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The Dead Fish Museum: Stories

4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 · rating details · 761 ratings · 111 reviews

“In the fall, I went for walks and brought home bones. The best bones weren’t on trails—deer and moose don’t die conveniently—and soon I was wandering so far into the woods that I needed a map and compass to find my way home. When winter came and snow blew into the mountains, burying the bones, I continued to spend my days and often my nights in the woods. I vaguely unders...more “In the fall, I went for walks and brought home bones. The best bones weren’t on trails—deer and moose don’t die conveniently—and soon I was wandering so far into the woods that I needed a map and compass to find my way home. When winter came and snow blew into the mountains, burying the bones, I continued to spend my days and often my nights in the woods. I vaguely understood that I was doing this because I could no longer think; I found relief in walking up hills. When the night temperatures dropped below zero, I felt visited by necessity, a baseline purpose, and I walked for miles, my only objective to remain upright, keep moving, preserve warmth. When I was lost, I told myself stories . . .”

So Charles D’Ambrosio recounted his life in Philipsburg, Montana, the genesis of the brilliant stories collected here, six of which originally appeared in The New Yorker. Each of these eight burnished, terrifying, masterfully crafted stories is set against a landscape that is both deeply American and unmistakably universal. A son confronts his father’s madness and his own hunger for connection on a misguided hike in the Pacific Northwest. A screenwriter fights for his sanity in the bleak corridors of a Manhattan psych ward while lusting after a ballerina who sets herself ablaze. A Thanksgiving hunting trip in Northern Michigan becomes the scene of a haunting reckoning with marital infidelity and desperation. And in the magnificent title story, carpenters building sets for a porn movie drift dreamily beneath a surface of sexual tension toward a racial violence they will never fully comprehend. Taking place in remote cabins, asylums, Indian reservations, the backloads of Iowa and the streets of Seattle, this collection of stories, as muscular and challenging as the best novels, is about people who have been orphaned, who have lost connection, and who have exhausted the ability to generate meaning in their lives. Yet in the midst of lacerating difficulty, the sensibility at work
in these fictions boldly insists on the enduring power of love. D’Ambrosio conjures a world that is fearfully inhospitable, darkly humorous, and touched by glory; here are characters, tested by every kind of failure, who struggle to remain human, whose lives have been sharpened rather than numbed by adversity, whose apprehension of truth and beauty has been deepened rather than defeated by their troubles. Many writers speak of the abyss. Charles D’Ambrosio writes as if he is inside of it, gazing upward, and the gaze itself is redemptive, a great yearning ache, poignant and wondrous, equal parts grit and grace.

A must read for everyone who cares about literary writing, The Dead Fish Museum belongs on the same shelf with the best American short fiction.

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Hardcover, 256 pages

Published April 18th 2006 by Knopf (first published 2006)

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Nov 19, 2011 Jacob rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, short-fiction

Garp's way with a story was to find one he liked and read it again and again; it would spoil him for reading any other story for a long while. When he was at Steering he read Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Sharer" thirty-four times. He also read D. H. Lawrence's "The Man Who Loved Islands" twenty-one times; he felt ready to read it again, now.
(John Irving, The World According to Garp, p. 90)

I'll never be a reader like T. S. Garp--I've read about 1300 stories in the past three years. Late in 2008, I...more

Garp's way with a story was to find one he liked and read it again and again; it would spoil him for reading any other story for a long while. When he was at Steering he read Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Sharer" thirty-four times. He also read D. H. Lawrence's "The Man Who Loved Islands" twenty-one times; he felt ready to read it again, now.
(John Irving, The World According to Garp, p. 90)

I'll never be a reader like T. S. Garp--I've read about 1300 stories in the past three years. Late in 2008, I realized I owned a lot of short story collections that I hadn't read yet (I blame Barnes & Noble's summer and winter clearance sales, coupled with my own frugal belief that collections of a writer's work offered more for my money than a single novel did--crazy, I know), so I started reading 'em.

