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Loading... The Collected Stories of Amy Hempelby Amy Hempel
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Oh my, this stuff is very good. (  ) damsorrow | Jun 11, 2009 |  I used to HATE HATE HATE short stories. It probably had something to do with high school and having to over-analyze every itty bitty detail in one. Plus, I always found it hard to care about the characters when they were just going to be gone in 20 pages. Last year I read Nine Stories by JD Salinger, and all of that changed. Some of Hempel's stories are only a page or two, but I still felt myself drawn to the people she wrote about, everyone seemed so real. I noticed a lot of similarities in the people in different stories, so it was as if you were reading about someone again 100 pages later, I imagine the continuity made it easier for me to read. ( ) SeriousEmily | May 21, 2009 | mhartford | Jan 11, 2009 | Amy Hempel's stories are almost always profoundly moving and insightful. She writes from an assured, wise point of view that gives her stories a calm, almost hypnotic power. And Hempel delves into subjects that, in theory, shouldn't produce any literary or philosophical weight, but somehow she makes even the driest, most mundane topics beautiful and interesting. For that reason, her Collected Stories is one of my favorite books. ( ) rossryanross | Jul 1, 2008 | jlspad | Mar 26, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
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When Reasons to Live, Hempel's first collection, was published in 1985, readers encountered a pitch-perfect voice in fiction and an unsettling assessment of the culture. That collection includes "San Francisco," which Alan Cheuse in The Chicago Tribune called "arguably the finest short story composed by any living writer." In At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, her second collection, frequently compared to the work of Raymond Carver, Hempel refined and developed her unique grace and style and her unerring instinct for the moment that defines a character. Also included here, in their entirety, are the collections Tumble Home and The Dog of the Marriage. As Rick Moody says of the title novella in Tumble Home, "the leap in mastery, in seriousness, and sheer literary purpose was inspiring to behold.... And yet," he continues, "The Dog of the Marriage, the fourth collection, is even better than the other three...a triumph, in fact." The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel is the perfect opportunity for readers of contemporary American fiction to catch up to one of its masters. Moody's passionate and illuminating introduction celebrates both the appeal and the importance of Hempel's work.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:19 -0400)
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