false 7850 6 In conventional fiction, war heroes return home minus an arm or a leg--or, to take Hemingway's worst-case scenario, the family jewels. In Aimee Bender's deeply unconventional collection, however, an even more suggestive body part goes AWOL: "Steve returned from the war without his lips." The army doctors have temporarily replaced them with a plastic disc, which impairs his speech. Luckily, this doesn't prevent him and his wife from engaging in some slightly surrealistic sexual maneuvers: "That night in bed, he grazed the disc over her raised nipples like a UFO and the plastic was cool on her skin. It felt like they were in college and toying with desk items as sexual objects."<p> That same combo--sex and off-kilter surrealism--provides Bender with her modus operandi. In "Call My Name," for example, a young heiress tails a stranger back to his apartment, gets her dress sliced off, and then consents to be trussed to a chair while he watches a TV documentary about Mozart. "Quiet Please" features a libidinous librarian who takes on all, uh, comers in the back room. Bender isn't, it should be said, simply a purveyor of French postcards. Her prose is exquisitely shaped, and its singsong rhythms suggest something out of a wised-up, whacked-out fairy tale. Indeed, if the Brothers Grimm had been a little more attuned to the pleasure principle, their fables might have boasted at least a family resemblance to Aimee Bender's. <I>--James Marcus</I> 10879 1998 The Girl in the Flammable Skirt: Stories total:1485|5:523|4:599|3:281|2:69|1:13| 1485 6005 1991 205 2 4 false false Fri Aug 08 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 23 21:53:57 -0700 2008 Mon Feb 02 00:41:27 -0800 2009
Sure, the writing is fine a...more...]]> 2 3 false false Wed Sep 12 20:35:20 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 01 17:07:10 -0700 2007 http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200107/my... for now) Myers skewers various superstars of "literary fiction"--Cormac McCarthy, Rick Mood...more...]]> 0 2 false false Sun Jun 22 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 17 18:09:47 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 22 15:16:54 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Oct 16 14:08:55 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 16 09:05:52 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 16 14:06:10 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Oct 17 05:49:39 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 17 06:10:03 -0700 2009
anyway, bender writes short, perfectly structured surreal first-person stories. well...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sun Jul 26 06:36:36 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 26 06:37:21 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Apr 15 14:20:51 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 15 14:21:23 -0700 2009 2 1 false false Tue Sep 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 01 20:36:15 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 15:16:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Jan 27 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 10 21:11:47 -0700 2008 Tue Jan 27 22:33:41 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Jan 10 21:44:59 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 10 21:44:59 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Nov 30 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 18 21:37:47 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 02 19:32:05 -0800 2008
There were very strong stories mixed with "snappy, chic, in-your-face, over-the-top" stories that were about "pain" and "human ugliness" a...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Jun 03 23:55:25 -0700 2007 Sun Jun 03 23:57:39 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Apr 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 19 14:24:04 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 08 14:58:46 -0700 2009 ...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Mar 18 17:42:58 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 31 21:46:01 -0700 2007 Aimee Bender yet, get this book, read Skinless, Fell This Girl, The Healer, and The Ring. If you still don't love her after that, I'm not really sure we can be friends anymore.]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jul 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 23 21:04:25 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 23 21:08:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Mar 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 25 13:38:17 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 07 13:37:56 -0800 2009 1 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Jan 09 00:00:33 -0800 2008 Tue Aug 05 14:17:04 -0700 2008 I think I liked every story in this collection "five stars" worth.

]]> 5 0 false false Sat Aug 29 13:06:38 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 29 13:11:38 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Wed Mar 25 12:29:32 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 25 12:29:32 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Apr 02 13:00:29 -0700 2007 Mon Apr 02 13:05:50 -0700 2007