The Dog Of The Marriage: The Collected Short Stories

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The Dog Of The Marriage: The Collected Short Stories

4.27 of 5 stars 4.27 · rating details · 3,308 ratings · 441 reviews

The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel gathers together the complete work of a writer whose voice is as singular and astonishing as any in American fiction. Hempel, fiercely admired by writers and reviewers, has a sterling reputation that is based on four very short collections of stories, roughly fifteen thousand stunning sentences, written over a period of nearly three deca...more

Published 2009 by Quercus (first published May 9th 2006)

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Apr 04, 2008 Adrianne Mathiowetz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Hemingway fans, people who hate Hemingway

Recommended to Adrianne by: Rick Moody, who for the record writes an annoying introduction.

This is one of those books that has you rereading sentences over and over again, not because you couldn't parse their basic meaning, but because you suspect that a second reading will glean another, more subtle bit of information. It will also make you want to own a dog. It will also have you falling in love with Amy Hempel and wanting to make her your bride, in a house on the countryside with a weedy garden and a swamp nearby.

I started reading God of Small Things within five minutes of finishin...more

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Sep 20, 2008 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: aspiring writers

The reason for reading this book was because I could not otherwise get away from this lady until doing so. One such instance involved an innocent perusal of Raymond Carver's wikipedia entry, and there was Hempel and Gordon Lish sitting one booth over and trying to look conspicuously casual. Another time I was cruising Palahniuk.com (feeling all manly and disenfranchised, of course), and there she was again, rocking back and forth on her heels expectantly after blurting out an awkward "Hi!". This...more The reason for reading this book was because I could not otherwise get away from this lady until doing so. One such instance involved an innocent perusal of Raymond Carver's wikipedia entry, and there was Hempel and Gordon Lish sitting one booth over and trying to look conspicuously casual. Another time I was cruising Palahniuk.com (feeling all manly and disenfranchised, of course), and there she was again, rocking back and forth on her heels expectantly after blurting out an awkward "Hi!". This is obviously all in jest, as I'm not yet unbalanced enough to truly believe that writers stalk potential readers (well...except for maybe a couple of those Paranormal Romance folks...). The motivation to read this book gave rise to questions in my mind about how readers are led to explore a previously unfamiliar writer based solely on a lumped association with writers that the reader already knows. Perhaps I just need an additional hobby.

Seriously, this book is a work of great beauty. This collection unites Hempel's previous collections into one volume which spans the years of 1985-2005. She is considered to be one of those writers that slaves over every word and sentence, and this results in paragraphs that explode with meaning. These are basically stories about people trying to reconcile the circumstances of their lives with a demeanor of quiet intensity. Seemingly mundane tasks that are undertaken by characters within these stories, such as knitting or gardening, reflect and amplify the overall theme of each story. Some of these themes include death, the decay of marriages and relationships, and the bond between humans and pets. Despite this description, Hempel is not just a one-trick "gloom and doom" pony. There are light-hearted moments within this book that are equally touching as well. An example of this would be the first line of 'Tonight Is a Favor to Holly' and possibly one of my favorite sentences in this book:

"A blind date is coming to pick me up, and unless my hair grows an inch by seven o'clock, I am not going to answer the door."

How great is that? Probably all of us know at least one person who has said a variation on these words at some point in life.

I'm really conflicted about this rating, as this is easily a five star book by anyone's standards. My personal rating metric has always been that a five star book for me is one that has fundamentally changed the way that I view the world or myself upon completion. This book did not quite accomplish this, although I found it very emotionally moving. This is actually saying something, as I'm not usually an "emotionally moving literature" kind of guy.

The only possible complaint that I could have here is that most of these stories are written in a first-person perspective from the point of view of a woman that seems to be roughly the same age as Hempel would have been when these stories were written. This caused some conflict on my part as I began to conflate the author with the subject matter and would have to remind myself that these are stories, not necessarily the private journals of an incredibly gifted writer. The whole first-person confessional thing always makes me a little uncomfortable, as I think back to the young fellow whose early, false starts at fiction always involved an angst-y male protagonist in his early twenties. This is probably my problem as a reader, rather than Hempel's problem.

