Download Your Copy Twenty Grand And Other Tales Of Love And Money Envisioned By Rebecca Curtis Available In Audiobook
is interesting about this collection is the way that Curtis uses the techniques of Realism to attack Realism, Many of these stories are clearly antistories, Some use dream logic not dreams, but the nonsensical and unrealistic logic and plotting that dreams exhibit, Others seem an attempt to write the worst story possible, similar to certain SNL skits where the delivery is dead serious but the audience knows it's all knobbery because it's a comedy show.
It's as if she saying "want to see how inane Realism can be" Another curious technique is that nearly all of her female narrators describe themselves as not being very bright, an opinion a reader could agree with based on some of their choices, but this is clearly meant to be taken ironically.
Awareness of consequences is also conspicuously absent in these stories, which align them with the the too hip for that crowd, Curtis studied with George Saunders and Diane Williams and those influences are apparent in these stories, many of which also bear the traces of the experiments in form try this, now try that, make them do x, then, y, etc.
and I'll be curious to see what she does differently with her talent in the future, Here's the deal, people. These are stories that know how to sound like stories, but offer much, much less than they think they're delivering, which, basically, is a merely brand of fauxliterary tourism.
First person narrators, floating around some fastidiously evoked scenery, while eschewing nearly all interiority, Narrators that expect that we "get it" from a few minimalistic physical descriptions, Well, we do and we don't, The sound that Curtis makes is a kind of notsoundor, at the very least, a sort of quasisound, dependent upon coy revelations and the supposed weight of the things she's left out.
Take away some of the O, Henryesque main events in these storiesa valuable coin given to a toll both worker! a rich dad who asks for rent from a poor girl!and you're left with cool, stylized, and basically unconvincing first person detachment.
P. S. If I sound bitter, and I do, it's b/c I had high expectatins, I'd read many of these stories in magazines/journals, thinking wow, I'm a fan of this, Then, after rereading them altogether, I felt duped,
The two are in comparison to Curtis' story Hansa, Gretyl and Piece of Sht, That story just felt so much richer than the stories in this collection, Just enough fairytale, but not too much, A lot of darkness, but also love, And then the engagement with the landscape, the non human etc, No such density in this collection unfortunately! I read a great storyHansa and Gretyl and Piece of St in a recent New Yorker by this author and now will read her debut collection from.
She goes back further than I thought, . . I can see already that I've read one of these"The Alpine Slide" in the New Yorker years ago, Great story I'll probably remember a couple of others as I go along,
"Hungry Self" All three of the author's stories that I've read so far focus on the trying life of a young woman/girl, At the heart of the "problem" is the girl's fed up family, That'd be Mom and Dad for the uninitiated, How well I can identify, Philip Larkin summed it up pretty well, The poem is "This Be the Verse", . .
Summer, with Twins Another summer job story, with the emphasis on confusion, money, emotional isolation, The absence of any family references speaks volumes,
To the Interstatea dream of confusion and frustration, . . The Alpine Slideread before, the summer job thing, . . The NearSonmore dreamprose, with an ending like The Lottery, . . Big Bear, CaliforniaI want to be alone, . . The author maintains her gloomy psychic background in all these stories, The central theme is the emotionally difficult life of particular young women, Seems like depression to me, Very well written IMHO.
Monsters and Knick, Knack, Paddywhack Numbersandcontinue in the mode of dreamlike, sketchy nonnarrative, It's pretty well done, but unsettling and unenlightening, Definitely not for all tastes, Mood pieces
The title story is in a more conventional mode and visits a them mentioned in a blurb: the tension in a motherdaughter relationship, The mom is kind of a youthful, clueless failure at life and the daughtershe's still just a little girl kind of gets it, but wants to remain loyal.
Familial love we don't get to choose our parents and survive the best we can as long as we're at their mercy,
The Wolf at the Door pretty much a rerun of monsters, Dreary, frustrating dream stuff.
