The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel

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.

34. The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
Forward Rick Moody
published: 2006
format: 412 page ARC Paperback
acquired: 2007 from a library book sale
read: May 29-Jun 14
rating: 4½

This is a collection of four books of stories:
- Reasons to Live (1985)
- At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom (1990)
- Tumble Home (1997)
- The Dog of Marriage (2005)

"My heart—I thought it stopped. So I got in my car and headed for God." So entered Amy Hempel into the book world, a master of the line to the point of hyper-intense concision. Hempel was one of the great short story writers of the 1980's whose career went beyond the popularity of form. When short stories weren't selling so well the in the 1990's, she tried to transform into a longer form writer, coming out show more with only the 80-page story Tumble Home, a good illustration of why that's not her strength. It's a good story in the end, but the getting their requires the reader to move through numerous hyper-intense short outbursts all going different directions.

But in the short form she is a special voice, clever, fun, passive in complex and fascinating ways, and full of memorable lines, including wonderful opening lines (all hinted at in some of her titles). She can be sensual, but mostly she is scoffing and blessing at the same time all life's normal difficulties. Another gem that was languishing on the shelf way too long.

Mrs. Deane scans the written portion of my test. She says I skipped a question, the one that says, "Would you prefer to: (a) Think about your plans for tomorrow, (b) Think about what you would do if you had a million dollars, (c) Think about how it would feel to be held up at gunpoint?"

I say, "I want the job for the person who picks (b)."

2018
https://www.librarything.com/topic/288371#6511017 show less

An incredible stylist, Hempel knows just how to craft that all-important first line* to draw you in, following it up with an equally powerful second and third and fourth... the lean sentences each so full of an untold story, but still so comfortably inhabiting the story they are telling.

Nowhere else is her trademark economy - those clipped, calculatedly idiosyncratic phrases - more controlled nor more impactful than in her first collection Reasons to Live** (which kept reminding me of Grace Paley). The remaining three collections eventually got looser, with some intriguing repetitions (which made me wonder about Hempel's life, what's her experience of living across a cemetery and male painters), but still had underline-worthy sentences show more and ideas.

*The story of how Marilynne Robinson wrote Housekeeping - writing down metaphors on pieces of paper and putting them in a drawer and somehow they cohered into a story - always makes me wonder the order in which authors start a story. What came first, a concept, a scene, a theme, a sentence? For Hempel, I feel the sentences definitely came first and the story - if there is one - unfurled from there.

**Favourites from this collection: In a Tub, In the Cemetery Where All Johnson is Buried, Pool Night, The Man in Bogota. show less

Hempel is an excellent story teller and this collection of short stories reflects what the Prologue says when it states "Its all about sentences". Each story of Hempel's has something in the background, that although not explicitly stated, it is present. Maybe it is something from the past or maybe it is some sort of foreshadowing, either way the story feels more real because of the lack of descriptions which makes the reader more engaged in the story. I enjoyed picking up this book at random and reading a few stories at a time. My only complaint is that the majority of the stories are told from the first person and after a while it seems as if the author is telling various parts of her life. Still, her writing style is efficient and show more nuanced which benefits all who read her. show less

I am a big fan of short stories, and this was my first time reading this author. Her style is definitely minimalistic and took a while to get used to. This collection is a combination of four of her short story collections, Reasons to Live, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, Tumble Home, and The Dog of the Marriage. The best story in the collection and my favorite was " In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried", which is about a woman visiting her friend who is terminally ill. They discuss trivial subjects in order to take their minds off of what is happening.

Terrific. One of the best short story collections around. Short stories of the human condition, frequently lit up by flashes of wry humour, and always crafted in just-right sentences and rhythms.

Amy Hempel forms words into sentences like no other. In a way I am sorry I did not read her books separately, so that I may have extended my time with her fierce writing. Alas, instead I bit right in and gorged myself until I was sated, or well, actually until there were no more pages to turn. I remain unsated. Now I must live with my reader's remorse.