I usually read one or two short stories per day, one collection at a time (occasionally overlapping with the longer ones), all neatly recorded on a spreadsheet (hey, I'm a nerd), I managed to get through 25-30 in 2009 and '10, with a projected goal of 42 for this year. So--I read a lot of short stories. Still haven't tried Conrad or Lawrence, but there are the expected greats (Cheever, O'Connor, Greene, Lovecraft); there are wonderful surprises (Louis Auchincloss, E. W. Hornung, Thom Jones, Chris Offutt, Breece D'J Pancake, and I'm going to stop now because there aren't any female short story authors on that list and I'm embarrassed...), and then there are...the bland ones.

The Dead Fish Museum is one of the bland ones. Or maybe it's just me, because everyone else seems to like it. Or maybe it's Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, because I tried reading D'Ambrosio's stories in the middle of a Sherlock Holmes marathon, and reading about the ordinary lives of ordinary people between stories about the great Victorian detective was a really bad idea. Either way, this collection didn't work for me. It wasn't bad (or was it?), but it didn't work for me. But it might work for you, because I have a copy to give away to interested readers in the Yew Ess Ay (because I can't be bothered to fill out complicated forms or pay international shipping), so...any takers?
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Ali I never thought of reading one or two stories every day, but that's actually a really good idea. They might stick in my mind longer than if I run thro...more
Mar 15, 2012 01:22am

Jacob Yeah, I started logging the books I read back in 2007, on a whim, and made a more detailed spreadsheet in 2008--title, author, page count, dates read,...more
Mar 15, 2012 03:14pm

Feb 04, 2009 Jan rated it 4 of 5 stars

god, he's good. i loved his essays in "orphans" and here, without the journalistic, semi-autobiographical element, the stories come somehow even more alive. it's as though these characters are being written by their own subconsciouses (if that's the plural); it's like getting to know them from the inside. of course everyone is incredibly damaged, has come back from death, watching their loved one suffer, self-inflicted burns, sitting in dirty bathtub water...it's an intense, at times bleak, lite...more

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Apr 20, 2008 C(h)ristine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to C(h)ristine by: Krystn

A friend of mine raved about this collection. She absolutely RAVED about it–to the point where I became rather suspicious. Could it be THAT good? She kept telling me to read it.

So of course, in my stubborn way, I decided to NOT read it right away. I mean, no one tells me what to do and what to like!

But I finally did pick up the book, a year later. And fell in love with the stories and D’Ambrosio’s writing. These are complex, complete stories–the characters so intricate, the writing both ruthless...more

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Jan 21, 2008 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

A wonderful collection of short stories that evoke emotions as rich and different as the worlds represented -- from Kalona, Iowa to New York City and Seattle.

My favorite passage, from the story "Blessing":

"My ideal life is a quiet one. I like to read, to sit still in the same chair, with the lampshade at a certain angle, alone, or with Megan nearby, and now an then, if I'm lucky, I'll come across a lovely phrase or fine sentiment, look up from my book, and feel the harmony of some notion, the j...more

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Jul 25, 2007 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

Two pages into the title story I was awed and ready to fall in love with this whole collection, and then...it didn't quite happen.

Dark, distantly mystical stories about porn carpenters and floods on the Skagit river that are cryptic as hell and set in places I've lived...what's not to like? But I guess for all their promise these stories were more admirable than affecting -- they gave the feeling of "damn, wouldn't THAT be fun to puzzle over in a sterile academic environment" rather than the fe...more

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May 16, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 5 of 5 stars

