the young woman I once was still holds court. She will not go her own way, and this perhaps is one of the hardest things to live with- rarely can we stop seeing ourselves as we once were. We keep savaging our own hearts when we look back and wonder what has happened to us, why we all have to suffer the hardship of losing who we once were, even as we know we’re lucky to be around to grow older. We watch our faces and bodied changes into something we knew was coming but still are ashamed. I loved who I once was; I do not know if I will ever love who I am becoming.”
The frequent trope of naive girl falls for guy that is treating her poorly became annoying quickly.
Even though I didn’t love this book, there was one really good quote-
“In the hidden, velvet-lined chambers of my own heart the young woman I once was still holds court. She will not go her own way, and this perhaps is one of the hardest things to live with- rarely can we stop seeing ourselves as we once were. We keep savaging our own hearts when we look back and wonder what has happened to us, why we all have to suffer the hardship of losing who we once were, even as we know we’re lucky to be around to grow older. We watch our faces and bodied changes into something we knew was coming but still are ashamed. I loved who I once was; I do not know if I will ever love who I am becoming.”
June 6, 2022
more like 3.5 tbh
September 5, 2017
I have a love/hate relationship with short stories. When they're just OK, I'm grateful they're short and I can quickly move on the next. But when they're good, I want more.
Christine Sneed's collection of stories is more hot than miss, which is great because she's quickly become one of my new favorite authors, but I also want to know what happens next. And yes, I've tweeted her, but I don't think I can ask that. :)
Christine Sneed's collection of stories is more hot than miss, which is great because she's quickly become one of my new favorite authors, but I also want to know what happens next. And yes, I've tweeted her, but I don't think I can ask that. :)
December 29, 2016
The first few stories are short stories that give a glimpse of the lives of the characters. After reading more stories there was a recurring theme and formula. All the stories include couples that are romantically involved with a large age gap between the two lovers. Think soft core sugar daddy and couger porn. I can handle that. But every single story contained this formula and the only thing that made these stories different were the characters and settings. Sneed is a fine wordsmith, but the stories grew trite and predictable. It would have been nice to have a variety of stories as I thought that's what I was getting from reading the book synopsis.
June 20, 2011
Well, short story collections are hard to rate for me. Usually you end up with a bunch of mediocre ones, one or two that were rather boring, one you don't get at all and one or two that were rather good, if you are lucky even the brilliant one you were hoping to find. So how do you judge that? Most of the time that ends in a 3 star result for me. Unless I find a treasure.
Not this time though. This anthology was more on the disappointing side, even the stories that i liked were simply fair, nice, never special or surprising, the second star was for "Quality of life" and "A million dollars", the only stories that gave me something. Most of them left me rather cold, the more i read of Sneed's stories the less i cared what she had to say. Plus the narrating voice is hardly ever an interesting one. On top of it, I ended up with the feeling that she didn't dare to go the hard way, the unexpected way with her characters. Whenever a story could take a gripping turn she played it safe (and boring).
And once again I learned the lesson to never (!!!) trust what critics especially other authors say about a book, most of the times they might be just good friends returning a favor. Because these are anything but "brutally honest and equally tender" stories as it is said on the back.
The same about the title of this collection, "Portraits of a few of the people i made cry" which made me go for the book in the first place, BUT not only do I disguise it if the title for one story is used for the whole anthology (same with songs and album titles), it is for sure a bad fit in this case and a misleading one for the entireness of this selection.
Writing this I am actually debating to go back to one star but that would do injustice to the two nicer stories mentioned above, so two stars it is.
Not this time though. This anthology was more on the disappointing side, even the stories that i liked were simply fair, nice, never special or surprising, the second star was for "Quality of life" and "A million dollars", the only stories that gave me something. Most of them left me rather cold, the more i read of Sneed's stories the less i cared what she had to say. Plus the narrating voice is hardly ever an interesting one. On top of it, I ended up with the feeling that she didn't dare to go the hard way, the unexpected way with her characters. Whenever a story could take a gripping turn she played it safe (and boring).
