Threats

Jun 15, 2012 karen rated it 5 of 5 stars

"we all go a little mad sometimes"

this book kicked my ass. i do not recommend reading it if you have any sort of sad feelings already at work inside of you. or if you are in any way mentally/emotionally compromised. this is not the kind of book you want to find yourself relating to, trust me.

on the purely intellectual level, this is a well-constructed piece of writing that lives in the shadows it creates for itself. it doles out its revelations slowly, like a cerebral detective story, folding b...more

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May 13, 2013 Jenn(ifer) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: dark, gave-me-chills, read-in-2012, you-should-read-this, own, female-authors, my-reviews-that-dont-suck, awesomely-weird

When I was a child of nine or maybe ten years old, an elderly man who lived on the end of our street gave me five dollars to rake up the leaves in his small fenced-in yard. I remember how excited I was by this bounty – FIVE WHOLE DOLLARS! I immediately walked over to the corner store and bought a bag of circus peanuts. Do you remember these? They are made of an orange marshmallow substance shaped to look like an over-sized peanut.

description

I took the bag to the playground across the street and I gleefull...more

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Mar 25, 2012 Mariel rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: You never needed the feather to fly, Dumbo

Recommended to Mariel by: Mike Puma, karen, s.pen, Josh

I get attached to things. I was once warmly attached to a cartoon animal I drew on my own arm until it made me too sad and I still couldn't bear to wash it off for days. The other day I came close to absolutely having to buy a stuffed rabbit toy and rubber alligator. If I had played with them a moment longer in that drug store I would have taken them home. I would have felt I had left something behind. My mind starts imparting onto them something out of myself. Names and personalities. My heart...more I get attached to things. I was once warmly attached to a cartoon animal I drew on my own arm until it made me too sad and I still couldn't bear to wash it off for days. The other day I came close to absolutely having to buy a stuffed rabbit toy and rubber alligator. If I had played with them a moment longer in that drug store I would have taken them home. I would have felt I had left something behind. My mind starts imparting onto them something out of myself. Names and personalities. My heart fragments on other's sleeves. Or maybe it's like a dog chasing its own tail. (They aren't always nice.) Amelia Gray's Threats reminded me of the voices I've made up. Inanimate objects and uninhabited spaces friendlier than flesh and blood. Everybody else that's inside and the attachments that threaten to become too painful to abandon. My The Velveteen Rabbit guilt trip aside, as it's not really about that. David could assemble his one old voice mail about vegetables with a guilty anniversary present of a sock, a saints medallion collection and a voice out of him that his dead wife will come back, affirm love against the impotence and doubts. What else do you do when it's just you? In life and in death can you feel safe unless you can sew it with a name badge talisman? Winnie the Pooh guilt trip aside. You have to commit to not abandon, to light all the candles, say I do believe in spooks and grace and never forget, not just on the holidays. She lives in the house across the street. There's another man there and he looks just like you. The past is no help at all, is it? Everyone else sees her too. I know because they told me so. How you holding up? Suspicion, why aren't you over this already, person of interest and some people really do watch the news. Grief talks. Hope walks. Chucky guilt trip aside. Are the threats on white paper in the sugar canister all you're ever going to get again? What if what's inside of you to wear and keep warm is pretty fucking scary? David could have written them himself for all I know. He could have been the a few rungs below a high school guidance counselor Marie who so-called lived in his garage. The Laundromat bag lady, too, with her no help at all human consequence philosophy.The thing is he'll never get the faith again unless it reappears. The 911 call is coming from inside your pants! Get off the phone! No one else is left.

I felt the kind of sweetness when you can pretend just enough that it really is talking back to you to not stop it. And then worried because you'll probably keep on doing it. It's everywhere and is any of it ever real. You could do it any time you need it, though. Tinkerbell guilt trip aside.(less)

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Mar 02, 2012 Joshua Nomen-Mutatio rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

"EVERYTHING GAINS SIGNIFICANCE WHEN YOU PUT IT UP ON AN ALTAR" (274)

Amelia Gray's sentences are altars, propping up objects and moments and sensations. This tongue-tyingly beautiful novel—while threaded with a smooth, albeit mysterious, narrative and a small spot-lit bundle of characters—is truly the sum of thousands of such details, carefully and lovingly and wisely suffused with significance. Gray's writing implicates such a keenly perceptive set of eyes (and ears and nerve endings) for the li...more

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Mar 16, 2012 s.penkevich rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fresh fruit for rotting vegetables

Recommended to s.penkevich by: Joshua Nomen-Mutatio

Shelves: death_and_decay, jeepers_creepers, the_jn-m-reading_list

‘I think the word ‘you’ has been linked with the more devastating sentences than any other in the English language’
I recently became infatuated with the writings of Amelia Gray while reading her innovative first book, AM/PM. That slim, impressive volume contained the roots of a fresh new voice, ready to break through the pages and blossom. I watched her tend to her growing charm with the short story collection, Museum of the Weird, which glowed in near equal value. There I found an ethereal eleg...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Blair rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, read-on-kindle, 2012-release

