Do Not Deny Me: Stories

admin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:20:00 +0000

Do Not Deny Me is a collection of twelve short stories that represent literary fiction at its very best. Each tale is beautifully crafted, with precise and striking phrases and detailed, relatable characters. The first story, “Soldiers of Spiritos,” hints at the writer’s opinions on literary criticism. An aging English professor and his discouraged student find that they share a love of dramatic literature and a distaste for modern criticism that replaces appreciation with overwrought analysis.

There’s much here to appreciate and, if one is so inclined, to analyze. Thompson is renown in literary circles for her sharp wit, and it’s easy to see why, whether you read purely for enjoyment, or dwell on the variety of literary techniques, which include second person narration (“The Woman at the Well”), peripheral character narration (“Little Brown Bird”), and an unreliable narrator (“Mr. Rat”).

The title story is an eerie account of a young woman’s reaction to her boyfriend’s sudden death. She encounters a stranger with questionable psychic powers, and despite her skepticism, longs to find comfort in the idea of supernatural forces. Another exceptional story is “Escape,” a deeply affecting narrative about a man who suffers brain damage and has an increasingly antagonistic relationship with his wife and caretaker. Frustrated with his helplessness and his wife’s ability to control him, he becomes more and more reckless in his attempts to get away. It’s easy to imagine this story on an AP Literature exam ten years from now.

“Wilderness” juxtaposes a love letter from a Walden-Pond wannabe environmentalist with the recipient’s Thanksgiving weekend in the suburbs. The protagonist is surprised to find her former best friend has become a matronly mother of two teenage boys—and even more surprised to find that her friend’s husband is having an affair.

“Little Brown Bird” is the story of an overlooked young girl who reaches out to a neighbor. The neighbor suspects the girl is being abused but doesn’t know how to help, and fears retribution if she shares her suspicions. “Liberty Tax” is a meditation on how people in financial distress rationalize unethical or illegal behavior. “Treehouse” details a man’s attempt to remove himself from the burdens of his humanity by building a new home for himself in his own backyard. “Mr. Rat” features an incredibly unlikable (and sexist) protagonist who gets one of his co-workers fired, and may or may not have driven another to suicide. Readers are left wondering why betrayal comes so easily to this character, and if it is, as he claims, because he is “a triumph of natural selection.”

“Triumph” is an excellent way to describe this collection. The variety of themes, situations, and characters provide glimpses into different experiences of modern American life and leave readers with a wealth to reflect upon. Every story is so full of insight and poetry, readers will find themselves underlining entire passages and longing to discuss them with literary friends.

Written by: Kellie Powell, June 10th 2009

Throw like a Girl

admin — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 11:55:00 +0000

By Jean Thompson

Simon and Schuster

After being asked what she wanted for her readers to take away from Throw Like a Girl, Jean Thompson answered that she hoped they appreciate the “transforming power of literature, how can it remove us from the everyday world and let us see with new eyes.” And this book does just that: it takes us away from the everyday world and then painfully drops us back with the suspicion that this fiction is actually very real.

The horrors of normalcy and the tedium of a common life are the forces that drive the majority of the characters in these twelve stories; our “heroines” are far from the romantic or ladylike ilk, but instead more like tough, strong and violent. On the opposite side stand the men in these accounts, mostly unsuccessful and lost, they portray what nobody wants and what most end up getting.

In “The Brat,” a spooky but familiar story about teenage anger Iris, the twelve year old outcast main character that is not “pretty or smart or nicey-nice,” hates everybody and everything, and we hate her; we hate her and we understand her because we have been there. This character, as most in this collection, is like we were, are or will be. All of these women have the urge to live, to act on their thoughts and to get what they really want, and we know that getting what you really want is a trap. We know that if we go for the cheese it will cut our heads off, and we do it anyways. Jean Thompson is the story teller of our own collective story.

Lust and boredom force Mel in “A Normal Life” to leave her children and husband to marry the man she was having a hot and heavy affair with just to go around in the circle of dissatisfaction, where she ceases being a "sexy siren" and instead becomes “just another nagging, squawking wife.”

“The Family Barcus” analyzes the life of a perfect American family, with an obsessively optimistic father who eventually gives up on life. It’s told in a first-person velvety prose that slips into the brain and tightly wraps it for a long time.

The wit and black humor of the title are splendidly sinister. Throw Like a Girl is a phenomenal account, and when you read it, you’ll understand why it bears the title of the collection.

Written by: Laura Koffler, September 6th 2007