David, I've put a lot of thought into the one thing that I could say to renew your interest in this book. It should be somewhat lurid as you are a male(I knew that marketing class would come in handy someday), yet at the same time not a total spoiler. So here goes: You should continue reading this book because when you reach the final story, 'Offertory', you will surely say the same thing that I did - "Twelve acts of sexual congress in the same night!?! Good Lord! Has that guy never heard of a refractory period or what?".(less)

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Nov 10, 2007 Ian Mullet rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i kind of just want to copy one of her stories and so that's what i'm going to do. her stories are pretty short and this may be the shortest of them all. it's called:

"The Man in Bogata"

The police and emergency service people fail to make a dent. The voice of the pleading spouse does not have the hoped-for effect. The woman remains on the ledge -- though not, she threatens, for long.

I imagine that I am the one who must talk the woman down. I see it, and it happens like this.

I tell the woman about...more i kind of just want to copy one of her stories and so that's what i'm going to do. her stories are pretty short and this may be the shortest of them all. it's called:

"The Man in Bogata"

The police and emergency service people fail to make a dent. The voice of the pleading spouse does not have the hoped-for effect. The woman remains on the ledge -- though not, she threatens, for long.

I imagine that I am the one who must talk the woman down. I see it, and it happens like this.

I tell the woman about a man in Bogota. He was a wealthy man, an industrialist who was kidnapped and held for ransom. It was not a TV drama; his wife could not call the bank and, in twenty-four hours, have one million dollars. It took months. The man had a heart condition, and the kipnappers had to keep the man alive.

Listen to this, I tell the woman on the ledge. His captors made him quit smoking. They changed his diet and made him exercise every day. They held him that way for three months.

When the ransom was paid and the man was released, his doctor looked him over. He found the man to be in excellent health. I tell the woman what the doctor said then -- the kidnap was the best thing to happen to that man.

[then three little stars follow along with three more sentences which i omit for copyright reasons.]

Her writing is the best I've come across in a while -- "in my head there's a balcony I fall off of when I speak."

Not only is she telling a story but she's also feeling it with you, for example, from "The Most Girl Part of You": "Since his mother died I have seen him steam a cucumber thinking it was zucchini. That's the kind of thing that turns my heart right over."

Maybe she's a sentimentalist, maybe she's beautiful, but when i read her i find myself wondering, how would one know the difference?

She's also gotten my thinking a lot about irony and I wonder, really, doubt, whether it exists at all. Maybe the real trick to irony is to not be ironic at all, just to believe something crazy or to believe it in a way that everyone thinks, "oh, that must be ironic." Let the reader do your ironizing for you...
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Dec 30, 2007 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2007, anthologies-and-collections

I know it's a cliche, but some of these stories just took my breath away. "In the Cemetery where Al Jolson is buried" is just extraordinary, but there are at least a half a dozen other stories which are just as good.

This book contains all four collections of short stories written by Hempel over the last 20 years and has been praised to the skies. Deservedly so, IMO. Some of the stories are less than a page long, but they all pack a punch.

A couple of months later, and I'm downgrading this review...more

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Aug 18, 2007 Will rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It was hard for me to read this book without constantly thinking about the agonizing amount of work that had to go into every single sentence. I kept picturing this frowny-faced, chain-smoking woman slumped over a typewriter desperately trying to warp every word to express exactly what she wanted. The end result was appropriately rewarding.

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Sep 16, 2010 Núria rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literatura-en-ingles, cuentos, prestados, siglo-xx

Debo ser desconfiada por naturaleza, porque cuando veo que un libro tiene críticas muy dispares (unas muy buenas y otras malísimas) sospecho, pero lo cierto es que también desconfío cuando un libro sólo tiene críticas excelentes. Para mí es más fácil creer que un libro está sobrevalorado que no que es tan bueno que consigue que todos los críticos se pongan de acuerdo. Por supuesto, me pasó esto mismo con los cuentos de Amy Hempel. Os desafío a que encontréis una crítica mala de Amy Hempel; busca...more Debo ser desconfiada por naturaleza, porque cuando veo que un libro tiene críticas muy dispares (unas muy buenas y otras malísimas) sospecho, pero lo cierto es que también desconfío cuando un libro sólo tiene críticas excelentes. Para mí es más fácil creer que un libro está sobrevalorado que no que es tan bueno que consigue que todos los críticos se pongan de acuerdo. Por supuesto, me pasó esto mismo con los cuentos de Amy Hempel. Os desafío a que encontréis una crítica mala de Amy Hempel; buscad y sólo encontraréis los elogios más hiperbólicos. Esto inevitablemente me hizo poner en guardia. Sin embargo, debe ser que mi curiosidad es aún mayor que mi desconfianza y me obliga a querer leer todas las cosas por mí misma para formarme mi propia opinión (o simplemente confirmar el prejuicio que tenía antes de leerlo). Así que fue por esta razón que saqué de la biblioteca la edición de los ‘Cuentos completos’ de Amy Hempel presintiendo que al terminar iba a decir que no había para tanto. Pero a veces es realmente maravilloso darse cuenta que una se ha equivocado por completo, porque resulta que los cuentos de Amy Hempel son realmente prodigiosos.