Sometimes it happens that I read a book, and enjoy it, and maybe even - as was this case with this one - admire a lot of things about it, but when I come to the end, I just don't have anything much to say about it, and no desire to analyse or pick apart its meanings. That's what has happened with Threats, and it's interesting that I feel this way because it's a book that is full of meaning and definitely not a straightforward, simple read. It's about a man called David, whose wife Franny dies in...more Sometimes it happens that I read a book, and enjoy it, and maybe even - as was this case with this one - admire a lot of things about it, but when I come to the end, I just don't have anything much to say about it, and no desire to analyse or pick apart its meanings. That's what has happened with Threats, and it's interesting that I feel this way because it's a book that is full of meaning and definitely not a straightforward, simple read. It's about a man called David, whose wife Franny dies in odd, unclear circumstances: after her death he descends into grief, madness and squalor, and starts to find threatening notes hidden in strange places around his house. It's never quite clear what is real and what is happening in David's head, and the characters surrounding him behave so bizarrely that it seems they may be just as troubled as he is, even if they are supposed to be functioning more successfully - although we see things mainly from David's perspective, it's still obvious to the reader that he is letting his life and home slip into a state of decay. Perhaps it's this lack of attachment to reality that stopped me from liking the book more, since I couldn't properly understand (and therefore couldn't like) any of the characters and, honestly, didn't really care what had happened to Franny - partly because the way she was described made her seem like a caricature more than anything. Loss and grief are such popular themes in literary fiction, and this was an original treatment of them, but personally I didn't find it all that successful in making me feel anything.

So, yeah: I liked this, there was some great writing, and there were phrases and quotes I loved, but somehow it didn't quite come together for me, it never coalesced into what I felt it could have been. Incidentally, Threats reminded me a lot of Keith Ridgway's Hawthorn & Child, which I found a much more effective use of this vague, deliberately strange kind of style: I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoyed this book.(less)

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Apr 26, 2012 Nate D rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: YOUR FATE IS SEALED WITH GLUE

Recommended to Nate D by: Josh N-M, still leveling off his laundry-stacks

I WILL GATHER YOUR OLDEST FRIENDS AT MY HOME AND WE WILL HAVE A CONVERSATION. YOU WILL HEAR US TALKING BUT WHEN YOU COME INTO THE ROOM WE WILL STOP TALKING.

On the persistent unreality of loss, perhaps.

Isolate yourself, obsess over the details, they're all you have, they're all you will ever have even as they deteriorate into sopped shreds at the bottom of the basement stairs.

New young authors are writing some really good books these days. In its odd dread and smearing of the assurances of home,...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Craig rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I'm very tired of plotless, pretty prose. Thank you, McSweeney's, for killing narrative.

As some of the other reviewers have noted, the main character is completely frustrating in his passivity: what is behind his lack of memory? Better yet, what is up with everyone seeing the dead wife? Is this a ghost story or a mystery? Why mention the wife's secret life if it's never explored? Or the sister's death? Or the other, disconnected characters that have nothing to do with David's story of grief?

Who...more

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May 26, 2012 Lori rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, fricken-awesome

Read 5/7/12 - 5/14/12
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended to everyone. Period.
Pgs: 278
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

My first experience with Amelia Gray's writing was listening to her read from her collection of flash fiction at the 2011 Brooklyn Book Festival. Her's was the last panel of the day - sharing the stage with Alan Heathcock and two male writers I had never heard of - and what a panel it was. She read from AM/PM (which I hadn't read but of which I had heard countless good things). Her...more Read 5/7/12 - 5/14/12
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended to everyone. Period.
Pgs: 278
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

My first experience with Amelia Gray's writing was listening to her read from her collection of flash fiction at the 2011 Brooklyn Book Festival. Her's was the last panel of the day - sharing the stage with Alan Heathcock and two male writers I had never heard of - and what a panel it was. She read from AM/PM (which I hadn't read but of which I had heard countless good things). Her stories were tender and sweet and strange and a little screwy. They were amazing to listen to; the stories pushed quickly out of her mouth, the moments in between as we waited while the pages were flipped through as she decided which one to share next...

So during my most recent visit to NYC, when I stumbled across Threats (her newest release and first novel) while wandering the many tables and stacks of book within The Strand, I knew immediately that it would be coming home with me.

Amelia writes the story from the point of view of a confused and distraught husband. David, our protagonist, is trying to come to terms with the fact that his wife is dead. That she has, in fact, died right beside him on the hallway stairs and has since been delivered back to him, as a box of ashes, that sit on his kitchen table. The days immediately after her death are a mystery to David, wrapped inside one big cloud of fog. He can't seem to get his brain to behave; he's misinterpreting things, he's paranoid and his memory is unreliable.

It doesn't help that, as he wanders from room to room inside his home, he's begun to uncover cleverly hidden threats written out on scrap pieces of paper. Are they clues? Are they from his wife? While David is being questioned by the police regarding the strange circumstances surrounding his wife's death, he sets out on his own determined to find an explanation for those horrid, hurtful notes.

Right from the very beginning, it's obvious that Amelia's magic is in her timing. She draws information out of her characters slowly, teasingly. She's letting out just enough line to allow us to get hooked, and then once the bait is taken, toys with us relentlessly, right up until the very last page. The tight constraints of perspective, the limited and somewhat warped peephole view she allows us, keeps us from ever getting too far ahead of her. Her short chapters (anywhere from one to three pages long) yank us along in fits and starts. Make no mistake. Amelia holds the reigns in this one, and she's not afraid to choke us if we get out of line.

See, for me, it's all about the writing. Amelia's writing is elegant and sparse. The power of her words lie in their simplicity. The story she placed us in reads like one of those horrible nightmares in which you are aware you are dreaming and yet you know there is nothing you can do to wake yourself up. Everything's familiar but.. something's off. It looks like home but it doesn't smell quite right. Maybe the furniture is a tad bit too dusty, or the rug is slightly too worn. It's like you're living inside a memory, breathing stale old air. She creates in you that feeling of unease and dread that you just can't seem to shake.

While reading this book, I often found myself wondering how my own husband would react were I to pass away before him, before my time. Would he begin to fall apart at the seams like David did? Would he, too, start to unravel and lose his mind to paranoia, loneliness, and fear? There's a part of me that wants him to, that foolishly hopes that I am his whole life, and that without me, he wouldn't be able to function. There's something incredibly romantic about that... That a man could so completely depend on his wife, need her soo badly in his life, that when she is no longer there, he begins to slowly disintegrate before everyone's eyes...

