Steven Barthelme

This is an uneven, but rather interesting, collection of short (some very short) stories about various quirky folks, cats and relationships. I think his longer stories actually worked better and I felt "Interview" (about a tax lawyer who quits his job, wanders back to Austin, where he went to college, and gets a job as a mechanic), "Bye Bye Brewster" (a surprisingly sweet friendship story between a guy in his 40s and a guy in his 70s, whose lives cross in an apartment complex in Arizona) and show more "Claire" (Where a man borrows money from his ex/Claire and gets sucked backed into his world of gambling and regret, but he actually wins a lot of money and determines that did not help a thing - he still is sorry he let Claire go) were real standouts. Barthelme is exceptionally good at caring about his characters, and so while they can be rather repugnant, I always kind of felt sorry for them. He writes exceptionally well from the viewpoint of someone who has made a horrible decision and how they stumble through that, both in effects on others and their own lives. They all had a few threads that made them likeable. My biggest complaint about this collection, and why I did not rate it much higher, is the nausea-producing and highly implausable title story "Hush, Hush" about a sexual affair between a father, who ends up being a creepy stalking on top of it all, and his grown daughter (who shows up on his doorstep one day, after a life of him not knowing she existed). That one was weird, and not in a good way, and it just put a whole funk on the book. It almost seemed mislpaced in an otherwise decent collection. Why that one was chosen as the title piece is beyond me. Anyway, I do think Bathleme is well worth watching and enjoying. His dialog, quick-paced stories and characters are usually fun, and human in both good and bad ways, so nice and complex and for the most part, interesting and a joy to read. show less

It was fine. Some nice observations, occasionally a poignant moment. He often does the thing lots of writers do where they leave an ending sort of unraveled or ambiguous and make you put together what it means. Sometimes this can be neat, but more often than not, it just feels like the author's using a gimmick or didn't quite know how to tie the story up. With Barthelme (as in most cases), it tends to feel like the latter.

I got the book by accident, picking it up from the publisher's table show more at a conference after mistakingly thinking I was getting something by his brother Donald Barthelme. I liked it well enough but didn't generally find it inspiring and probably wouldn't seek this Barthelme out in particular in the future. I'll read him with interest if I run across him in a magazine, though. show less

A somewhat repetitive memoir about losing 250K and not knowing why. I would have given it 3 stars except for the very poor structure of the book. When the brothers are kicked out of their usual casino, charged with violating state gambling laws, and begin a bizarre journey through the legal system, the book picks up interest. Then suddenly there's a flashback to the time of their father's death (the book is riddled with flashbacks, as if their parents, or possibly grief, could be responsible show more for the authors' stupidity -- but they explicitly deny that possiblilty) and the book ends without revealing what became of the court case. Hello? When I want to know the ending of the book, it's highly frustrating to have to search for it on the dust jacket. It seems that in this case the jacket blurb department was better at writing than the authors and better at editing than the editors. The dust jacket gets 3 stars. show less

Quick, light read, though if you've ever read anything by Steven's brother Donald Barthelme you already know the writing style (tone-wise it feels more related to Raymond Carver than Donald). There are 20 efficiently written stories that feel like you're observing lonesome people who travel late at night down winding interstates trying to figure themselves out. There are a pair of longer stories, Claire and Hush Hush that I think work more effectively than the shorter 2 to 3 page stuff. show more Finally, The whole thing's bookended by stories about child geniuses. show less