The title story of this volume is, obviously, “The Dead Fish Museum,” but the D’Ambrosio story that resonated most with me was “Drummond & Son because of a conversation that took place at the Tin House conference last July. During a panel discussion, D’Ambrosio and Joy Willliams got into a rather extended exchange about where you could find the best typewriter repair shop--in the country. Both of them still use these antediluvian devices, and things being what they are, need to get them serv...more The title story of this volume is, obviously, “The Dead Fish Museum,” but the D’Ambrosio story that resonated most with me was “Drummond & Son because of a conversation that took place at the Tin House conference last July. During a panel discussion, D’Ambrosio and Joy Willliams got into a rather extended exchange about where you could find the best typewriter repair shop--in the country. Both of them still use these antediluvian devices, and things being what they are, need to get them serviced, and the opportunities for such are, of course, limited. Though there are many more than I’d imagined. The discussion brought to mind Annie Proulx’s remark that she writes in longhand and writers who don’t are lazy. Which harks back to Eugene O’Neil’s dilemma when a nerve disease robbed him of the ability to write in longhand simply couldn’t create any more. Some kind of kinesthetic synapse had been destroyed and he couldn’t tap into his author-brain.

I enjoyed the days of the manual typewriter myself. Lots of aggression got funneled into that old red Royal, which stood up to many years of abuse without flinching. However, I willingly gave it up for this electronic gadget that doesn’t require me to insert fresh paper and start a page over or twist open the Wite-Out every time I make a mistake. Maybe if I’d stuck with the Royal, I’d have written and published something notable by now.

At any rate, D’Ambrosio makes admirable use of his Olivetti. The aforementioned “Drummond & Son” does refer to the name of a typewriter repair shop. Drummond is the proprietor, having learned the business from his father, and he does have a son. But the son is mentally ill, a twenty-five-year-old who suffers various delusions--some dangerous to himself, some merely inconvenient to others--and cannot live on his own. The mother has left, unable to carry the burden any longer. As in many of his stories, D’Ambrosio scatters humor in the midst of painful situations, even one as hurtful as this, and you don’t feel the characters are trapped, hopeless, despairing even while they struggle.

Take another example, “Screenwriter,” about a man who has checked himself into a mental institution (He’s got plenty of money from all the blockbusters he’s penned), and obviously belongs there. He maneuvers a pass and visits a woman who has just been released (God knows why), one who burns and cuts herself. He’s horny, but things don’t work out in that department, and he stays to console and be consoled. Strange, but believably comforting in the end.

You might think from these two examples that mental illness is one of

D’Ambrosio’s things, and you’d be right. Even in situations where characters aren’t certifiable, as in the above, they often skirt the borderline. And he puts them in a wide range of geography (NYC, North Woods, West Coast) and situations. Take the title story, about a guy who’s about to commit suicide, but takes on a job to help build a porn movie studio while he’s trying to work up the courage. Or the couple, just out of rehab and obviously brain-damaged from drugs (at least she is), who travel the country taking contributions for an organization that purports to help drug-addicted babies. That one’s about charity and near-death/afterlife experiences. There are a couple of sterling family dramas also--”Up North” and “Blessing” in particular.

This is first-rate, inspiring writing by an established author of unsurpassed ability and accomplishments. Keep pounding on that thing, Charley. It works for your writing and for my reading.

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Apr 01, 2013 Laysee rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Dead Fish Museum is a collection of eight stories by Charles D’Ambrosio. It won the 2007 Washington State Book Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. I have never heard of D’Ambrosio nor read any of his writing. However, the title beckons like a haunting call and I was only too delighted to read it when a friend loaned me his copy.

I read the first few pages of the first story, The High Divide, and was charmed by the visual quality of the prose. I appreciated the fre...more The Dead Fish Museum is a collection of eight stories by Charles D’Ambrosio. It won the 2007 Washington State Book Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. I have never heard of D’Ambrosio nor read any of his writing. However, the title beckons like a haunting call and I was only too delighted to read it when a friend loaned me his copy.