Solicitation Another cryptic mystery "story, " The "meaning" is almost beside the point, The psychic "feel " is everything,
The Witches another unpleasant tale of toxic detachment and youthful cluelessness, As usual, the parents are barely "present, " Is this story overly calculated What's the effect
The SnoCone Cart and one more mood piece, It's as effectively rendered as all the others and the feeling invoked in the reader is just as ephemeral, More evidence of bad parenting, "The girl" seems zonedout, not paying attention a lot of the timein all the stories
So, . . a hardtorate book. The author has a gift for the bleakread "Hansa and Gretyl and Piece of S, . t" in that recent New Yorker and one wonders about where it all comes from, Seems to me that her young life experiences must be the source of the negative psychic energy, Otherwise, why write these stories, if not to make the sadness and detachment real,
A first the superfluous and semiweird New Hampshire tourist stuff at the end, WTF
The author has a featured story in the new New Yorker "Fiction" issue,
a recent thought, . . if you like/love Alice Munro you may well like/love this one, Several years ago, one of Curtiss stories from this collection, “The Alpine Slide,” appeared in The New Yorker, and I never forgot it, On the surface, it is a poignant tale about a teenage girls first summer job at a small amusement park in New Hampshire, but at its heart is a comingoffage story about boundaries and trust in relationships.
Most of Curtiss work is deceptively simple, and her genius lies in her ability to capture a greater understanding of human nature through the mundane,
She is at her best when she places flawed characters in dire predicaments of their own design as in the titular story or when her characters face obstacles but lack the tools they need to overcome them as with “Summer, with the Twins”, but some of her attempts at fables and reconstructing familiar fairy tales are reminiscent of collegelevel creative writing exercises.
But for all the angst and odd stylistic choices, Curtis is a fresh and distinctive voice in literature with moments of brilliance, and I even see shades of the mighty Lorrie Moore in her work at times.
David Foster Wallace once referred to Denis Johnsons Angels as “bleak but gorgeous, like light through ice,” and I think the simile often applies to Curtiss writing as well.
I look forward to her next collection, Simple language, so much so that you think you're talking to someone in line at the grocery store, yet she hits without being heavyhanded on so many things that people want to gloss over and forget, like the nuances of class differences in America.
Her first story is probably the most literal and representational in the telling, The rest of the stories, however, take a cue from Rebecca Brown's and Zsuzsi Gartner's work: they don't seek to be representational, and the whimsical stories have something of fairy tale gone wrong in them in a gritty, tooadult way.
The narrative is abstract and left without grounding or resolution, For me, the effect is addictive for
others, this might be infuriating since the story is told more through omissions than directness, My fave stories include my summer with the twins, monsters and big bear California, A couple of odd stories but mostly very good, entertaining and well written stories sitelink com/rc. fiction. html I really enjoy Rebecca Curtis painful writing style, having first found her short stories in The New Yorker,
Her characters have such a vivid, poignant way of pointing out other peoples bullshit that can be funny, angry, and sad all at the same time.
I can relate.
She seems to specialize in dysfunctional nuclear family dynamics, and appears to be keenly aware of how it affects people in their adulthood,
Often sullen and resentful but always insightful, Curtis seems to relish loading nearly outlandish economic and family struggles onto her protagonists in a way that makes me think they must be somewhat cathartic and semi autobiographical.
But many of her “tales of love and money” seem to inhabit a unique space that deals with some serious subject matter in almost farcical, fantastic terms, mixing the mundane with the absurd that I find absorbing.
Curtis is able to make even the most absurdly fallible and self defeating characters understandable and even relatable in their humanity, I think that Curtis really knows what its like to be the black sheep of the family, and how things got that way for the black sheep and the family around them.
And so she has either one hell of an imagination or is really brave, Im a huge admirer of her writing and became an instant fan, so Im inclined to think that its both, Myth book I've rated this year! It was very good, too, I read this book in two daysand that's rare for me these daysbut it's a fantastic collection, Her narrators are baffled and sometimes a little mean, but that tone fits these stories of small town New Hampshire life so well, Curtis is funny but there's something heartbroken behind all of itI was hugely impressed, Read the first page, and you'll want to stay in this world, Curtis is wildly talented and her New Yorker story The Christmas Miracle made me seek out this collection, These stories feel true but unremittingly bleak, with characters' fates either flatlining or going downhill, I'm on an unfortunate streak of reading books about people unhappily trapped in their circumstances, a trend that is simply not doing me any good right now.
Some of the depictions of selfdestructiveness, economic disadvantage and loneliness are unforgettable, I think this writing was necessary to get to inspired lunacy of The Christmas Miracle, and I can't wait to read what's next, Although I didn't fully understand all of the short stories, the author's voice was so unique and different than anything I've read in the past, Twenty Grand is disturbing, innovative, and also inspiring, After picking up this book, I started writing again for the first time in quite a while, Something about the stories just got all these ideas flowing through my head, and that's why I gave it five, Not many books can affect me the way this one has, and I look forward to Curtis writing more in the future, .