Encontré una cita de Hempel que venía a decir que el mayor elogio que le habían dado en su vida es que en sus cuentos dejaba fuera todo lo que se tenía que dejar fuera. Y ya es esto. Un cuento nunca tiene que contarlo todo, sólo dar unas pistas para que el lector pueda acabar reconstruyendo toda la historia y todo el significado por su cuenta. Así es Amy Hempel; te relata unas escenas que pueden parecer inconexas y banales, pero que son inmensamente ricas en detalles, y luego tú tienes que sacar tu propia conclusión. Hempel está entre los cuentistas más grandes. Ahí arriba con John Cheever y Dorothy Parker. Escribe tan bien que es de esas escritoras que, depende del día que tengas, te puede hacer venir ganas de escribir compulsivamente, o bien ganas de no escribir ya nunca más porque sientes que después de ella ya no vale la pena. Sus cuentos están llenos de tristeza y humor y es muy difícil explicar de qué tratan; es eso que tantas veces se dice: se tienen que leer.

Me han gustado tanto, que sólo he leído sus dos primeras recopilaciones, ‘Razones para vivir’ y ‘A las puertas del reino animal’, y me he dejado las otras dos para más adelante, porque no me quiero terminarlas todas tan pronto y quedarme sin nada de ella que leer. Es algo magnífico. A sus cuentos no les sobra ni les falta nada, cada detalle por más nimio que sea dice muchísimo, se nota tanto que estos relatos han sido trabajados hasta la extenuación, rescritos incontables veces. Leyendo Hempel una tiene la sensación que le han hecho un regalo de lo más valioso y no puede hacer nada más que estar terriblemente agradecida. Al principio sus cuentos pueden desconcertar, pero una vez te sumerges en ellos te das cuenta de que te hablan de cosas tuyas e íntimas de las que muy pocos escritores antes te han hablado.
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Nov 19, 2008 Jeanette rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, four-star-fiction, all-fiction

This has all four of Amy Hempel's short story collections in one volume. I am assigning it four stars mostly on the strength of her first collection, Reasons to Live published way back in the 1980s.

I kept thinking "a female Richard Brautigan" while reading her early stories. Quirky subjects and bizarre dialogue. You just never know where she's going to go next. Three of my four favorite stories in the whole book are from this first collection. The other three collections just don't have that ed...more

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Mar 03, 2008 Brian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have a friend who once wanted to learn to play guitar. But, when he heard Jimi Hendrix play, he decided to give up the instrument because he couldn't imagine himself ever being able to play like that. Amy Hempel makes me feel the same way about writing--my fledgling attempts at writing fiction look clumsy and silly next to Ms. Hempel's elegant and delicate prose.

Ms. Hempel has a reputation for being a minimalist writer. Not being a literature major, I'm unsure of the exact definition of that t...more

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Dec 26, 2007 Drej rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Her sentences are clear and hard and sometimes heavy, like glass I-beams. That's a bad metaphor, because they aren't transparent; the sentences are the things you notice the most.

I first read Amy Hempel's story, "The Harvest," a while ago. I don't remember who told me about it. Someone in a writing group somewhere. I found it online and thought it was the most compressed, sharp blade of a story I'd ever read. I saved it somewhere on a now-defunct laptop. But now I've got the collection.

Most of...more

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Feb 23, 2009 R. marked it as to-read · review of another edition

I gave away my copy of the Reasons to Live several years ago to a friend and read most of Hempel's other works at Hillman Library in Pittsburgh; so, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have all of her works under one roof. I don't quite know why I feel compelled to write about this at all - but it's Monday night and outside it's raining. I only have four cans of beer to do me before my work week picks up steam. And then it's back to the red wine.