Run, readers. Run out to your local bookstore and get this book. You don't want to miss it. And to entice you even further, here is a cute video of Amelia, on a moped, as she recites some of the threats David uncovers in the oddest of places: http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.c...(less)

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Aug 09, 2012 The Wee Hen rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: abandoned

I'm on page 33 and I just want to say WHAT IN THE HOLY CRAP IS GOING ON HERE? So I'm assuming this David person is in shock. Makes sense, apparently his wife just died and he sat on a step with her rotting body for three days. Ok, odd choice, but ok. What I don't quite understand is why the paramedics let him go when he's clearly in such a state of shock that he doesn't make any sense. He can't even put together a sentence that makes any sense. And what is up with these women from his dead wife'...more I'm on page 33 and I just want to say WHAT IN THE HOLY CRAP IS GOING ON HERE? So I'm assuming this David person is in shock. Makes sense, apparently his wife just died and he sat on a step with her rotting body for three days. Ok, odd choice, but ok. What I don't quite understand is why the paramedics let him go when he's clearly in such a state of shock that he doesn't make any sense. He can't even put together a sentence that makes any sense. And what is up with these women from his dead wife's salon who show up and cut his hair and tweeze his eyebrows and excuse me, but WHY IS THIS STRANGE WOMAN FLOSSING HIS TEETH? And then these cops show up and want to question him but he's afraid to open the front door because he thinks it's going to electrocute him and he wees himself? And these cops just go "oh ok yeah we'll come back another day." HUH? The cops clearly got that he'd gone mental and they just leave him too? Nobody goes "hmmmm this fellow might need a doctor to look him over and make sure he's not a danger to himself"?
I really really REALLY hate books that make me stop and go, "Who are these people? Who acts this way? This is not how anybody acts. WTF?" And this book is making me say that. It's annoying me already. I'm going to continue reading, give it a chance, but really, I feel like the author is just playing games and showing off her fiddly-diddly post-grad creative writing workshop chops. How about writing a good thriller? Am I getting too old?

UPDATE:
Dropping this on my "Abandoned" shelf. Guess I'm just not hip and cool enough for this post-post-modern nonsense. The cover blurb makes you think you are getting a thriller/mystery/ghost story. You're not getting any of that. What you're getting with this book is a bunch of clever-clever, no decent narrative to speak of and no real story-telling. If you want to diddle around inside a crazy person's head then I recommend Jenn Ashworth's "A Kind of Intimacy" - her "Annie" is WAY more interesting and entertaining than Gray's wackadoodle without-any-rhyme-or-reason "David". Plus it's an actual book with a beginning, middle, end and lots of nice narrative that tells a great story.
Look, it's not like "House of Leaves" isn't my favourite book and you can't get any more post-post-modern crazy than that. But the difference is that when Danielewski isn't giving you long lists and extensive analysis of what an echo is he's giving you enough narrative to hang on through all that stuff. And Danielewski was OPENLY messing around with his readers. Everything might be upside down, the center may not be holding and the darkness might eat you up alive until you've got one match left and you're floating through space about to wink out - but at least everybody behaves like a human being, at least Tom, Karen, Will, Johnny, etc. are well-rounded characters that the author put the time and energy into creating. Even Zampano and Pelafina make sense in their own curious, crazy, off-center ways. But apparently some authors are above investing even in that for us. It becomes more about being experimental and not about story-telling. David and Franny are about as one-dimensional as you can get. All we know about her is that she's freakishly tall and works in skin-care. We don't know how long David's been a useless, helpless mess, we don't even know why he's a walking vegetable, one gets the sense he was kind of like this before she died. We certainly aren't told why he speaks in a very bizarre, formal sentence structure.
I have no problem getting on a magic carpet and riding into the heart of crazy, I just want you to make me feel like it's going to be worth the wild ride and you're not just showing off. Hated this book, what a terrible waste of time and energy. (less)

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Mar 26, 2012 Richard Thomas rated it 5 of 5 stars

THIS REVIEW ORIGINALLY RAN AT THE NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.

“I WILL CROSS-STITCH AN IMAGE OF YOUR FUTURE HOME BURNING. I WILL HANG THIS IMAGE OVER YOUR BED WHILE YOU SLEEP.”

The debut novel by Amelia Gray, entitled THREATS (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) is an unsettling and hypnotic story of loss, disintegration and the ways that love both builds and destroys us, anchors us, and alternately, lets us drift away. This is not conventional storytelling, but if you’ve read Gray’s work already (Museum of the Weir...more

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Sep 05, 2012 Tuck rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: oh-loyd-i-wanna-be-hearkbroken, noir

pg 43 "I've never had a man buy me milk."

i know, i know.
rather bold publication for FSG, a mystery of dark family secrets nobody can or will talk about. bloody business with dead children and wives, well some dead wives, some still alive, and revolving around a pretty compelling dentist. reminds me greatly of "dra_____" and "snow whale"
you know, you know.
Dra– The Snow Whale

will this be a new departure for fsg?

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Apr 12, 2013 Zach rated it 5 of 5 stars

Amelia Gray has written a bizarrely satisfying book, by turns playful and grotesque. I'm reminded of Jesse Ball or a stripped-down Beckett, but these comparisons would seem to diminish the pure originality of the work. Put simply, I've never read anything quite like Threats, and I mean that in the best way possible.

