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Meat Eaters & Plant Eaters
by
Jessica Treat (Goodreads Author)
Jessica Treat’s stories invite readers in, only to make them complicit in transgressive acts, real or imagined: adultery, trespassing , sexual jealousy. Her dark humor and portrayal of consciousness recall authors as diverse as Amy Hempel, Mary Caponegro, and Lydia Davis. Comic, skillful, and menacing, the stories in Meat Eaters & Plant Eaters haunt us long after we’ve...more
Paperback, 160 pages
Published
June 1st 2009
by BOA Editions Ltd.
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I'm sitting here thinking to myself, that it's an absolute shame, that all too often, talented people let us down. There is no direct correlation between being a marvel at some sort of trade -- be it sports, music, or whatever -- and being an interesting and/or truly friendly, good person.
In fact, the chance of running into someone that has great talent, and those two qualities of being both interesting and a good person, is pretty damn rare. The all star baseball player who is fun, but can't ma...more
In fact, the chance of running into someone that has great talent, and those two qualities of being both interesting and a good person, is pretty damn rare. The all star baseball player who is fun, but can't ma...more
Once again, Jessica Treat has assembled a fine collection of short stories. When I read her previous collection, Not a Chance, it was the female characters that struck me the most. They all seemed to be searching for something. The choices they made were uncomfortable for me as the reader. They acted on things a person would normally only fantasize about doing.
Meat Eaters & Plant Eaters still has some of the same elements of searching and unmet needs, but rather than single women, there are...more
Meat Eaters & Plant Eaters still has some of the same elements of searching and unmet needs, but rather than single women, there are...more
11 likes · like · see review
Yeah...I wrote it, whaddya expect?! 4.25 stars? No effin way!
6 likes · like · see review
Jessica Treat versus late night bus drunks.
...Read about 50 pages on the way there, and enjoyed greatly, but found I couldn't read at all on the way back, too depressed (my team lost), so will get back to this later.
Later - have now had time to read and re-read, as some of these deft and unsettling stories need. This is an excellent collection, a mix of flash fiction, most centering around a moment: a find (a teacup, a shopping list) or a moment's decision (giving someone a lift, stepping outsi...more
...Read about 50 pages on the way there, and enjoyed greatly, but found I couldn't read at all on the way back, too depressed (my team lost), so will get back to this later.
Later - have now had time to read and re-read, as some of these deft and unsettling stories need. This is an excellent collection, a mix of flash fiction, most centering around a moment: a find (a teacup, a shopping list) or a moment's decision (giving someone a lift, stepping outsi...more
3 likes · like · see review
Just wonderful writing. Entrancing characters, often with a familiar "vague specificity"...
Jessica Treat is indeed a master of the short short story, which in my mind is quite a different genre from the traditional short story (with which she is no less at home). Each of the numerous two- to four-page stories in this collection leaves one with the brief scent of a shadow of a breeze of a forgotten moment in which someone might have glanced at me -- or might not have. I am left on the tip of hun...more
Jessica Treat is indeed a master of the short short story, which in my mind is quite a different genre from the traditional short story (with which she is no less at home). Each of the numerous two- to four-page stories in this collection leaves one with the brief scent of a shadow of a breeze of a forgotten moment in which someone might have glanced at me -- or might not have. I am left on the tip of hun...more
What a lovely, lovely collection. The characters are so honest and present that some of the stories now feel like what happened in them is part of my own life memories, especially the children's experiences. And the emotion of some of the stories, the subdued tragedy of regular life in them, is also something that stayed with me long after reading (just flipping through them now, that's what comes up as I glance at a line and the story comes back to me), and I'm so impressed by how Jessica can c...more
3 likes · like · see review
okay, jessica wins. these stories are great. i really loved almost every one of them; they were vivid and funny and sad and i didnt mind that they were short at all! in fact, i think i liked the really short ones the best. im such an inconsistent beast. just excellent writing all around, and its not my fear of being socially correct in supporting a goodreadser - i am actually grateful these stories were written. i will find the other books and read them since i cant get them in the store - but t...more
22 likes · like · see review
The story that'll stay with me from this collection is More Than Winter or Spring. Made me laugh HARD. I could just see my nine- or ten-year-old self doing something like that. I wish I would've thought of it. Then I wouldn't have wasted so many years believing in something that isn't there. Just makes me wanna run out into a cornfield and yell swear words at the sky. No cornfields in my neck of the woods, more's the pity.
Jun 24, 2009
Charles
marked it as to-read
I loved Jessica Treat's last collection, Not A Chance: Fictions so I've just ordered this one from Book Depository (free delivery worldwide!), and I'm looking forward to it very much!
Jan 19, 2009
Kim
marked it as to-read
I can't wait!!!!
This book was OK. None of the stories really jumped out at me.
May 08, 2013
Jenny
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Apr 22, 2013
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Apr 16, 2013
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Mar 30, 2013
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Mar 06, 2013
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Feb 15, 2013
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Dec 25, 2012
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Dec 16, 2012
Colleen Boyle
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Dec 15, 2012
Harry Doble
marked it as to-read-short-stories
Dec 06, 2012
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My three short story collections: A Robber in the House, Not a Chance and Meat Eaters & Plant Eaters, published in 1993, 2001 and 2009, are available from Coffee House Press, FC2, and BOA Editions, respectively. Currently I'm working on new fiction and on translating poetry and fiction from Spanish (Chilean poet Javier Campos and several Mexican writers). I was born in Canada but grew up in N...more
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And I'll admit it, I love Sarah Bells.
updated Jul 11, 2009 04:17pm
updated Feb 07, 2011 06:46am