I read the first few pages of the first story, The High Divide, and was charmed by the visual quality of the prose. I appreciated the freshness in the turns of expression (e.g., a shriveled old man depicted as “a chunk of gingerroot”, the bite of an apple “turned brown like an old laugh” or a cathedral sanctuary likened to “a foreign country one can access if one knew the language”). The story featured two boys each with his own heartache: Ignatius lived with the nuns because his father had lost his mind and mother had died; Donny had to be separated from his mother as his parents were going to be divorced. The sadness descended as a matter of fact and as easy as breathing.

I read slowly and quickly realized that one story was all I could manage at a time. These were difficult stories to read. They told of wounded souls – psych ward inmates who self-immolate, probates newly released from prison, failed writers or actors, sick individuals with homicidal ideations (e.g. poke a crying baby in the eye), and normal people swept along by the stresses of life. D’Ambrosio had a steely, keen observation of visceral pain that cut to the quick. His prose was incisive without losing its lyrical quality. It carried also an uncanny ability to artlessly slide into labyrinths of intense darkness and pain. It must be an awfully tough job scripting huge raw feelings into the confined space of the short story, and D’Ambrosio does it well.

I winced when the anorexic ballerina burnt herself with cigarette butts and candle wax (The Screenwriter). I was touched by the father’s love for his adult schizophrenic son (Drummond & Son). I learned that even with members of one’s family, the blessing of kin is not unalloyed (Blessing). Interestingly enough, the story I least enjoyed was the titular tale about a crazed foreman and his carpentry crew thrown together at a porn movie set, perhaps on account of all the macho talk, gun play, and teasing threats of violence.

I discovered I can dislike a story and it will still linger in my mind. The last story, The Bone Game, was one of these. A male probate was driving into a reservation in search of a spot to scatter his grandfather’s ashes. These last rites were unceremoniously disrupted by two crazy hitchhikers he picked up along the way. The episode of the men mindlessly shooting milk cartons and salmon seemed to embody all the destructive energy that was hitherto trapped viscerally. What held my attention was the sense of sameness and futility that I felt at the end: “The stream was full, the dying still dying, the living continuing their run, while yesterday's dead had been washed out to sea, making room for today's."

Most of the stories ended on a note of uncertainty or resignation. In The Bone Game, the last words seemed to sum it all up, "Salmon season was over, but otherwise nothing had changed." There is nothing new under the sun. There is also no solace. The stories in The Dead Fish Museum are not for everyone but the prose is beautiful. For that alone, I’m glad I read this work.

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Dec 24, 2012 Josh Ang rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hailed as a latter-day Raymond Carver, the master of the American short form himself, I picked up Charles D'Ambrosio's collection up with much anticipation. The first story, "The High Divide", however, didn't quite engage me, perhaps because I was a little thrown off by (what I interpreted as) the deliberateness of 'exoticising' the setting and the main character's circumstances with these opening lines: "At the Home I'd get up early, the Sisters were still asleep, and head to the ancient Chines...more Hailed as a latter-day Raymond Carver, the master of the American short form himself, I picked up Charles D'Ambrosio's collection up with much anticipation. The first story, "The High Divide", however, didn't quite engage me, perhaps because I was a little thrown off by (what I interpreted as) the deliberateness of 'exoticising' the setting and the main character's circumstances with these opening lines: "At the Home I'd get up early, the Sisters were still asleep, and head to the ancient Chinese man's store." How the boy came to be a resident of the Home also seemed an attempt to shock with the quietly disconsolate way it is revealed to the reader. However, these cynical musings soon gave way to real awe and wonder as I got swept away by the brevity and precision of the prose and 'slice-of-life' vignettes D-Ambrosio so expertly crafted.

