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Twenty Grand and Other Tales of Love and Money
In this dazzling literary debut, Rebecca Curtis displays the gifts that make her one of the most talented writers of her generation. Her characters--young women struggling to find happiness, love, success, security, and adventure--wait tables, run away from home, fall for married men, betray their friends, and find themselves betrayed as well.
In "Hungry Self,"
...morePaperback, 238 pages
Published
July 3rd 2007
by Harper Perennial
(first published July 1st 2007)
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I really did not enjoy this book of short stories. I am not sure you could even call them stories, more like snippets of dreamlike situations that have no real beginning, no real ending and pure nonsense in between. The few of them that were actually coherent were depressing and usually involved characters being verbally cruel to one another. I tried to understand the POV of the author, Rebecca Curtis, but I think she and I have a different outlook on 'creative writing'. It reminded me of th...more
Here's the deal, people. These are stories that know how to sound like stories, but offer much, much less than they think they're delivering, which, basically, is a merely brand of faux-literary tourism. First person narrators, floating around some fastidiously evoked scenery, while eschewing nearly all interiority. Narrators that expect that we "get it" from a few minimalistic physical descriptions. Well, we do and we don't. The sound that Curtis makes is a kind of not-sound--or...more
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I read this book in two days--and that's rare for me these days--but it's a fantastic collection. Her narrators are baffled and sometimes a little mean, but that tone fits these stories of small town (New Hampshire) life so well. Curtis is funny but there's something heartbroken behind all of it--I was hugely impressed. Read the first page, and you'll want to stay in this world.
Curtis's stories are fierce, scary, funny, and artful. Most collections are forgiveably uneven; almost every story in this Twenty Grand is truly strong. "Hungry Self" is extraordinary, and Curtis's dreamlike, "illogical" stories work as well as her naturalistic ones. Wow.
The kind of funny that's also incredibly sad--the best kind! The book seems to be describing a certain type of girl in a variety of ways. Someone often overlooked by love, money or general good fortune, and thus, hardened. Surreal pieces are littered throughout which expand on this characterization in the same way a fairy tale expands on a moral.
Favorites are "Hungry Self," "Summer, With Twins," and "The Alpine Slide."
My only complaints:...more
Favorites are "Hungry Self," "Summer, With Twins," and "The Alpine Slide."
My only complaints:...more
What is interesting about this collection is the way that Curtis uses the techniques of Realism to attack Realism. Many of these stories are clearly anti-stories. Some use dream logic; not dreams, but the non-sensical and unrealistic logic and plotting that dreams exhibit. Others seem an attempt to write the worst story possible, similar to certain SNL skits where the delivery is dead serious but the audience knows it's all knobbery because it's a comedy show. It's as if she saying "want to...more
What separates Rebecca Curtis from a lot of other contemporary short fiction writers - and what makes this collection of stories so strong as whole - is that her work shows an equally strong ability with the fantastic and realist sides of the short story. She reminds me of Jim Shepard in this way, although the two don't have much in common in terms of prose style or subject matter. For instance, the way Curtis combines surreal experimentation with strong political commentary in "The Near-...more
Curtis gives us a book filled with tales of "love and money" and I must say from a world very far from mine. I did keep reading, the stories were well written and the style reminded me somewhat of Flannery O'Conner - some of the stories reminded me of O'Conner's also - edgy and a little weird. Worth reading.
Simple language, so much so that you think you're talking to someone in line at the grocery store, yet she hits without being heavy-handed on so many things that people want to gloss over and forget, like the nuances of class differences in America.
Her first story is probably the most literal and representational in the telling. The rest of the stories, however, take a cue from Rebecca Brown's and Zsuzsi Gartner's work: they don't seek to be representational, and the whimsical storie...more
Her first story is probably the most literal and representational in the telling. The rest of the stories, however, take a cue from Rebecca Brown's and Zsuzsi Gartner's work: they don't seek to be representational, and the whimsical storie...more
I admit that the title was what convinced me to pluck this book off the "Good Books You May Have Missed" shelf. But title aside, there wasn't anything else that really hooked me.
The story "Alpine Slide" was my favorite (I'm a sucker for coming-of-age prose) but many of the others just fell flat. Her minimal prose was, for the most part, interesting but it was equally frustrating because I felt like she was going through the motions of short story writing witho...more
The story "Alpine Slide" was my favorite (I'm a sucker for coming-of-age prose) but many of the others just fell flat. Her minimal prose was, for the most part, interesting but it was equally frustrating because I felt like she was going through the motions of short story writing witho...more
I loved this book. I read it two years ago and remember it vividly. I note a reviewer calls the narrators "mean." That's probably accurate. They are allowing the mean sides of themselves to speak. The stories on the other hand are entirely humane.
I struggle to understand/appreciate short stories as much as I do poetry. It all seems "fiddlefaddlefuddleduddle" to me. Honestly, I felt I was reading what I might have written after a few rounds with my Book Buddies!
I noticed this book has mixed reviews. I really enjoyed it. I love that some of the stories originated from dreams, and I love the anti-story nature of them as well. Well written, clear voice, interesting tales.