And once again I learned the lesson to never (!!!) trust what critics especially other authors say about a book, most of the times they might be just good friends returning a favor. Because these are anything but "brutally honest and equally tender" stories as it is said on the back.
The same about the title of this collection, "Portraits of a few of the people i made cry" which made me go for the book in the first place, BUT not only do I disguise it if the title for one story is used for the whole anthology (same with songs and album titles), it is for sure a bad fit in this case and a misleading one for the entireness of this selection.
Writing this I am actually debating to go back to one star but that would do injustice to the two nicer stories mentioned above, so two stars it is.
February 12, 2017
I really enjoyed this! Probably my favorite I've read for the City Lit book club. There were some beautiful passages, particularly one about aging in "By The Way" that moved me. The last two stories are wildly different from the rest. I'm excited to discuss their relevance.
August 3, 2011
I found this collection of short stories overall enjoyable. It was fun to read a book by a local author who sprinkled bits of Chicago neighborhoods in several of the stories. I found myself interested in most of the stories as I was reading them and most of them ended leaving you wondering (but not in an obnoxious way) about what happened to the characters next. The stories mostly were about relationships (mostly romantic, a few about friendships) and had themes to which most of us could probably relate (dissatisfaction with a relationship but being unable to leave, being taken advantage of, trying to hide parts of our lives, etc.). However, I found most of the characters to be unsatisfied with their situations which sometimes depressed ME as I was reading their stories. ;) While I enjoyed most of the stories, the last couple struck me as odd and I wasn't sure how they were included as they didn't seem as strong. Final random thought: the font size in the hardcover book is surprisingly small. While I was able to manage I can imagine a lot of people would find it somewhat challenging.
April 24, 2012
A wonderful collection that is vivid yet surprisingly subtle. The desperation of the characters seeps under your skin. It seems there are an infinity of ways one can behave inappropriately. Sometimes the strain of suppressing one's vast, underlying insecurities can be equally humiliating. There's an attentiveness to power dynamics and to things like hirsute arms which is sexily off-kilter. A teacher's self-awareness is such that she discovers that, for her, living is "an attempt to do things that inspire admiration and envy in others." Another character, who wasn't seduced, reflects on how both she and her potential seducer have lost that moment in time and can never return. Embarrassments just boomerang back and forth so the characters are left stripped and human and comical yet also lovable. They evoke our pity since in them we recognize the repressed parts of ourselves.
February 8, 2012
A collection of short stories that, the longer I'm away from it, the more it feels like I read a novel. The overarching theme is younger women in relationships with older men. Each is very different, but somewhere in each story the bittersweet poignancy of such relationships comes through. It's been about 6 months, and I can't single out any particular story, but the entire book stays with me. I'm going to go back and read it again. Best collection of 2011, at least of the ones I read. (2'nd best, just for your information: Bradford Morrows The Uninnocent.)
June 14, 2011
Just great. These are very well written stories that at first threaten to be predictable (or at least that was what I expected before starting it), but what I loved is how they have this crazy level of suspense, surprise, borderline dread. Ms. Sneed does a fantastic job of pulling out elements of these situations and hitting you over the head with them. Quite a surprise. I'm so glad to have read these stories and look forward to reading future work by Christine.
February 12, 2012
Christine Sneed captures how, even when nothing huge happens between two people, their relationship causes lasting impact on their lives, even if the relationship doesn't last. Her characters are smart, funny and knowing, and yet still seem to be taken by surprise by their own emotional potential.
September 17, 2011
I am not normally a fan of short stories mostly because I want to get more deeply into the characters and their stories. However, this book was fantastic and might have changed my mind a little on short stories. I definitely felt like I wanted to learn more about each set of characters, but they were interesting snapshots into their lives.
June 30, 2013
Interesting-the cover of the one I borrowed from the library has a woman in a 70's type print dress instead.
So. Almost all of the stories were good/enjoyable, though there were two that didn't catch my interest. Twelve plus Twelve was my favorite. It was interesting and weird and somehow very believable, despite the odd circumstances in the story.
So. Almost all of the stories were good/enjoyable, though there were two that didn't catch my interest. Twelve plus Twelve was my favorite. It was interesting and weird and somehow very believable, despite the odd circumstances in the story.