In the stories that follow, we are introduced to characters who struggle to live, or are sometimes so detached from the business of living they wither away at the edges of society. The middle-aged owner of a typewriter (repair) shop fights to keep his business relevant while providing care to his mentally-disturbed/deficient adult son, a suicidal screenwriter committed to a psychiatric hospital becomes embroiled with a ballerina who is addicted to burning parts of herself, and arguably makes an uneasy truce with himself by focusing on someone more damaged than himself. A man married to a fledgling actress spends time "Up North" with her family and friends while dealing with feelings of betrayal, and awkward machismo. Littered among the other stories are similarly unhappy individuals. In "Blessing", a couple from New York, Tony and Megan, to escape the harsh city for some solace in the outskirts of Mount Vernon, Washington, but finds another kind of disturbance when her family visits.

Perhaps Tony's reflection on his disconnection from his absent father while looking at a picture of his parents sums up the condition of D'Ambrosio's characters best: "The photo yields nothing in the way of memories, nothing I might attach myself to, and my perspective on the scene.. is that of the anonymous man who, strolling down a sidewalk sometime in AUG 1961, was stopped by a young couple, handed a camera, and asked to press the button - a stranger on his way elsewhere."

With nary a touch of romance or window-dressing, the author manages to cast his characters in a sympathetic light, and the afterglow of sadness that lingers long after the last sentence of each story. Definitely worth a read.

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Jun 29, 2011 Kirsten rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, short-stories

I first read one of Charles D'Ambrosio's short stories in a Paris Review anthology I picked up -- The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators & Waiting Rooms (or something like that). I read it 5 years ago, and the thing that always stood out to me the most was his short story, and it was for how well he wrote mental illness.

Cut to the present, and I am subscribed to American Short Fiction, a quarterly based out of Austin, and I am reading a story where the protagonist name drops th...more

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Nov 22, 2010 Ann Douglas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, fiction, reviewed

Charles D'Ambrosio is an incredible writer. Let me start with that. And his vocabulary is incredible. (I can't remember the last time I had to keep reaching for a dictionary while I was reading fiction.) He is also a master of story architecture. The scenes are ordered in a certain way for a reason: because it contributes to the telling of the story.

His stories are always dark - and sometimes dark and disturbing. His characters have long since hit rock bottom. Some are on their way back up. Many...more

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Feb 17, 2012 Writer's Relief rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you want to read cuddly, uplifting stories, this collection isn’t for you. But if you are looking for stories that unapologetically dive into what is inevitable and true about human nature and heartache, there is no one better than D’Ambrosio.

At face value, these are stories about depression, mental illness, violence, and generally bleak situations. But the world and atmosphere that D’Ambrosio creates with his language is breathtaking. Each of the stories in this collection captures a moment...more

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Dec 16, 2008 Alicia rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is not the collection of stories to read after a bad week. Technically stunning but this collection is also one that is very dark and disturbing in tone. Filled with seedy or sad characters who always have an angle or a plan or sometimes just flounder around hoping life will get better each story gets progressively darker. It is no surprise that life doesn't get better for these people. If you like a clear resolution or forward movement in your stories this will not be a satisfying collecti...more

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May 16, 2010 Jessie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Eight stories that feel inevitable, subtle, and cold--cold in the clammy Northwest literal sense; they leave a weird pocket of something inside you with their endings (they expand in your head the way Flannery O'Connor describes); D'Ambrosio is both gritty and artful with the paranormal, a surprising combo -- here are a couple of stunning stretches of prose:

“Everywhere I went, he went, creeping along a few sedate paces back in soft-soled shoes, a shadow that gave off a disturbing susurrus like t...more

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Dec 14, 2010 Paola rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: narrativa

Protagoniste dei racconti di D'Ambrosio sono le vite dolenti, incompiute, fallite, mancanti di una più parti vitali dei protagonisti (un bambino, una coppia che ha appena comprato una casa, una coppia di tossici che vivono d'espedienti, un giovane ereditiero alla morte del nonno, il marito di una donna stuprata da giovane e che da allora non ha mai avuto un orgasmo, lo sceneggiatore con disturbi mentali...)
I personaggi sono fissati in un presente fatto di piccoli o grandi avvenimenti (la visita...more

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Aug 23, 2009 Renee rated it 4 of 5 stars

The interesting thing with short story collections is that they make it possible to see ongoing thematic elements in an author's writing. Stories that were written at different times, published in different magazines have the benefit of being spaced out--well, perhaps benefit isn't the right word, because there is something to be said about seeing tonal qualities across stories.