Every story in here is so filled with loss and the frustration that comes from learning what it means to be a woman. Rebecca Curtis explores so deftly that fine line between doing what society requires of you vs. doing what really matters to you personally. The title story is heart-wrenching.
There were some really great stories in this book,set in New Hampshire, and they all had an appealing sense of place.
My 100th book I've rated this year! It was very good, too.
I've liked Rebecca Curtis since I first read her in Mcsweeney's, a long time ago. I enjoy the pace of her stories, how they unravel and the surrealistic quality she achieves through her language and situations. As in all collections, I didn't dig every piece, but liked the majority of them. The only thing that begun to wear on me was her tone--detachment, aloofness, and quiet hunger--but most all writers have one so the only thing that means is that I didn't read the collection straight throu...more
weird stories about distasteful people.
Although I didn't fully understand all of the short stories, the author's voice was so unique and different than anything I've read in the past. Twenty Grand is disturbing, innovative, and also inspiring. After picking up this book, I started writing again for the first time in quite a while. Something about the stories just got all these ideas flowing through my head, and that's why I gave it five stars. Not many books can affect me the way this one has, and I look forward to Curtis writing mor...more
Mostly disgraceful. The few hauled into coherence by good editors—those appearing in Harper's or The New Yorker, mainly—were good, but most were sketchy, shallow, poorly realized: stale dust swept from the sunless corners of an uninventive and barely furnished mind.
When the book club section of a story collection is better written (and even more impersonal) than the fiction itself, beware. Luckily, this book was a gift. Otherwise, I would have wanted my money back.
When the book club section of a story collection is better written (and even more impersonal) than the fiction itself, beware. Luckily, this book was a gift. Otherwise, I would have wanted my money back.
some of these just knocked me sideways and some left me cold.
A toss-up between three and four stars. The best stories here are the more realistic in approach--"Hungry Self," the title story, "Summer, with Twins," a few others. Those are four or five star worthies. Just awesome.
The other stories are thought pieces that read like cut-rate Aimee Bender, and really, do we need anymore of Aimee Bender's thinly conceived think pieces? We do not. So those kind of dragged down my love of the book.
Still, half of it kick...more
The other stories are thought pieces that read like cut-rate Aimee Bender, and really, do we need anymore of Aimee Bender's thinly conceived think pieces? We do not. So those kind of dragged down my love of the book.
Still, half of it kick...more
For the most part I liked the short stories in this book, but got a lot more out of the realistic ones. The surreal stories made me think of someone having a nightmare and just writing down the details afterwards.
But for the realistic ones - the narrators all had a great, original voice and I often didn't know where the story was heading, but they were all believable.
I'd be very interested in reading any more short stories the author ends up writing.
But for the realistic ones - the narrators all had a great, original voice and I often didn't know where the story was heading, but they were all believable.
I'd be very interested in reading any more short stories the author ends up writing.
A terrific collection overall, but the strengths are the realist, coming-of-age stories (yes, really): "The Alpine Slide," "Hungry Self," "The Witches," and the title story. I'm less enamored with the fanciful, cutesy stuff--though any writer who can get away with the drollery of "Ellie followed her mother to the kitchen, where her sister, Francine, was playing patty-cake with the smallest monster" is okay with me.
This collection is uneven. I really liked certain stories, especially the title story and "The Alpine Slide." Some of the ones where she's being cute, though, really bugged me. I don't mind variety in tone and style in a collection of stories, but what Curtis is best at is a story based in reality, not the speculative stuff. It's been done better. But---read it for the rest of the stories, which are really good.
Some really fun stories in this one. My favorite opening paragraph:
I killed a near-son today. Naturally I did not tell my lover about it. But when I was at the clinic his ex-girlfriend was there and she recognized me, and when that snitch got home she called my lover on the phone and told him what I'd done.
I killed a near-son today. Naturally I did not tell my lover about it. But when I was at the clinic his ex-girlfriend was there and she recognized me, and when that snitch got home she called my lover on the phone and told him what I'd done.
These stories are somewhat uneven, and have jarringly different styles (a blurb from George Saunders on the back serves as a reminder that some of Curtis' writing -- maybe her earlier attempts??-- echoes his a bit too much)
That being said, several stories (i loved Twenty Grand and Alpine Slide) are amazing.
That being said, several stories (i loved Twenty Grand and Alpine Slide) are amazing.
How I love this book. The title story is one of my favorites -- so beautifully conveys the child-protagonist's love/hate relationship with her mother. And I always appreciate it when younger characters are treated with dignity. Also a big fan of the more fantastical pieces in the collection.
the first half of this collection makes you think 'these stories were published there?" but the second half has some really good pieces that are worth checking out, particularly "the witches" and the tile story (though you can see why it was in the new yorker). worth looking in to.
The first story in this collection was all right, but most of them were awful. The author's grasp of humorous writing reminded me of the stories I wrote in junior high school. They were fine stories for junior high school...just not for a published adult collection.
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