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Jan 13, 2008 Eileen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a book that many fiction writers have been waiting for for a long time, especially since Hempel's "Reasons to Live" has been out of print for a while. Essentially, this omnibus collection gathers together Hempel's four books of short fiction, including her most recent "The Dog of the Marriage." The book has been widely lauded in the press, but I will just say here that if you are looking to read some short stories by a master of minimalist fiction whose work is wryly funny and sad at the...more

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Jun 25, 2011 Julie (Klickitat) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who love short stories, writers

Shelves: own, short-stories, favorites

Hempel is amazing. Her prose is as crisp and sharp as you'll find and yet, enviably, appears effortless. Her style reminds me of a writing instructor of mine, who would always ask us: "Is every word in that sentence necessary? How much would you pay for that one there?" The lesson being, if you wouldn't lay your money on the line for any extraneous words, why include them? If Hempel took my instructor's class, she would be the teacher's pet. Every word in Hempel's stories has a purpose and every...more

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Oct 19, 2011 Valerie Baber rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: not-so-much, les-petites

Because I typically fall asleep or become distracted after a few pages of reading, short stories are ideal for me. In addition to that, a well-read friend of mine recommended this book to me, so I was really looking forward to exploring it. My excitement did not last long, however. I've read about four of her stories now, and I'm still wondering when things are supposed to become interesting. The book has been given plenty of awards and good reviews, but I can't quite seem to figure out why. Not...more

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Mar 10, 2007 Jenna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hempel has a way of making you aware of the mundane and fractured events of your life, taking stock in what normally wouldn't make the final edit of your "This Is Your Life" reel. I both get her and don't, connect with her narrators ( I use the plural, but they all seem to be fundamentally the same) and loathe them at the same time. I was amazed to read this collection, which includes stories from previous books spanning many years, and near the end feel like these stories were meant to be read...more

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Feb 12, 2008 carolyn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Contained within these pages are short stories that can make you stop breathing, sentences that I will remember forever and ever, that burned themselves into my brain the second I read them. I was AMAZED to learn that "In the Cemetary where Al Jolson is Buried" was the first piece of fiction she'd EVER written. It's beautiful and real, more real than this keyboard I'm typing on or the trees out my window. I will buy my own copy of this book and re-read these stories for the rest of my life. Each...more

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Aug 17, 2007 Art rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

this collection of stories is really powerful. a lot of stories about how we deal with grief, love, loss, and how we balance out the affections of the world with our own weights we carry around. i say "we" when i mean "the characters", but you get the point. its amazing. The story "in the cemetary where al jolson is buried" about dealing with a friend's death is really beautiful, and "the harvest" was particularly good. i also highly suggest, "and lead us not into penn station". i mean, it's thr...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Charlotte added it · review of another edition

Am I the only reader who doesn't take pleasure in reading Amy Hempel? She is always praised for writing "the perfect sentence," for the way she distills a story to its poetic essence, for writing precise little gems. (Some stories are less than two pages long.) How can I describe my aversion? Is it that I feel like I'm being toyed with? That Hempel's spareness is a literary exercise? There's a chill in her writing that comes from that spareness, I think. There was one story that was superb, "In...more

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Jan 28, 2011 Jean rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Her style is stronger than her plot line. I'll add more later.

Later... I just finished the section entitled "Reasons to Live." I thought it was time to read the Introduction by Rick Moody. Now I realize I finished her first book of short stories, and in this collection are four books. He starts by saying , "It's all about the sentences." Some of my Book Club friends would love that / her. After I read his line, I realized that at least two sentences are quite stuck in my mind:

"An omen that big c...more

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Jul 20, 2010 Colin Miller rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club-picks, cant-remember-well-enough-to-review, short-stories-novellas, omnibus-collection, top-ten-to-recommend

Amy Hempel’s Collected Stories starts with my favorite short story collection ever, Reasons to Live, and then proceeds to highlight the author’s decline to mediocrity.