And the tone of this book is definitely aquatic, leafy and loamy like the Pacific Northwest, disillusionment, detachmen...more

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Sep 02, 2007 Aaron rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of Raymond Carver

I picked this up from the library due to the long litany of writers whose works I admire (Michael Chabon among them) making very vocal recommendations for this young man being the best new writer to emerge in quite some time. For that reason, I am a bit surprised at how underwhelmed I was by this collection of short stories. The stories all struck me as being wonderful middles to stories that had beginnings and ends that we, as readers, were not made privy to. They're thought-provoking slices of...more

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Aug 22, 2007 Duc rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read 'High Divide' and 'Drummond & Son'. These two stores are about a father's relationship to his son. 'High Divide' is about a father and son who takes a camping trip to Olympia Washington. The hike culminate in one night when at the very peak of the mountain, the father asked his son to move to California after the divorce. Indeed the title suggest that there is going to be a divide. It is also a fork in the road which hikers often confront. Midway, there's a sign post which ask lets yo...more

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Mar 02, 2009 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Gray and heavy, reading these often wonderful little stories made me feel like I was in the Pacific Northwest and fighting off some horrible existential depression. All in good fun, and richly detailed stuff, but tough to take in multiple doses. Every now and then D'Ambrosio has a little trouble getting out of his own way with some of his brilliant descriptions and comparisons here, but each is, in its own way, a nice little trip to someplace else.

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Apr 09, 2013 Jonathan Crowl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Each of these stories is roughly 30 pages, and they employ great pacing that keeps them moving along all the way. I read or heard somewhere that, as a teacher, D'Ambrosio is always very focused on point of view and how that affects the story and its potential. The POVs chosen in these stories are great at illuminating, in succinct but clear ways, the external and internal struggles of their subjects, including the conflicted intersections where these struggles meet. "Screenwriter" is a very funn...more

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Jan 12, 2009 Zhiqing rated it 5 of 5 stars

Long gone are the days I craved for happy endings. Now as I am getting older, I begin to appreciate more and more the struggle and despair of less happy and less fortunate people. Depression and mental illness sure come in different sizes and shapes in this excellent collection of short stories, every story depressing and touching in its own way.

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Jul 19, 2008 Nina rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

These stories are beautifully written - every single one of them is worth reading for that reason alone. I was especially stunned by "The High Divide," "Drummond & Son" and "Up North." I got a kind of stillness-before-the-storm feeling while reading a lot of these stories - they seem to capture that moment when the characters are on the verge of something, and then dwell in it for a while.

My only complaint is that many times I felt almost too aware that I was reading a nice piece of literatu...more

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Jan 27, 2013 Charlie Geoghegan-Clements rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-fiction

Despite the fact that six of these short stories were previously published in The New Yorker, not a single one was about somebody at a party full of intellectuals or distant relatives that were way stupider than the narrator ... without that being the entire point of the story. Really, even if a party was the centerpiece, these stories were about how people undercut themselves by over-thinking and being too analytical. D'Ambrosio is fond of a clever last sentence, which is sometimes a tad too tr...more

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Apr 30, 2007 Sam rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: short story fans, humans

Shelves: shortfiction

D'Ambrosio is really doing fine work in this collection. While nothing's quite as good as the opener "The High Divide", which was featured in the 2006 O'Henry stories, both "Up North" and "The Screenwriter" demonstrate his versatility with wildly different types of story; the first is an extremely coldly-drawn bit of naturalism about a husband obsessing over his wife's adolescent rape while hunting with her father, the latter a creepy, surrealistic story about a screenwriter in and out of a psyc...more