The language is plainspoken and precise. That's not to say it doesn't have moments of flourish, but the straight-aheadedness of the prose is what grounds the unreal aspects of the plo...more

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Nov 08, 2012 Eileen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Man was i fooled...fooled into believing I was about to embark on a enrapturing novel fool of suspense and equal part paranoia. I feel like I deserve a t-shirt that says "I read this book and all I got was a massive migraine". I think the migraine is due to the fact that I bashed my head onto the table, wall, chair, well basically any hard surface that was around while I was reading this book.

First of all I agree with some of the points made by high reviewers/raters of this novel. YES, it had b...more Man was i fooled...fooled into believing I was about to embark on a enrapturing novel fool of suspense and equal part paranoia. I feel like I deserve a t-shirt that says "I read this book and all I got was a massive migraine". I think the migraine is due to the fact that I bashed my head onto the table, wall, chair, well basically any hard surface that was around while I was reading this book.

First of all I agree with some of the points made by high reviewers/raters of this novel. YES, it had beautifully written parts! I enjoyed how the author made you really creep out at some of the threats that David found scattered around the house and other places.

I particularly enjoyed:

" IN THAT HALF SECOND WHEN YOU REACHED FOR THE DOOR, I CAME UP BESIDE YOU, DRILLED A HOLE IN YOUR HEEL, AND ATTACHED A TUBE THROUGH WHICH I AM CURRENTLY COLLECTING YOUR BONE MARROW. IT IS GOING INTO A BAG. I AM GOING TO SELL IT."

This threat makes you feel like you are an object waiting to be harvested or like you have no say in the matter therefore no means of protection or rights to objection.

The prose used to convey a sense of dark and untapped hate in the threats was amazing. I wished the whole book was filled with this. Unfortunately the threats were minimal and everything else in between was bland. David, the protagonist, is by far the MOST ANNOYING character I have even encountered in all the books I have read. I can't tell if he is so crushed by his wife's death or if he is simply too pathetic to function without her. Frankly speaking David's love for Franny was questionable. Was it love or was it necessity? Talk about dependency issues. The secondary characters are.....ummmm I have no idea what the purpose of the other characters were apart from Aileen. One dimensional and unmemorable almost like they were purposely put in to fill space.

Before I write a whole novella about the issues I had with this book I will just say this: If I could I would go back in time slap myself in the face when I went to purchase this book and just tell myself to read the threats and enjoy and contemplate them because that would be the ONLY thing worth reading. This book had no clear direction there was no ending (which is not bad in any means but at least make a point). I do believe beautiful stories can be told through wonderfully poignant spinets of prose but you need to have a clear sense of direction of where you are going and the story you are telling. This book failed to convey anything...just some empty threats.(less)

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May 17, 2012 BIPL Reads rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: necia

Threats by Amelia Gray is a surreal novel about a man trying to come to terms with the sudden death of his wife. David finds Franny at the foot of their stairs covered in blood. When he asks her what happened she responds “That’s your problem now”. Instead of calling the police, he sits beside her on the stairs and they remain together for three days. Franny’s body beginning to decay, David leaning against her. The story only gets more bizarre as we move forward and David attempts make sense of...more Threats by Amelia Gray is a surreal novel about a man trying to come to terms with the sudden death of his wife. David finds Franny at the foot of their stairs covered in blood. When he asks her what happened she responds “That’s your problem now”. Instead of calling the police, he sits beside her on the stairs and they remain together for three days. Franny’s body beginning to decay, David leaning against her. The story only gets more bizarre as we move forward and David attempts make sense of his life and what happened to Franny.

In the midst of his grief and confusion David starts to discover type-written threats hidden throughout his home. A typical threat reads:

“I WILL CROSS-STITCH AN IMAGE OF YOUR FUTURE HOME BURNING. I WILL HANG THIS IMAGE OVER YOUR BED WHILE YOU SLEEP.”

Unable to make sense of the threats, David’s apprehension grows. Paranoia sets in and his house deteriorates around him. A raccoon makes a home in his grandfather clock, a pair of urine soaked pants festers on the front porch, clutter is everywhere and David sleeps in a “nest” he’s made for himself out of old magazines, files, and trash. The overwhelming oppression of decay is palatable.

Gray also introduces a host of secondary characters. We meet Detective Chico, who is investigating Franny’s death. Marie, a psychologist who is working out of David’s wasp-infested garage. We meet David’s mentally troubled mother and Franny’s co-worker, who believes she sees Franny’s image wherever she goes. Everyone acts a little strange and we start to question what is real and what is imagined.

Despite the presence of Detective Chico, this is not a murder mystery. It is not about finding out how and why Franny died. It is about one man loosing his grasp on the world as he is overcome by grief. It is about his confusion when he discovers disturbing things about the woman he loved. It is about the decay of all things: David’s home, his marriage, and ultimately, his sanity.

There is a lot to explore in this excellent novel. It is both disturbing and beautiful. Suspenseful and darkly humorous. Shocking, yet familiar. In the end, David cannot make sense of his world without Franny and we cannot make sense of it either. (less)

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Mar 14, 2012 Matt Leibel rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked this, though perhaps less than the two books of stories, which I loved for the range and humor. Where I think Gray excels here is in her descriptive prose--she's great at describing non-human things and bringing them to life, often through personifying them (i.e. ghosts, bugs, turtles, raccoons, grandfather clocks etc.) She attacks these descriptions almost always from unexpected angles--the focus on a ghost's scent, for instance. And her attentions are quite often microscopic: "He wonde...more I liked this, though perhaps less than the two books of stories, which I loved for the range and humor. Where I think Gray excels here is in her descriptive prose--she's great at describing non-human things and bringing them to life, often through personifying them (i.e. ghosts, bugs, turtles, raccoons, grandfather clocks etc.) She attacks these descriptions almost always from unexpected angles--the focus on a ghost's scent, for instance. And her attentions are quite often microscopic: "He wondered how an ant would celebrate the arrival of a raindrop, if it would survive the impact." The focus on the foil of a juice cannister at an old folks' home. The crushed bodies of flies wrapped up in toilet paper "forming a new body". I could go on.