Don’t get me wrong; ask me who the best short story writer is and I’ll still say Amy Hempel, but sometimes you have to be honest, even about the people you admire most. Like many who got into Hempel prior to the rabid Chuck Palahniuk endorsement, I was hooked by the widely anthologized “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried,” a...more

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Jul 18, 2009 Chris McCracken rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Maybe 4.888882 stars. Maybe you just shouldn't read too many of one person's stories in one sitting. You (I) can get burnt out. I admire her talent for distillation. I love DFW and his "maximalism", and I love the traditional stuff (the classics) like O'Connor and Hemingway and Kipling and De Maupassant. And I love Hempel and Carver and July and their minimal styles. I'm not sure I could put together any kind of critical theory about which succeeds more than the other, and which is a more approp...more

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Oct 24, 2010 Shelley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My introduction to Amy Hempel began with In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried. After reading her collected stories, this one is still my favorite; it was her very first published short story and it is probably the best short story I've ever read, if not the most poignant. It is obvious that each sentence that Hempel writes is carefully constructed, each word deliberate. I imagined her keeping a notebook with her at all times, writing every profound thought or idea that entered her mind and...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Emily Anne rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Collected Stories by Amy Hempel contain many previously published short stories. It is through these many stories that we begin to understand the way Amy Hempel views life, and the mark she has placed on the world. Within her writings, Hempel takes us through the many stages of life. Not only do we gain a different perspective of life, but we also begin to have an understanding of different experiences, good or bad. The short stories from Amy Hempel have an almost poetic view of the world. E...more

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Feb 12, 2011 Andrew added it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-fiction, 2000s-american-fiction, 90s-american-fiction, american-short-stories

Amy Hempel is a beautifully spare writer. This seems to be the consensus, and I agree with it. Her sentences are clipped and imagistic, and it's hard not to make Raymond Carver comparisons. But there was a great wake of Carver clones in the '80s, and Ms. Hempel is, unfortunately, not nearly as talented. Carver was able to make his empty descriptions pulse with life and truth, whereas Hempel's leave me wanting something more.

I can't argue with her stylistic skill, but her narrative needs work. I'...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Kirby rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Amy Hempel is a pretty pretty cool lady. She writes kind of like Joan Didion, except a little funnier and with more stories about dogs. I really enjoyed this compilation of her four short story books, which is full of simple yet touching musings on California, animals, painters, infidelity, loss -- and starting anew after loss. Many stories touch on dark issues but I would say that overall, her work is quite uplifting. And "The Dog of the Marriage," a story about a woman who trains cute pups to...more

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Nov 12, 2008 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, short-stories-novellas-essays

Pre-review:
I think I'm in love.

Review:
Fans of the short story will love Amy Hempel. Fans of good writing will love Amy Hempel.

She says so much, yet her language is completely uncluttered. These stories need to be read slowly so that they may be savored. I almost want to reread the whole collection so that I can pick up anything I may have missed the first time around.

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Jun 26, 2011 Henry added it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-short

Stylistically instructive. Substantially unfulfilling, excepting "The Dog of the Marriage" and "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried." Like Adam Johnson and other well-researched modern eclectics, there's a lack of moral vision, an encompassing system or direction in the writer's worldview. (I don't believe in post-postmodern values. It doesn't have to be absurd or un-invested to be new. Old values like family can be fresh values.) These are variations on the same superficial emotions with...more

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May 04, 2012 Elizabeth added it · review of another edition

