The Girl in the Flammable Skirt: Stories by Aimee Bender (1999)

This is probably my most favorite collection of stories ever written. They're just so weird and elegant. ( )

I love, love, love this collection of short stories. Aimee Bender's stories take place in a profoundly unrecognizable reality grounded firmly through her perceptive insights on the nature of humanity. ( )

kind of like female george saunders, but not as consistently strong. quick read. recommended by ben, august 2008.

I saw Aimee Bender read to a roomful of students this fall. She read her story, Lemonade, that had been published in the ‘Fantastic Women’ issue of Tin House. Although I was slightly disappointed that she had chosen this specific story to read, since I had already read it but hadn’t had a chance to read many others. But it was nice to hear her read. The narrator’s inner-voice is neurotic and child-like but charming. Afterwards, there was the mandatory Q&A session.

As an answer to one of the questions, Aimee Bender said that she started each story with a What If. A rather typical scenario for a writer, sure, but when you consider what the specific What If question had to be for each story. Well. It gets much less typical.

What if a husband devolved until he was a tadpole? What if a husband returned from war with no lips? What if one day a librarian were to become incredibly horny? What if…What if…What if…

Aimee Bender is brilliant.

Her prose is straight-forward but beautiful. Her stories are always unpredictable, unexpected, but utterly believable. And. Well. Beautiful.

Some notable first sentences:

* “My lover is experiencing reverse evolution. I tell no one.” from The Rememberer
* “I’m spending the afternoon auditioning men. They don’t know it. This is a secret audition, come as you are.” by Call My Name
* “Renny’s phone privileges were revoked when they discovered a swastika carved into his bed board.” from Skinless
* There was an old man and an old woman and they dreamed the same dreams. They’d been married for sixty years, and their arm skin now wrinkled down to their wrists like kicked-down bedsheets. from Dreaming in Polish

One of my favorite stories is Fugue. A masterful construction that is so exactly and so not exactly its name. I played piano for twelve years, so I’m well aware of the musical construction of the fugue. The song with various themes that continue to emerge. Fugue is exactly that. But the subject matter? Not, I’m sure, subject matter Bach or Beethoven would approve of. ( )