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American Innovations: Stories (2014)

by Rivka Galchen(Favorite Author)

3.69 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0374280479 (ISBN13: 9780374280475)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

review 1: The thing that kept me away from short story collections (and suspicious of writers famous for them) all these years is that frustrating sense of hope this goddamn form warrants. If a novel is bad, you can tell by at most 50 pages in and can leave it there in good, clear conscience. In a collection, however, even if the first couple of stories are absolutely off, you keep thinking, "Maybe the next one will get better? I mean, they got bundled together into a book for a reason, right?" Yes, and the reason is appallingly bad taste. Jesus, I can't believe what shit my compulsion drove me through, page after page from this utterly deranged woman. I should not have given in to this typical marketing hype, given that I had loathed Atmospheric Disturbances as ... morewell.
review 2: Not your conventional short stories, American Innovations is full of tales that include magical realism, everyday life, and the outright absurd. Galchen is an incredible writer and knows how to write a sentence like nobody's business. Her plots are a little lacking at times, but frequently, the plot doesn't really seem to be the point. Standouts here include "The Lost Order", "Wild Berry Blue", "Dean of the Arts" and "Once an Empire". Her protagonists are always female and frequently seem lost and/or bewildered, but on the verge of something momentous at the same time. These stories are to be enjoyed one at a time and not rushed through, as they seem to contain unique worlds that are like our own, but slightly off kilter. Consequently, it takes a little time and adjustment to not only enter them, but exit them as well. less

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