Imagine reading a short story that has omissions which leaves you asking questions and wanting to know more and that allows you to draw your own conclusions on what is being said. That is one of the characteristics of Amy Hempel’s intriguing storytelling. Hempel, who has been termed a minimalist, is an American short story author who has written four story collections since her first publication in 1985. At times, her writing seems like stream of consciousness, bringing the reader right into the...more Imagine reading a short story that has omissions which leaves you asking questions and wanting to know more and that allows you to draw your own conclusions on what is being said. That is one of the characteristics of Amy Hempel’s intriguing storytelling. Hempel, who has been termed a minimalist, is an American short story author who has written four story collections since her first publication in 1985. At times, her writing seems like stream of consciousness, bringing the reader right into the narrators’ mind, but not allowing complete access, demanding the reader to pay the closest attention and re-read sections if necessary. At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, Hempel’s second story collection is comprised of stories which delve into the lives of women all dealing with the issues of daily life, and relationships between women and the opposite sex.
The stories pointed out to me the dissatisfaction women have in their relationships with men, themselves, and in particular with their mothers. The most satisfying of the relationships aren’t even between humans, but between characters and their pets.
One of the things that make Hempel’s writing enjoyable to me is her ability to create authentic relationships between her characters and layer so much meaning in such short space. In “Murder”, a story about the narrator and her friend Jean as they prepare for a mutual friend’s wedding, Hempel shows the dissatisfaction between Jean and men and the women’s dissatisfaction with themselves. “Jean said, ‘Men.’ She said, ‘They hate you at first. But all you have to do is be funny and sad and tall and thin and short and fat and wear them down, wear them down.” Hempel shows that men aren’t kind or even accepting of the women; they “hate you at first.” The women are not happy with this, and they have to put on labels: “funny and sad and tall and thin and short and fat” until they wear down the men. It would seem that “Murder” is suggesting that neither partner is happy in the relationship but simply settle with what they are dealt with, a sort of murder or death of the self and of happiness.
In several of Hempel’s stories, the relationship between mothers and daughters is tension filled and strained. When interviewed Hempel doesn’t reveal much of her personal family, but she has been said to draw inspiration from personal experiences. Perhaps the closest we as readers can get to an understanding of Hempel and her family life is through reading her stories… but then again they are works of fiction. In “Tom-Rock Through the Eels” the narrator and the mother don’t have much of a close connection. “Every so often we tried to shop together, tried to bake together, tried together to teach ourselves something from a how-to-book. Mostly I did things around her, the way nurses change the sheets with the patient still in bed.” This passage perfectly highlights the distance between the characters, even relating their interactions to the clinical way nurses treat their patients.
One of the things that readers should be warned about is these stories, while they beautifully unfold and allow the reader to enter the characters mind and world, are generally not happy. In “The Animal Shelter”, a very short story, there is only sadness. It is about a beautiful woman that goes to visit an animal shelter but doesn’t adopt any of the animals there. The entire point of the visit is to “have someone to leave, leaving behind the lovesome creatures who would never leave them…” Only one of the stories, “The Most Girl Part of You”, was slightly happier than any of the other stories in this collection. The story deals with a young girl narrator and her friend Jack “Big Guy” Fitch. The story ends in what seems to be a satisfying triumph for the girl, which is moving from being just friends with “Big Guy” and getting in a more intimate relationship with him which brings out, as the title states, the most girl part of the narrator.
With Hempel’s stories, it’s not enough to just give them a quick read through, so if that’s what you are looking for I suggest you look elsewhere. Her writing invites the reader to take their time to read and re-read and then read it again in case you’ve missed something. Her stories focus on the everyday, on something that any reader could possibly relate to and probably do. If you pick up this collection, go get yourself a nice cup of tea and curl up on the couch and start reading, letting Hempel’s writing guide you into the world of her characters.

