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Circling the Drain: Stories
by
Amanda Davis
Enter into the worlds of fifteen young women who, despite their vastly different circumstances, seem to negotiate an eerily similar and unavoidably dangerous emotional terrain. With a visceral bite or a surreal edge, each electrically charged story in Circling the Drain presents women trying to understand the nature of loss--of leaving or being left--and discovering that...more
Paperback, 208 pages
Published
May 16th 2000
by Harper Perennial
(first published 1999)
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While earning my MFA at Mills College, I had the good fortune and great pleasure of taking two of Amanda Davis's classes. She was an excellent writer and teacher, and a wonderful human being. She was so alive. On March 14th 2003, while touring to promote her first novel Wonder When You'll Miss Me a plane carrying Amanda Davis and her parents crashed into a mountain in North Carolina. There were no survivors. Amanda was thirty-two.
In a tribute to Amanda on the McSweeney's site I wrote:
"The title...more
In a tribute to Amanda on the McSweeney's site I wrote:
"The title...more
Although I enjoyed reading these stories, I don't understand the rave reviews for this collection. There are a couple of really good ones, notably "Fat Ladies Floated in the Sky Like Balloons" and "Faith, or Tips for the Successful Young Lady", which was later expanded into Davis' first novel, "Wonder When You'll Miss Me." But the rest of them seem rather unfinished, and like they need some further editing and rewriting to make them truly great. I think perhaps if the book wasn't covered in fawn...more
A collection of great short stories-only a couple that I didn't care for. The last story featured a brilliantly original character, the wise-cracking and insatiable former self of the main character (who has recently lost much weight). The tension between the main character and this haunting ghost of herself makes this story gripping.
A few of the stories just reminisce of the experience of young love, or love unrequited, or special high school dances that will probably appeal to younger female r...more
A few of the stories just reminisce of the experience of young love, or love unrequited, or special high school dances that will probably appeal to younger female r...more
I'm not exactly sure where Amanda Davis has been all my life, but now that I've found her I won't let her go. This is one of those collections that I read straight through. You know how sometimes story collections have this whole range, everything from AMAZING to blah. This one ran up on AMAZING almost the entire time. There was one story in the middle that I kind of skipped through, it was about a guy who made soup but the soup wasn't really soup even though it kind of was and then a lady came...more
If you want to read unhappy stories told in a beautiful way, this is the book of you. Amanda Davis had such a vibrant mind. Her descriptions are lush and unexpected, and I really felt for these characters, even when they weren't particularly agreeable.
A little uneven but ultimately haunting. Davis's prose is a force to be reckoned with; there are many moments of true power here, and throughout all a sense of aching loss.
Startling, surrealistic tales with the immediacy of photograph taken at high noon. Seamlessly blends reality with the interior world of memorable characters.
This is my friend Amanda's wonderful story collection. The last is my favorite, which is lucky because that's what she used as a beginning for her novel!
This is another one of my favorite books of all times. I can't wait until enough time has passed for me to be able to read it all over again.
This is my favorite book of short stories. Each one is so poignant and relatable that it almost hurts to read them. Amanda Davis was a truly talented writer, and it's a shame she died so young. :'(
Playful, imaginative, heartbreaking and funny. Love everything about this collection. (And she's a Brooklyn MFA grad)
I enjoyed this quite a bit. A very fast read that reminds me a little of Maile Meloy's short stories.
Dark stories. Peeks into lives that I otherwise wouldn't have imagined.
Got through about half of it. Pretty melodramatic and forgettable.
Beautiful, haunting, and strange.
I read this after reading Davis's Wonder when you'll miss me, which I completely loved. This series of short stories is an excellent sampling of Davis's broad artistic ability. Her real strength for me is her ability to describe moments of intense emotion be it sorrow or lust. I felt pulled in by her lines, lured slowly then thrust full force into the moment before a kiss, or the swell or sorrow. Her ability is great and I'm very sad that she will not be able to give this world more of her talen...more
I really enjoyed Davis's novel Wonder When You'll Miss Me, which is actually an expansion on one of the short stories from Circling the Drain. The overall tone of the short stories is melancholy but there are moments of humor. The stories focus on young women who are all feeling some sort of loss in their lives. There's a little bit of magical realism going on in the stories as well.