And the dentistry stuff is impressive in its detail to be sure, parrticularly chapter 52 about the worms. She's also really good at a certain kind of deadpan, elliptical dialogue that at times reminds me of Jesse Ball, and other times of DeLillo (the scene where strangers come to visit the narrator's house after his case becomes famous comes to mind.)

Overall he narrator felt overly passive to me. I get that a lot of his ability to feel and act is deadened by his wife's death/disappearance, but the idea that a character is flat because his emotions have been flattened seems too easy to me. It sometimes seemed like he was only activated as a character by the interventions of the women from the beauty salon. Also, the threats themselves don't really add up to a lot for me. It's like the book needed a hook for the narrator's sadness, but the author wasn't a 1000% committed to it--thus, every other chapter is a digression or flashback (almost always an interesting one, but still a digression) from the Threats themselves. As a result, the middle 100 pages of the book or so started to feel like they were moving at a fairly glacial pace.

Still, good, smart, inventive writing takes me a long way, even if the overall effect here I felt was a little muted. I'll read anything Amelia Gray writes--her stories are amazing, and I'll bet her next book will be too. (less)

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Feb 18, 2012 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiftyfiftyme, legion-of-vermin

The oldest valentine on record dates back to the early 15th century, but the practice of committing one’s amorous intentions to paper goes back at least another thousand years. The details are murky—much like the unsigned valentine I received in the third grade—but its origins are rooted in a heady mix of honor, passion and martyrdom.

While it’s somewhat sad that the valentine has turned into a tacky commodity sold by the dozen so that no classmate is excluded from cupid’s arrow, I still recall t...more The oldest valentine on record dates back to the early 15th century, but the practice of committing one’s amorous intentions to paper goes back at least another thousand years. The details are murky—much like the unsigned valentine I received in the third grade—but its origins are rooted in a heady mix of honor, passion and martyrdom.

While it’s somewhat sad that the valentine has turned into a tacky commodity sold by the dozen so that no classmate is excluded from cupid’s arrow, I still recall the thrill of receiving a note from a mysterious stranger. However, I imagine I would feel differently about this if I were the protagonist of Amelia Gray’s astonishing debut, Threats.

David has been finding notes that he believes are from his recently deceased wife, Franny. What’s problematic for David is that he can’t be certain if the notes were written before or after Franny’s violent and mysterious death:

“It seemed reasonable to assume that Franny was somewhere in the world. If it was possible for her to be contained within a canister of ash on the table, it seemed equally possible that she was taking a walk in the neighborhood, or that she was out for a drive, or perhaps standing in line at the grocery store with faceless individuals who might fail to recognize the miracle that stood beside them holding a gallon of milk.”

While David would like to believe the notes are new because it would mean that his wife is somehow alive, he can’t accept the possibility that they pre-date her demise, because the notes are, well, not very nice. They are, in fact, threats: “I WILL CROSS-STITCH AN IMAGE OF YOUR FUTURE HOME BURNING. I WILL HANG THIS IMAGE OVER YOUR BED WHILE YOU SLEEP.”

The discovery of these threats—taped to a coffeemaker, hidden inside a small pot, wedged under a door in the garage—fills David with unbearable dread that he does his best to face. But it’s hard to feel good about one’s performance as a partner in marriage when you find notes taped to the back of a picture frame that read, “I WILL LOCK YOU IN A ROOM MUCH LIKE YOUR OWN UNTIL IT BEGINS TO FILL WITH WATER.”

This grotesque little valentine serves as a metaphor for David’s situation. The home he shared with Franny feels like a simulation inhabited by a stranger, a feeling that is exacerbated when curiosity seekers come by to see the house “Where It Happened.” David becomes so unraveled that the detective assigned to his case can do little else but sympathize as David shuffles about, seeking answers to his questions.

Who’s the author of the notes? When were they written? Are they real or a cruel hoax? While Gray’s novel provides no easy answers, her portrait of grief is a dark and poignant reminder to “recognize the miracle” that stands beside you while you still can.

After all, each of us has an expiration date. (less)

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Sep 19, 2012 Kennedy rated it 1 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Reading this book was painful for me. I really wanted to stop but felt like I had to make it to the end to see if maybe then it would make sense. I don’t know that I can say this is a bad book. It’s not necessarily poorly written but I can say that I honestly have no idea what the point of it was. I read the book because a review I read for Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn indicated this book was similar. I liked Gone Girl so I gave this one a try. I thought the summary sounded interesting. After read...more Reading this book was painful for me. I really wanted to stop but felt like I had to make it to the end to see if maybe then it would make sense. I don’t know that I can say this is a bad book. It’s not necessarily poorly written but I can say that I honestly have no idea what the point of it was. I read the book because a review I read for Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn indicated this book was similar. I liked Gone Girl so I gave this one a try. I thought the summary sounded interesting. After reading the book I really have no idea how the threats mean anything to the story and they aren’t really threats or scary. I do not know what parts of the book, if any, were meant to be real. I don’t know if any of the characters were who they were presented to be in the book. The only thing I thought I could figure out at the end was that Franny, David’s wife, was dead and that David’s mom had killed his younger sister. I would never, ever want to read this book again and I would not want to read anything else by this author because this type of book just isn’t for me. I kept wondering how something like this could even get published but I guess the obvious answer is that there is an audience for it, an audience that can pull much more from the story than I could. Parts of the book are unbelievably gross and ultimately disturbing. I don’t see that there’s any way David’s character would actually be permitted to live in a house by himself or that he could have ever been a practicing dentist. There would have been action taken to remove him from his house after his wife died. I don’t see how he was capable of paying any bills or having any money or getting himself from point A to B. I don’t know if he really had friends that came to his house. I don’t know if Chico really was a police officer and what the point of Shelley and her nephew was but all together it sounded like a long rambling story from the point of view of a non sane person not grounded in reality. How I’m supposed to figure all of that out I just don’t know. I would give it zero stars as far as my enjoyment from reading it. (less)

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Mar 03, 2012 Stephen M rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: All you goodreaders everywhere

Recommended to Stephen M by: Joshua Nomen-Mutatio

Shelves: i-dont-even, sleep-with-the-light-on

Firsts: big thanks to Josh for keeping me hip and up to date on the new batches of fiction coming out. I can’t wait to read Boudinot and Marcus next.