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May 09, 2012 Holly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My boyfriend, Chad, enjoys keeping little secrets from me. I am convinced that the only thing he finds even more entertaining than having secrets is flaunting the fact that he has them. In November—I’ve already got your Christmas present, you’re going to love it. During the first week of March—Your birthday present is ordered and on its way, and no you can’t have it until your birthday. He finds humor in watching me writhe within my curiosity. So it occurred to me, while reading the short story...more My boyfriend, Chad, enjoys keeping little secrets from me. I am convinced that the only thing he finds even more entertaining than having secrets is flaunting the fact that he has them. In November—I’ve already got your Christmas present, you’re going to love it. During the first week of March—Your birthday present is ordered and on its way, and no you can’t have it until your birthday. He finds humor in watching me writhe within my curiosity. So it occurred to me, while reading the short story collection Reasons to Live, that minimalist author Amy Hempel would get along surprisingly well with my boyfriend. Both of them seem to enjoy taunting and teasing, dropping insanely miniscule hints and then smiling in an aggravatingly amiable way, whether literally or through the written word. As much as Chad’s behavior drives me crazy, I can’t help but find an excitement of my own as I pull together the clues and thwart his infuriating surprises. The same is true with Amy Hempel’s work. Not only do I relish piecing together Hempel’s puzzle pieces, but I also enjoy spending time with her stories, reveling in her company. Hempel does not simply give anything to her readers, she expects them to work for it, but that is part of the fun.
The characters in Hempel’s stories are all so unique, so varied, so colorful. One moment you might read about a young woman who lives on a beach, nervous about going on a blind date, or the woman struggling to cope with the pending death of a friend. Turning the page to the next story, you’ll listen to the widow of a veterinarian talking about life without her husband, or the perpetual knitter dealing with her decisions about her life and pregnancy, or perhaps the young man who ended up in the hospital by rolling his car. Older, younger, male, female—Hempel utilizes all kinds of variety in her work, including a large sample of life in her message of loss, grief, and fear. Although each of these characters are very different kinds of individuals, all of them share the common thread of human existence, the eventual confrontation with mortality.
One of the things about Hempel’s work is that she does not make anything obvious. This includes her characters. She will not, for instance, tell the reader that her protagonist is a five foot five woman named Lola with blonde hair and green eyes. That would be too obvious, too awkward. Instead, Hempel prefers to clue drop, characterizing people through obscure details. Like our widow friend in “Nashville Gone to Ashes” who doesn’t tell the reader that she is sullen or broody, instead we witness her watching TV while a cat’s “tail hangs down and bisects the screen.” I can’t necessarily speak for everyone, but if it were me, the only time I could watch TV through a cat’s tail is if I were indifferent towards life and the world. And in “Tonight is a Favor to Holly,” Hempel’s protagonist reveals “We live the beach life. Not the one with sunscreen and resort wear. I mean we just live at the beach.” These people are not “resort” rich, but they live an easy-going, care free “just” beach life. The knitter in “BEG, SL, TOG, INC, CONT, REP” never says she has an abortion but does admit to having “the procedure,” the avoidance of “abortion” speaking clearly to this person’s character. Occasionally, like in the story “Celia is Back,” Hempel is a little too obscure, jumping from Jell-O ads to the mysterious return of a woman named Celia. But, overall, Hempel seems to only include details in her writing which she can make work for her.
Hempel also has a habit of illuminating key details at her own pace. To start reading a Hempel piece is to be lost and confused, unsure of what is going on. In “Nashville Gone to Ashes,” the fact that Nashville is a dog, her husband’s “favorite dog,” and that her husband has passed away are not all just given immediately to the reader. Hempel weaves little nuggets into her writing, “A lot of us wear our late-husband’s watch,” so that the only way to get each nugget is to follow the strand all the way to the very end.
At times, Hempel’s language may seem simple, lacking much along the line of decoration, but there are moments when her unornamented words, her deep insights, are absolutely beautiful and settle on you like a down comforter. When reading Hempel, you have to luxuriate in moments when “Chuck purrs against my throat, and it feels like prayer,” or come to the same realization that “the present [is] the safer bet. We can only die in the future…right now we are always alive.” These words are open, thoughtful; these words are the secrets that Hempel shares eagerly, without veils or smug, knowing smirks.
Gathering clues and discovering secrets is something that I enjoy because I can’t curb my curiosity. For those of you who like to find the anniversary present before the anniversary, or shake the Christmas presents that are under the tree, then Amy Hempel is an author that you should not miss out on.
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Nov 03, 2008 Rauan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Really good (incredibly good) in places but all-in-all not so good. And worse, often boring. Someone with impeccable taste should compile a Selected.

Also, reading through other reviews I see that someone refers to the introduction, by Rick Moody, as "annoying":
that's exactly right.

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Dec 03, 2011 Morgan Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

ok so wondering, why, so many of the authors i am loving are alum of yaddo in saratoga. my aunt has a rental on lake saratoga, have only driven by this magical yaddo, that over its life time has pumped out so many good books.
in fact, the first time i read dog of the marriage and tumble home, i was sleeping on the floor at lake saratoga, feeling like some of the stories were being told from this town. when i figured out yaddo was right down the fucking street from where i was lounging, zipped up...more

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About Amy Hempel

Amy Hempel is an American short story writer, journalist, and university professor at Brooklyn College. Hempel was a former student of Gordon Lish, who eventually helped her publish her first collection of short stories. Hempel has been published in Harper's, Vanity Fair, GQ, and Bomb. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as the Ambassador Book Award in 2007, the Rea Award for...more

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“I meet a person, and in my mind I'm saying three minutes; I give you three minutes to show me the spark.” — 77 people liked it

“ I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands.
In the course of the experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign her newborn.
Baby, drink milk.
Baby, play ball.
And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace, forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug, Baby come hug, fluent now in the language of grief.” — 52 people liked it

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