Davis was a very talented author and it is tragic that she had to die at such a young age.
Davis was a very talented author and it is tragic that she had to die at such a young age.
I'm beginning to think my lack of enthusiasm for Davis is the result of some blindness on my part. I stopped reading this collection after I made it through a few of the pieces, which seemed only like drafts of fiction. The title story in particular, with its melodramatic premise of a woman jumping off a bridge because she caught her hunky boyfriend in bed with a boy, struck me as an undergraduate effort that should have been filed away, not published.
i love, in deep and unexpected ways, davis' novel "wonder when you'll miss me." and there wasn't a story in this slim collection that i didn't enjoy. the emotional landscapes of the women in these stories unite them, even as they are divided from whoever they love. "chase" and "sticks and stones" and "the visit" stood out for me. there's a gently magical quality to the storytelling. i know i'll read this many times - maybe even as often as i revisit the novel.
Oh, she was a fantastic writer. Sometimes she's a bit out there for me, but the talent is clear even in the stories that weren't my thing. There is a great example of 2nd perspective in this work, and it brought home why an author might want to choose 2nd for a story (who knew?).
Reread "Chase" and the title story and still think this collection deserves 5 stars. For me, Amanda Davis ranks up there with Jonathan Safran Foer, Marcus Zusak, and Sylvia Plath. Intelligent, funny, inspired.
I liked this collection better than Aimee Bender's, esp "Spice" and "Chase," and I love Aimee Bender. What a loss--imagine all the other good books Amanda Davis would have written if she hadn't passed away so young.
I liked this collection better than Aimee Bender's, esp "Spice" and "Chase," and I love Aimee Bender. What a loss--imagine all the other good books Amanda Davis would have written if she hadn't passed away so young.
It is spooky how this young writer's mortal intimations are reflected through this and her novel Wonder When You'll Miss Me. Cruelly taken by fate foreshadowed, a small airplane crash in 2003 with her family while promoting her second book. Her writing had promise, and was ironically a testament to having survived a particularly turbulent coming of age.
Amanda Davis liked to flirt in her short stories. Details of characters and events are lightly brushed against your mind through the tales. It's a challenge to not get wrapped up in this book. I cannot recommend the reading of the first and last chapters of this book enough.
eh. some of the stories were good. some of them relatively terrible. it was a book i was excited to read and very disapointed to actually spend time on. it was one of those ones i had to make myself finish. it's a good thing it was short.
Every single one of these stories is a downer, but they're still beautifully written and fun to read. I suggest enjoying this book with a glass of wine while in a melancholy mood.
This one was okay, not as good as her other one. A lot of it was magical realism which annoys me these days. However, she had some beautiful descriptions and words in there.
It's a shame that this author had to die so young... It would have been really interesting to see what else she would have written.
Sometimes stark, but always brilliant. Amanda Davis left us early, but she left us with this amazing collection of stories.
I really liked "Prints," "Testimony," and "Faith or Tips for the Successful Young Lady."
I think these short stories are wonderful. There wasn't one that didn't get me hooked.
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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Amanda Davis was born in 1970 and was a writer. She released one collection, Circling the Drain, and one novel, Wonder When You'll Miss Me. Davis died at the age of 32 in a plane crash on March 14, 2003. The plane was piloted by her father and crashed in McDowell County, N...more
More about Amanda Davis...
Amanda Davis was born in 1970 and was a writer. She released one collection, Circling the Drain, and one novel, Wonder When You'll Miss Me. Davis died at the age of 32 in a plane crash on March 14, 2003. The plane was piloted by her father and crashed in McDowell County, N...more
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