This is quite the book; Amelia Gray is a master of detail. Such that in every small vignette—most chapters are no more than three pages—there is a lush diversity of compact images that portend way more than they initially seem. I found myself rereading and re-rereading over and over. This is a detective novel of metaphor and linguistic panache. The...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Hilary rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: shortlisted

As the wide array of ratings here might tell you, Threats is not a book for everyone. The basic premise – the wife of a man with severe memory issues dies, and he begins finding oddly threatening notes all around his house, indicating that perhaps she’s not dead after all – makes it seem like a Memento-style thriller, which it most definitely is not. The novel’s protagonist, David, can’t seem to remember anything, including the details of his wife’s murder, and spends most of his time puttering...more

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Aug 05, 2012 Trudi rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-mystery, 2012-reads, not-for-me, what-the-bleep, just-plain-weird

I can dig weird. I can dig really weird and fucked up to boot. But it doesn't happen a lot. Weird usually only works for me if it's scary, head-trippy, and ultimately satisfying. I experienced none of that with Gray's Threats. The prose feels heavy and overwrought -- pretentious even -- weird for the sake of being weird. What is this story even about? A grieving husband? Sort of. His delusions? His mental illness? Is the odd behavior of everyone around him really happening, or is it a part of hi...more

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May 19, 2013 Chad Walker rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: american, literature, mfa, new-century

For all I know, Amelia Gray - as a person - is a wonderful, kind, delightful person to be around. Anyone with this vivid an imagination must at least be interesting. But this work - Threats - is annoying as crap.

Here are some things Gray is not concerned with in this book: characterization, plot, pacing, linearity, entertainment. Here are the couple of things she does quite well: absurdly evocative images, exploration of an uncanny psychological state. Both of those things were interesting, but...more For all I know, Amelia Gray - as a person - is a wonderful, kind, delightful person to be around. Anyone with this vivid an imagination must at least be interesting. But this work - Threats - is annoying as crap.

Here are some things Gray is not concerned with in this book: characterization, plot, pacing, linearity, entertainment. Here are the couple of things she does quite well: absurdly evocative images, exploration of an uncanny psychological state. Both of those things were interesting, but they did not add up to a satisfying reading experience for me.

For instance: "[David] went thorugh the house, touching each piece of exposed metal he could find. He touched doorknobs, window sashes, picture frames, electronic equipment peripherals, door hinges, wall-plate screws, light fixtures, and vents. He put his palms on the water heater. He touched faucet handles, smoke detector battery connect points, individual razor blades, numbers on clock faces, towel racks, and zipper pulls. He imagined all the metal in the house melted in a cauldron. The mixed alloys would create a speckled bubble, like a stone he once found on the beach and kept in his jacket pocket for years, touching it gently with the tips of his fingers, until one day he put on his jacket and reached for the stone and it was gone." (169-70)

So: 1) Gray can write the absolute crap out of a sentence; 2) she has a tremendous capacity for inventing odd and arresting images; 3) most of these images hang about 10 degress left of normal, and have no easily indentifiable interpretation within the larger narrative; 4) the narrative itself is constructed almost entirely out of dozens of odd moments like the one quoted above.

That leaves me feeling like a simpleton, and I have to entertain one of several possibilities. First, that Threats is the natural inheritor of a writing tradition that I have neither the taste nor the patience for. I love an interesting image and some psychological confusion as much as the next guy, but it is not enough to carry me through 300 pages (without any resolution) without feeling fairly fully annoyed and impatient. Second, that there is something powerful and subterranean happening here that got submerged in the lava-thick flow of fertile images, like a frozen waffle crumb drowned in a sticky river of syrup. So be it, and like I said, maybe it's my fault. Third, that Gray is making an intellectual point by creating a detective story that refuses every easy satisfaction of the genre; but if that's the case, didn't Pynchon already begin and end the exercise with Lot 49?

Anyway, more words than I really wanted to spend on this one, but I can't in good faith recommend it. I found it frustrating, half-cooked, and disrespectful of the time I gave it.(less)

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Apr 19, 2012 Kevin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: weird-lit

Threats starts off like a mysterious puzzle and gets more warped as it goes. David, the unreliable lead character/former dentist, struggles throughout the whole book trying to figure out where his wife is or what happened to her. It really finds its groove best in the middle and Gray's sentences spark with great energy, like:
"He clenched his teeth but could make a connection from molar to molar. His inability to grind the teeth to powder inspired a closed-mouth scream, pushing the air from his...more

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Aug 08, 2012 Dan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature, read-in-2012

You should probably read this book. But be warned, it's emotionally rough and fragmented, and filled with beautiful prose. A couple of others have already written wonderful reviews so I don't have to attempt to do this book justice.

If you need convincing click those links, then go read this book.

