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Girl in the Fall-Away Dress -A

by Michelle Richmond (Goodreads Author)

4.09 of 5 stars 4.09 · rating details · 46 ratings · 5 reviews

Four sisters, many lovers, and a series of settings both familiar and exotic delineate the nineteen linked stories in this award-winning debut collection. Whether leaving, returning, or staying put, the women who narrate these stories are bound to Alabama by history and habit, their voices informed by the landscape and lore of the New South.Michelle Richmond introduces us...more Four sisters, many lovers, and a series of settings both familiar and exotic delineate the nineteen linked stories in this award-winning debut collection. Whether leaving, returning, or staying put, the women who narrate these stories are bound to Alabama by history and habit, their voices informed by the landscape and lore of the New South.Michelle Richmond introduces us to a memorable extended family, in which lies come more easily than forgiveness, and parents and siblings conceal the truth as often as they reveal it. In many cases, the women are forced to choose -- between family and lovers, safety and self-sufficiency, the religion they grew up with and the reality of the world they have found for themselves.

In "Down the Shore Everything's All Right", twenty-eight-year-old Grace abandons wide Southern beaches for New York sidewalks, only to discover that the Gulf Coast still has a hold on her. In "Intermittent Waves of Unusual Size and Force", a wayward father is called home from California by a massive hurricane that threatens the lives of his family. In "The World's Greatest Pants", three younger sisters watch in awe as Darlene, the eldest and bravest, defies her parents and heads for Texas in a battered El Camino.

An undercurrent of eroticism runs through the collection. "Propaganda" finds the youngest sister alone in an old house in Knoxville, where she forms a symbiotic relationship with a mysterious upstairs neighbor during her husband's lengthy absence. In "Fifth Grade: A Criminal History", adolescence and sexuality merge with explosive consequences. A woman dancing naked on a bridge in San Francisco is the central figure of the title story.

The divine and theabsurd are uneasy but frequent bedfellows in this volume. "O-lama-lama" portrays the scene of a religious free-for-all at a beachside church in Fairhope, Alabama, while "Slacabamorinico" celebrates the holy commotion of Mardi Gras at a Mobile cemetery. In "The Last Bad Thing", a love-struck young woman in the Bible Belt is haunted by visions of Ramadan.(less)

Hardcover, 176 pages

Published November 1st 2001 by University of Massachusetts Press

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Apr 27, 2010 Steve Kettmann rated it 4 of 5 stars

My review published in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2002:

The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress

By Michelle Richmond

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS PRESS; 169 Pages; $24.95

Remember this name: Michelle Richmond. It takes impressive talent and emotional range to trump the disappointments of "The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress," an at times mesmerizing, at times maddening collection of stories. This is a young writer whose future progression should be exhilarating to watch.

Richmond writes with grace and calm an...more My review published in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2002:

The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress

By Michelle Richmond

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS PRESS; 169 Pages; $24.95

Remember this name: Michelle Richmond. It takes impressive talent and emotional range to trump the disappointments of "The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress," an at times mesmerizing, at times maddening collection of stories. This is a young writer whose future progression should be exhilarating to watch.

Richmond writes with grace and calm and a refreshing sense of playfulness, even in the midst of dreary material. Her characters live and breathe; we feel them, and feel them feeling each other, especially when she's writing about the four sisters who pop up throughout this collection, often facing girlhood together in the South under what are usually uneasy circumstances.

She has insights that seem like insights worth having and can bring a scene alive economically, as when she describes a character greeting someone in a cafe. She "fidgets with her watchband and looks around the room, as if she might find someone more interesting in the crowd."

Too bad, then, that the stories are a mixed bag. Half are short-shorts, interspersed with the others, which sets an unfortunate tone of disjointedness and effect-for-effect's sake. Like one-night stands, short-shorts tend not to be satisfying: either forgettable or memorable, but only in a way that teases you with its brevity. Some of the longer stories, too, just do not quite fit with the others chosen for the collection.

Maybe a good way to think of this book is like the diaphanous white dress of the title story, which slips off a woman standing on a footbridge over Market St., leaving her exposed to the elements. The story in which the dress soars never does justice to the bold image around which it's built. But hey, it's a great dress, and it takes an alert eye even to see it up there, beautiful and haunting. Maybe that's enough.

-- Steve Kettmann

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article...
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Jul 20, 2011 Kelley Bowen rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a strange and beautiful collection of stories. Normally not a fan of the short story, I loved that Ms. Richmond's book felt like a novel. The stories all spin away from one main character, all related in unexpected ways. The writing is gorgeous and smart but not intrusive and the stories are unique, magical and more than a bit sad. I cannot recommend this book enough. It was like reading life. I thought it was beautiful.

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May 09, 2013 Mary-Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

My favourite sort of short story collection, one which has threads and repeated images throughout. Somehow, this also had a distinct Paul Auster flavour....

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Feb 15, 2009 Reca rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, short-story, read-in-2009

I have read Michelle Richmond's novels and I had hopes for a good read with the stories. I really had the hardest time trying to figure out how all of the stories fit together especially considering how crazy the characters were. It just wasn't for me, and I'll be reading the next novel Richmond puts out. One book I didn't enjoy isn't enough to give up an author.

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Oct 27, 2008 Fredsky rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fiction writers

Excellent stories from a wonderful writer!

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About Michelle Richmond

Michelle Richmond is the author most recently of NO ONE YOU KNOW, as well as the international bestseller THE YEAR OF FOG, the award-winning story collection The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress, and the novel DREAM OF THE BLUE ROOM. Her new novel will be published by Bantam in March of 2014. Her books have been translated into ten languages.

Michelle grew up in Mobile, Alabama, and makes her home in N...more

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