Gay Dwarves of America

by Anne Fleming

The stories in Anne Fleming's new collection are marked by high intelligence, playfulness and a crackling sense of humour. If pressed, Fleming will say that the stories explore how love and disappointment, and humour and resilience, are twinned.

"Sentence by sentence, Anne Fleming is one of the finest writers I've ever read"The Globe and Mail

"[Fleming's] evenhanded, sharp-eyed and often hilarious narratives traverse the frenzied chaos of urban life with ease and precision"The Georgia Straight

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Canada, Queer, Contemporary, Lesbian

290 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2012

About the author

Anne Fleming is the author of five books: Pool-Hopping and Other Stories , shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, the Danuta Gleed Award and the Governor General’s Award; the critically acclaimed novel, Anomaly ; Gay Dwarves of America , also shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson; poemw , a book of poems shortlisted for the BC Book Prizes’ Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize; and The Goat , a novel for children. Her non-fiction has been published in a raft of anthologies, including Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme, Great Expectations: Twenty-Four True Stories About Childbirth, and You Be Me .

Anne grew up in Toronto and lived in Kitchener, Ontario for a chunk of time before moving to Vancouver, where she received her MFA from UBC. Her fiction has won National Magazine Awards, been commissioned by CBC Radio, and widely published in magazines and anthologies.

A highly regarded teacher of creative writing, she has been on faculty at both UBC campuses, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. She now divides her time between Vancouver (unceded Coast Salish territory) and Kelowna (unceded Syilx territory), where she teaches at UBC’s Okanagan Campus. She likes to cross-country ski and play the ukulele, although not necessarily at the same time.​​​

Reviews

[Jason Pettus]

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

It's been a while since we've heard from our friends at Pedlar Press, a small Canadian publisher dedicated to experimental yet mainstream-accessible work, and who are right now putting out some of the best designed mass-produced paperbacks in the entire Western indie world; but their latest recently showed up here not too long ago, Anne Fleming's story collection Gay Dwarves of America, and I have to admit that this may be one of the best ones they've put out yet. See, unlike most of the Pedlar titles I've reviewed here, Fleming's manuscript doesn't start out deeply experimental and then with crowdpleasing aspects added to it, but is instead a collection of mainstream stories about such banal subjects as suburban teenagers acting stupid while bored, then adds an engaging experimentalism to the dialogue, style and even plot turns, making this a highly entertaining yet dark-tinged and thought-provoking tome, the kind of extremely well-written human-interest fiction you might otherwise see at a place like McSweeney's. A bit too precious here and there, which is why it isn't getting a higher score (I could've done without the story containing just one word per page, for example), it's nonetheless a highly readable and satisfying collection from a press known precisely for such collections, and comes today with a big recommendation.

Out of 10: 9.0

[Shaindel]

I met Anne Fleming at Quest University in Squamish, British Columbia, and attended one of her readings. Her work was hilarious and heartfelt. If I had to nail her work down specifically to describe it, I would say it is similar to Lorrie Moore or Antonya Nelson but often takes more experimental risks with form. I really enjoyed this collection and especially loved the story,"The Pear."

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian]

Have I mentioned lately that I love Anne Fleming’s writing? (I would say I love her, but we’ve never met and are facebook friends, and that feels a bit awkward). Reading her recently released short story collection Gay Dwarves of America was a bittersweet experience for me, because I knew once I finished it, I wouldn’t have anything new to read by her until her next book came out. As in Fleming’s other work, Pool-Hopping and Other Stories (her first collection that was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction) and Anomaly (a critically acclaimed novel born out of one of the stories from Pool-Hopping), Gay Dwarves—I’ll get to this awesome title momentarily—peels away the layers of everyday people in everyday situations to reveal their surprising peculiarities. Or perhaps these peculiarities are not so shocking, considering what we all figure out when we get to know new folks: everyone’s pretty weird, right? Fleming shows us that, in fact, it’s our eccentricities, in all their diverse glory, which make us human; in fact, they’re what we all have in common...

See the rest of the review on my website: http://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wor...

[Jesse]

I took about two years to read this. I would sit down on a Sunday and wonder what to read next, and grab this. The stories are unique, and definitely engaging enough to keep you turning pages on a sunny Sunday morning.

There is a Musical that takes place in a department store, and a story that is actually 31 stories...as mentioned, it's unique.

Each story has a different style and tone, but all are highly readable. Worth the time.

[Jaclyn]

A nice variety of stories, from the moving (a woman whose mother has dementia; a pair of college students set up a fake website that turns out more significant than they realize) to the relatable (a teenage girl chooses popularity over a nerdy boy's love) to the hilarious (Backstock: the Musical).

The writing is fantastic.

[David Van]

Minus "The Pear", which I found fantastic, these stories didn't affect me too much and were a bit too clever for their own good. "The Pear", though, took a simple relationship/love trope and made it come alive, with a gut punch of an ending. Looking forward to reading that one again.

[Jeff Musgrave]

Fantastic book. Each story is completely different from the last. Anne Fleming is a remarkable writer.

[Jediam]

A very mixed bag - some stories that were quite poignant with clever writing, and others that just felt painfully gimmicky

[Evan Beazley]

Gorgeous, evocative. A writer in full understanding of the concept of "character." "The Pear" is one of the greatest things I've ever read.

[Tricia Dower]

One of the most original short story collections I've read as far as perspective is concerned. My favorite is probably Thorn-blossoms told from the points of view of a daughter whose mother has dementia and the mother herself. One of the most original stories is Backstock: The Musical, a working-class drama told in wry, musical comedy terms. Puke Diary is repulsive but different. Thirty-one One Word Stories left me scratching my head but overall the collection is complex and intelligent. Anne Fleming is a major talent.

[L]

I love Fleming's writing. Each story is unique and memorable, and she has a way of building each character to their fullest in such a short period of time. In GDoA, I particularly loved Soyez Blessé and Backstock: The Musical.