February 8, 2012
My good friend wrote these great short stories. Congratulations Christine on a great book.
October 9, 2025
I really had the best intentions to do all of my Short Story September reviews in September... but anyway, here I am in October (planning November reading) and thinking I ought to draw a line under last month. So,
Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry
by Christine Sneed...
There are ten stories in the collection (Sneed's debut. I bought this book after reading her first novel, Little Known Facts , which I enjoyed). The themes focus on love and what people choose to do for love.
For the most part, I was underwhelmed by the stories. They lacked punch. That's fine if the writing is great, but in the case of Portraits, the writing was not quite there. There were glimpses of what Sneed wanted to achieve but it didn't come to fruition, giving the sense that she was trying things out (which is fine) and still finding her style (also fine).
The best story, You're So Different, told of a woman - famous in the film industry - returning to the small town where she grew up for her high school reunion. Many of her classmates had remained in the town and her attendance at the reunion causes a ripple of anticipation.
Margaret leaves the hall and is intercepted in the car park by a man whom she recognises as '...someone she once admired for his trombone playing and long, muscular legs.' She ends up agreeing to lunch with the trombone player (and his wife, Birdy, of the organising trio), where they desperately try to impress her. It's excruciating. Margaret recalls Birdy as having been 'aggressive in every sport', but -
Margaret reflects on how there are so many ways that you might be unknowingly part of someone's life, and that resonated for me. There are some people that I talk about or think fondly of, realising that they may not remember me at all! We never know what is meaningful for someone else.
Two other stories showed promise - By the Way, about a woman meeting with her much younger lover, and Interview with the Second Wife, where a journalist interviews the widow of a famous artist. Both were good ideas but not quite realised in a way that made for something memorable.
Sneed has written a couple more novels and has since published another short story collection (which gets solid reviews on Goodreads). Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry was my sixth collection as part of Short Story September, hosted by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers.
2/5
There are ten stories in the collection (Sneed's debut. I bought this book after reading her first novel, Little Known Facts , which I enjoyed). The themes focus on love and what people choose to do for love.
For the most part, I was underwhelmed by the stories. They lacked punch. That's fine if the writing is great, but in the case of Portraits, the writing was not quite there. There were glimpses of what Sneed wanted to achieve but it didn't come to fruition, giving the sense that she was trying things out (which is fine) and still finding her style (also fine).
The best story, You're So Different, told of a woman - famous in the film industry - returning to the small town where she grew up for her high school reunion. Many of her classmates had remained in the town and her attendance at the reunion causes a ripple of anticipation.
It is midway through the evening when the most extravagant embarrassment occurs, one that she knows is expected to please her, though it seems only the most desperate flattery. The reunion organizers, three women named Patty, Susan and Birdy, the first of whom is vastly pregnant and tipsy, unveil the night's surprise tribute - a series of clips excerpted from Margaret's five films and arranged to a melodramatic effect...
Margaret leaves the hall and is intercepted in the car park by a man whom she recognises as '...someone she once admired for his trombone playing and long, muscular legs.' She ends up agreeing to lunch with the trombone player (and his wife, Birdy, of the organising trio), where they desperately try to impress her. It's excruciating. Margaret recalls Birdy as having been 'aggressive in every sport', but -
...now she is heavier, her body padded at each curve, her earlier aggression having given way to an ambiguous fatigue or disenchantment, possibly at having spent so many years trying to please her parents and then a husband, trying to be exceptional at things that turned out to not matter so much.
Margaret reflects on how there are so many ways that you might be unknowingly part of someone's life, and that resonated for me. There are some people that I talk about or think fondly of, realising that they may not remember me at all! We never know what is meaningful for someone else.
Two other stories showed promise - By the Way, about a woman meeting with her much younger lover, and Interview with the Second Wife, where a journalist interviews the widow of a famous artist. Both were good ideas but not quite realised in a way that made for something memorable.
Sneed has written a couple more novels and has since published another short story collection (which gets solid reviews on Goodreads). Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry was my sixth collection as part of Short Story September, hosted by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers.