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Jan 14, 2009 Dawn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-story-collections

These are the kinds of stories that I hold a particular fondness for. They are brief glimpses into the lives of the emotionally wounded. They are realistic portrayals of life in that each dilemma is not wrapped up neatly by the end of each story. For many of these characters, resolution might not ever come. The one story that I particularly liked is "Drummond and Son," set in Seattle, it's about a father who owns a typewriter shop who tries to connect to his mentally ill son. Another story, set...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Justin Crawford rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My favorite book of short stories. D'Ambrosio digs in deeply into his characters and pulls out the darkest and most dense aspects of the human condition. At the end of every story, I'm left with that bitter sweet aftertaste of regret that something that beautiful has ended.

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Dec 20, 2007 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: lovers of short stories

Someone recently told me that, for all it's beauty, she couldn't get through the The Dead Fish Museum because it was too depressing. All due respect, this person was not reading. She was simply taking the D'Ambrosio world at face-value – mental hospitals and recovery wards, failing businesses, porno sets – a world which, on the surface, appears to resemble that of William Vollman. But in comparison, Vollman buckles. His bleakness is a fey spectacle which bullies its readers into a pre-fab discom...more

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Dec 29, 2007 heather rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who normally dislike short stories

You know when you are eating or drinking something that borderlines on transcendence? Eating a whole truffle or a block of nearly 100% dark chocolate? Slurping Blue Point oysters and guzzling Veuve? Yeah. That's this book. I kept telling myself to slow down, but moderation has never been my forte. And now it's done, and I feel the need to go back and read each story again and again until they are burned into my mind. Each of these short stories are literary stars, full of characters with implodi...more

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Dec 28, 2008 Bob rated it 4 of 5 stars

This guy is the master of short fiction. His prose makes me suffer knowing that I will never ever be able to write like this. Unbelievable. Would also recommend his other book of short stories "The Point"

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Mar 28, 2009 Anna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Some of the subject matter is dark, so I had to pick up and put down this book a few times before finishing it. While I didn't love every piece, the ones I did (especially "The High Divide" and "Drummond and Son") really got to me.

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Dec 28, 2008 Ruth rated it 5 of 5 stars

I usually feel cheated when I pick up a book of collected short stories and discover that some of them have appeared previously in the New Yorker. That means I've read them already.

Six of the 8 stories in this book were New Yorker stories and I didn't mind at all. They were so good I was happy to reread them.

These are damaged people, set in backgrounds of terrifying clarity, struggling to find meaning. The writing is as good as I've come across lately. There are moments of great beauty in the...more

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About Charles D'Ambrosio

Charles D'Ambrosio attended the Iowa Writers Workshop after getting his BA in English at Oberlin College in Ohio. He is the author of two collections of short stories, The Point and The Dead Fish Museum, and one collection of essays, Orphans. He has taught at several universities and workshops, including Reed College and The Tin House Summer Workshop, both in Portland, Oregon where he lives with h...more

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Books by Charles D'Ambrosio

McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories

The O. Henry Prize Stories 2007 (Prize Stories (O Henry Awards))

The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House

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Quotes from The Dead Fish Museum: ...

“My ideal life is a quiet one. I like to read, to sit still in the same chair, with the lampshade at a certain angle, alone, or with Meagan nearby, and now and then, if I'm lucky, I'll come across a lovely phrase or fine sentiment, look up from my book, and feel the harmony of some notion, the justice of it, and know that everything is there. That's life to me, those privately discovered moments. ” — 13 people liked it

“Where exactly do you put your hands on somebody who hurts everywhere?” — 10 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/145007.The_Dead_Fish_Museum?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320420418l/145007.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/145007.The_Dead_Fish_Museum?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Dead Fish Museum: Stories by Charles D'Ambrosio[/url]

The Dead Fish Museum: Stories

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