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May 23, 2012 Sherri rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction, death, mental-illness, mystery, grief-loss, tob-potential-2013

This was SO stylistically interesting- Amelia Gray won an "innovative fiction" award for a collection of stories (Museum of the Weird), and if it is anything like this novel, I can see why. This was so readable, with short chapters full of fascinating hints and cringy details from many unreliable characters. I never knew where Gray was going with it and was totally intrigued the whole way through. She doesn't provide all of the answers to the mystery at the end, but it turns out that solving the...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Lee Foust rated it 3 of 5 stars

With some novels it appears irrelevant to say either I enjoyed it or I disliked it. I see from the reviews below that many have utterly disliked _Threats_ for its stylized prose and, well, let's face it, it's blatant artistry, which does slap the reader rather roughly in the face, given the history of realism in western literature (always hiding its artifice), creating a kind of forced weirdness. Other readers love it, seeing the prose style as artistic and feeling that the images, the states of...more With some novels it appears irrelevant to say either I enjoyed it or I disliked it. I see from the reviews below that many have utterly disliked _Threats_ for its stylized prose and, well, let's face it, it's blatant artistry, which does slap the reader rather roughly in the face, given the history of realism in western literature (always hiding its artifice), creating a kind of forced weirdness. Other readers love it, seeing the prose style as artistic and feeling that the images, the states of being--for there is little narrative and less explanation of cause and effect--leave them feeling something--harder and harder to do as literature (particularly the great American novel) rambles ever onward in its rather staid series of conventions and cliches.

So, yeah, I read this because I am interested in experimentation and, yeah, the experimentation here comes off mostly as exquisite, precious, so well crafted as to be stagey, phony, and self-conscious, without a decent literary conceit to back it up--for instance, the opening section of __The Sound and the Fury__ is weird because, as it turns out, the conceit is that it's odd prose style represents the inner monologue of a retarded, child-like man. Here we have a weird omniscient narrator. So, no conceit means we just keep turning to the author with frustration--just tell me! say it plain! Drop the smarmy observations and superior attitude! The novel also fails to use a post-modern or Nouveau Roman conceit of including the narrator as a fixed point in the act of its own story-telling, like a Robbe-Grillet story often does of Philippe Sollers' _The Park_ or a Beckettian monologue as a way of letting an odd voice into the narrative as a part of the process of the narration itself. Nope, here it's just a weird omniscient voice often showing off its cleverness at the characters' expense. It's also sadistic, both to the characters and to the reader by making us catch mere inexplicable glimpses of unpleasant things. They're weirder and more unpleasant because unexplained and fragmented.

As a first novel--and I know hard hard it is to write one when one is schooled in shorter forms and I used the same technique myself of collecting many shorter fragments into a narrative whole--I'm assuming that Ms. Gray wrote in short fragments in order to build them up into something larger without totally leaving the comfort zone of the short story form of her first two books. Even this technique, however, felt self-conscious--like a chess game, well plotted by this fucking master voice that was toying with both me and the characters. So I guess that's what disappointed me most with the novel, I just saw the wheels working when I felt like I wasn't supposed to be seeing them. Either a convincing conceit to hide/explain them, or a willful exploration of the machine in the machine usually sells this kind of writing. So, perhaps this is a brilliant attempt to destroy those two traditions. Maybe it proves that these conventions are there for a reason--they convince us as readers and allow us to be captivated. I was interested throughout, but I was never really captivated by __Threats__. And I love anxiety, too--the novel's ostensible theme. Still, it ended up being a lot of the same old alienation, madness, modern world of lonely people stuff that you see so much of these days. Oh, and some wasps.

One thing I really did like about the narrative form, but which I didn't realize until the last 5 of its 278 pages: it's a novel written by a woman about a female protagonist's absence and I realized that most of the disjointed scenes and characters was a way of writing around that absence to give us a posthumous outline of her. Hazy, maybe correct, as the world does hazily define women, often through the other people in their lives, particularly the men who knew and redefined them. Therefore there was something of a feminist angle perhaps to the shape of the text, to the oddly fragmented narrative style. But I had to wait way too long and read way too much about the other characters--many of whom had little or nothing to do with the dead character and some of whom were not really very interesting--to get this last little spark of a concept/meaning. Even this concept could have been far more convincingly handled, I think. Anyway, I am glad I read it and I might keep it around for a second read someday, see if I change my mind. (less)

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Dec 30, 2012 Logan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, shit_is_weird

I always find it worth remarking upon when a book I pick up completely at random complements whichever book I've just finished. So it was with Threats, which is so similar in theme and style to Viola di Grado's award-winning 70% Acrylic 30% Wool that I think a case could be made for plagiarism had the books not been published nearly simultaneously in different countries and written in different languages. I'm just going to have to chalk it up to circumstances similar to those that created the pa...more I always find it worth remarking upon when a book I pick up completely at random complements whichever book I've just finished. So it was with Threats, which is so similar in theme and style to Viola di Grado's award-winning 70% Acrylic 30% Wool that I think a case could be made for plagiarism had the books not been published nearly simultaneously in different countries and written in different languages. I'm just going to have to chalk it up to circumstances similar to those that created the pairings of Armageddon & Deep Impact, or Dante's Peak and Volcano. I had heard nothing about Amelia Gray's first novel before the very alluring cover caught my eye whilst perusing my local bookseller a few days before Christmas and a salesgirl, seeing me transfixed by the cover, had told me that it was "probably the best thing I've read all year, a really twisted story of loss and mourning." That was all I needed to hear, Threats needed to come home with me.

It wasn't until I was about 40 pages into it that the similarities started smacking me in the face. David, a dentist who lost his license after a malpractice charge, is struggling to cope with the death of his wife, Franny, under some rather mysterious circumstances. Or, at least, we're meant to assume they're mysterious as nobody ever quite gets around to explaining the cause of death. All we get are David's scattered recollections of the early days of their marriage, some vague allusions to a childhood trauma that may explain why the police are sniffing around David like he's a suspect, and the threatening notes of the title that appear in the most unexpected places- in a bag of sugar, behind several layers of wallpaper that had been hung years ago, typed on a receipt stapled to the back of a painting.