2/5
June 6, 2024
In her opinion, there were more than two sides in most debates, and most questions couldn't be answered with a simple yes or no. She had talked about this with Connie Fox, who was her hairstylist and not the person to get too philosophical with, as it turned out. As punishment for Lynne's willingness to argue for a third point of view, Connie Fox cut her bangs too short and later told the other women in the beauty parlor that she was an atheist, which wasn't true and Lynne had later said so, but she didn't know if anyone had believed her.
Christine Sneed is one of my favorite short story writers and, even if she wasn't, a book called Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry is one I would have picked up anyway. The stories in this collection mostly deal with women dealing with men, often older men, usually men who feel they have a say in how that woman lives her life. From a teenage girl who realizes the man who told her he was a model scout wasn't who he said he was but wanting to take him up on his offer to take pictures anyway, to a woman who thought she had a casual arrangement with a well-off older man until she tries to break it off, from the granddaughter of a famous artist who inherits a sketchbook, to a divorced woman making a new start in the small lakeside town she used to spend holidays as a child, these women find that life isn't as clear or unhindered as it should be but that they are not without resources of their own.
What I like most about Sneed's stories is that each protagonist has her own voice and none of them could be mistaken for each other. Sneed's women are witty and fully themselves and the situations they find themselves are often absurd but also very real.
Christine Sneed is one of my favorite short story writers and, even if she wasn't, a book called Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry is one I would have picked up anyway. The stories in this collection mostly deal with women dealing with men, often older men, usually men who feel they have a say in how that woman lives her life. From a teenage girl who realizes the man who told her he was a model scout wasn't who he said he was but wanting to take him up on his offer to take pictures anyway, to a woman who thought she had a casual arrangement with a well-off older man until she tries to break it off, from the granddaughter of a famous artist who inherits a sketchbook, to a divorced woman making a new start in the small lakeside town she used to spend holidays as a child, these women find that life isn't as clear or unhindered as it should be but that they are not without resources of their own.
What I like most about Sneed's stories is that each protagonist has her own voice and none of them could be mistaken for each other. Sneed's women are witty and fully themselves and the situations they find themselves are often absurd but also very real.
August 20, 2019
(More 2.5 than pure 2)
Outside of three stories ("Quality of Life," "For Once In Your Life," "Walled City") - and even these three when considered in the wider context outside the collection - there doesn't feel like much to take away from this. There's an almost syndicated-programming quality to the structure:
1. Woman encounters man. Typically one is moving from an urban to a suburban space.
2. Man is massively appealing. Either he's truly sexy ("Interview with the Second Wife"), has wealth ("Quality of Life"), is famous ("Alex Rice Inc"), or some other variant of 'power.'
3. This imbalance somehow represents the gendered hierarchies built into society that these women either adhere to unconsciously ("A Million Dollars"), struggle and fail against ("Quality of Life"), or succeeds bittersweetly ("By The Way")
It's not copy+paste, but it's noticeably repetitive. When the stories do escape this structure, they don't build convincing portraits (of the made crying or the criers) as much as a strange universe where physical desire is the pivot of all narrative and this desire is always PG-13. Both neutered and too much. The gossipy soccer mom-types in"For Once In Your Life" summarize this book almost perfectly.
Outside of three stories ("Quality of Life," "For Once In Your Life," "Walled City") - and even these three when considered in the wider context outside the collection - there doesn't feel like much to take away from this. There's an almost syndicated-programming quality to the structure:
1. Woman encounters man. Typically one is moving from an urban to a suburban space.
2. Man is massively appealing. Either he's truly sexy ("Interview with the Second Wife"), has wealth ("Quality of Life"), is famous ("Alex Rice Inc"), or some other variant of 'power.'
3. This imbalance somehow represents the gendered hierarchies built into society that these women either adhere to unconsciously ("A Million Dollars"), struggle and fail against ("Quality of Life"), or succeeds bittersweetly ("By The Way")
It's not copy+paste, but it's noticeably repetitive. When the stories do escape this structure, they don't build convincing portraits (of the made crying or the criers) as much as a strange universe where physical desire is the pivot of all narrative and this desire is always PG-13. Both neutered and too much. The gossipy soccer mom-types in"For Once In Your Life" summarize this book almost perfectly.