Like 70% Acrylic, the chapters are exceptionally brief and resist any impulse the author may have had toward linearity or cohesion. David, like Camelia in 70% Acrylic, is coping with the shocking loss of a family member by retreating into his house, his world, the only thing he can guarantee is safe and secure and, like Camelia, he is an incredibly unreliable narrator, constantly injecting his warped viewpoint into the scene and causing havoc among his supporting cast. As I read through the parallels continued to pile up until, ultimately, I reached the end and was left in the same state of bewilderment I had when finishing Di Grado's novella.

Though the writing was, at times, brilliantly stylized and many of the writer's ruminations on love and loss were especially evocative, I still can't say that I enjoyed reading it. It started off rather good but as the story wound down to its final pages and characters I had thought were stable begin to go off the rails as thoroughly as David, it just grew to annoy me. Gray is a hell of a talented writer and I'll likely continue to read her works in the future, but Threats just left me a bit disappointed at the missed potential. (less)

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Mar 07, 2012 Greg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, girls-girls-girls

He was by no means attracted to the girls, who, with their unmarked faces, shared more features with ambulatory fetuses than with women.

MFSO has written an excellent review of this book, you should read it.

Introductory aside: What an amazing fucking year for books this has been so far. This book. Snow Child, Blueprints for the Afterlife, Flame Alphabet and Hot Pink. Fucking young writers are kicking ass so far this year, and it's only the beginning of March.

I mentioned how I'd been on a mini-hi...more

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Feb 25, 2013 Shannon rated it 1 of 5 stars

When I picked up Threats by Amelia Gray at a local bookstore, the staff recommendation promised a disturbing, unique, and dark world that blends the surreal and the actual. The summary on the back of the book does the same, hinting at a tale that blends dreams, grief, and danger. After David’s wife Franny passes, he can’t figure out what’s happening around him (is Franny still alive?), however, his processing of her death (or non-death) is interrupted by the discovery of increasingly disturbing...more

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Mar 09, 2012 Mike Puma rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

Okay. Every once in a while, someone will ask me: Puma, what do you look for in a woman? Immediately, I know two things: 1) they don’t know me very well, or they’d know that I don’t, and 2) they don’t know me very well. That, of itself, wouldn’t be particularly interesting to most people, but it does give me pause to wonder what it is that I do like in women.

It’s pretty simple really, what I like in women is the same combination of traits I like in men—that he or she be either smart and/or funn

...more

Okay. Every once in a while, someone will ask me: Puma, what do you look for in a woman? Immediately, I know two things: 1) they don’t know me very well, or they’d know that I don’t, and 2) they don’t know me very well. That, of itself, wouldn’t be particularly interesting to most people, but it does give me pause to wonder what it is that I do like in women.

It’s pretty simple really, what I like in women is the same combination of traits I like in men—that he or she be either smart and/or funny, interesting is ancillary as it seems to be some function of the two. That I’m lucky enough to know many people who are both smart and funny, I’m the better person for.

But what about women authors? Do I hold them to some higher standard? They’re certainly not well represented on my Read or TBR lists. I’d like to think that I don’t hold women to some higher standard, but I might, who knows? Here’s what I’m certain of—the women authors I’ve liked the most, were—surprise!—smart and/or funny: Toni Morrison (smart), Helen DeWitt (smart & funny—at least in The Last Samurai), Austen (a gentle smart and funny). Gloria Naylor, Paule Marshall, Leslie Marmon Silko—plenty of smart writers; but for every Naylor, there’s a Cisneros, for every Silko, a Hong Kingston. Smart and/or funny isn’t enough. What the best of these women do, what the best authors do, is somehow create in me some sense of caring, whether positively or negatively. I can read about ugly, ugly people; I read Delany for cryin’ out loud.

So, Threats, the one I’m supposed to comment on. Gray is smart—very smart and, at times, very funny. Brutally funny. Painfully smart. I hope she makes a gabillion on this novel for the dentistry research alone. BUT. The characters are caricature—emotional investment is strained. The parts don’t make a whole.

But, Mike, you read Marías! Does he make you care about characters? Sometimes. Sometimes, I care more about the writing. Sometimes the writing is enough. Threats, like am/pm, is wonderfully written, but for me, there was simply something missing.

So do you know what that something is, Mike? Maybe. It begins with the Myth of the Writer’s Writer. Most of us have heard that phrase: He (or she) is a writer’s writer. It is frequently rendered with the dismissive tone of You’d Know If. It’s an effective tool for marginalizing the reader, similar in kind to the frequently occurring MFA status in an author’s bio. THIS author comes with a receipt! But it tells you nothing. (I’m on very thin, rapidly melting ice) What’s missing is the sense of having read a novel. Novels come in all types; creative writing can take almost any form. Occassionally, creative writing takes place within the confines of a great novel, or it expands the confines of what we expect from novels—all the better. I have to believe there’s more to great fiction than skill. I want to believe in informed inspiration, confident spontaneity.

So do you have an Ultimately here, Mike? Yeah. Gray is an engaging and gifted writer. I’m looking forward to the story she’ll eventually write—the story she needs to tell in her own talented way.

I’m frustrated here. Frustrated that I haven’t cared for this as much as others have and will. Frustrated that, with this novel, there’s no feeling that it matters.

4 stars for what the author does well.

_______________

Rereading this before posting, I’m getting hung up on Smart and/or Funny, and increasingly thinking, you don’t get Funny without the Smart. Have to give that more thought.

(less)

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