March 20, 2025
I've been slowly falling in love with Christine Sneed's writing for years and Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry has been the last collection of hers (out of 3 published as of this review) that I've read.
I was a bit whelmed by the first story but after that the Sneed that I've come to know and love takes over. Most of these stories deal with age gap romantic relationships but nevertheless Sneed makes them each unique and mines them for weird details, investigating the vulnerability of these characters.
Particular favourites of mine:
Twelve + Twelve in which a woman in her 30s starts a relationship with her father's friend shortly after his daughter dies.
You're So Different where a screenwriter goes to a high school reunion and has an awkward encounter with her former classmates.
Alex Rice Inc. where a professor has a movie star enroll in one of her classes (I liked the way this swerved away from where it could have gone)
Walled City a comic look at a utopian city that becomes a well regulated hell for its citizens. After reading Sneed's collected stories she tends to favour reality based literary stories so it was wonderful to see this subtle play with genre.
I was a bit whelmed by the first story but after that the Sneed that I've come to know and love takes over. Most of these stories deal with age gap romantic relationships but nevertheless Sneed makes them each unique and mines them for weird details, investigating the vulnerability of these characters.
Particular favourites of mine:
Twelve + Twelve in which a woman in her 30s starts a relationship with her father's friend shortly after his daughter dies.
You're So Different where a screenwriter goes to a high school reunion and has an awkward encounter with her former classmates.
Alex Rice Inc. where a professor has a movie star enroll in one of her classes (I liked the way this swerved away from where it could have gone)
Walled City a comic look at a utopian city that becomes a well regulated hell for its citizens. After reading Sneed's collected stories she tends to favour reality based literary stories so it was wonderful to see this subtle play with genre.
January 30, 2019
The title of Christine Sneed’s Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry might raise expectations that this collection of ten short stories has been spit out from a caustic perspective of recrimination, resentment and revenge, but anticipations of mean-spirited point-of-view will be roundly disappointed. Sneed’s often wistful and listing characters seem more often enwrapped in buffeting circumstances than hurtled to demise by headlong fate. Rescue is not so simple as stepping away from the tracks. Life’s breath is squeezed short by the embrace of forces as nebulous and ubiquitous as sunlight, gravity, time. All of the culprits, individual and systemic, to blame for smothering Sneed’s yearning hero(ine)s are exposed and recorded in descriptive details sharp and sure as if inscribed by an awl. In contrast, Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry focuses a lens milled in compassion on those people who are made to cry. Compassion is a good way to look at the weepers, especially if you’ve ever been one of them.
July 31, 2022
Each individual story is solid, but there isn't enough difference between the different stories for the whole book to hang together as a balanced plate. Certain details pop up over and over again - but it doesn't feel like this is on purpose, like the author is trying to drill down into why some people are interested in romantic partnerships where one person is significantly older than the other. No, it more feels like these details reoccur because the author doesn't have enough writerly range to be able to conjure up wholly unrelated scenarios over and over again. The end result is a collection that ends up being less than the sum of it's (mostly good) parts...
June 6, 2017
Nice collection of stories mostly following young, professional, vaguely artistically inclined women through spaces in and around love and sex and work and memory. Some really enjoyable prose that kind of sneaks up on you.
August 29, 2017
-came for the quote I saw on the internet somewhere, stayed too long waiting to find it
-stories about random array of lovers were ok
-one too many about couples with a very large age difference
-stories about random array of lovers were ok
-one too many about couples with a very large age difference
April 9, 2018
Some great spots
Loved some of the humour, not sure about the round ups but perhaps I’m not as much of a short story fan as I previously believed? But worth a read
Loved some of the humour, not sure about the round ups but perhaps I’m not as much of a short story fan as I previously believed? But worth a read
June 17, 2018
This collection is absolutely worth getting if only to read the brilliant story “Alex Rice Inc.”
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