Wave and Other Stories

by Caren Gussoff

"Gussoff has a good eye for detail...A tautly written, haunting tale of loneliness, alienation, and lost hopes and dreams."— Kirkus Reviews "Deals insightfully and unsentimentally with the issues the Jerry Springer show frequently airs, showing how seemingly normal families nourish the impulse for self-destruction."— Scotland on Sunday The stories in Sight Unseen map out the tangled webs of love, dependency and identity among a cast of fragile, bruised characters. A dying recluse is torn between her mother and the pursuit of pain and a younger sister unleashes a terrible revenge when her virginity is traded for drugs. The author of Homecoming , Caren Gussoff grew up in New York. She has an MFA in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She now organizes online support groups for the chronically ill and lives in Seattle.

181 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2002

About the author

Caren Gussoff is a SF writer living in Seattle, WA. The author of Homecoming, (2000), and The Wave and Other Stories (2003), first published by Serpent’s Tail/High Risk Books, Gussoff's been published in anthologies by Seal Press and Prime Books. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in 2008, was the Carl Brandon Society’s Octavia E. Butler Scholar at Clarion West. Her new novel, The Birthday Problem, will be published by Pink Narcissus Press in July, 2014.
Find her online at @spitkitten, facebook.com/spitkitten, and at spitkitten.com.

Reviews

[Sumit · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew I would love this book as soon as I saw the Virginia Woolf quote from "The Waves" on the first page - the work of a writer who appreciates her deeply psychological work is very likely to catch my interest.

There are so many good things to say about this slim volume of stories. First, the language is beautifully crafted in every sentence; the words and their rhythms are chosen with the care of a poet (I was not at all surprised to later learn that the author is an accomplished poet as well). I'm a fast reader, but with language like this I slow down, savoring the words and how they have been fit together, reading favorite sentences over and over again.

Second, true to the Woolf quote, the book delves deep into the minds of the characters; we often learn much more about their lives from the descriptions of their thoughts, memories, and thought processes, rather than their actions or dialogue. We leave each story feeling like we deeply understand the perspective of one or more of the key characters, though we may get only a limited sense of the facts on the ground.

Next, the way in which memory is surfaced and revisited by the author, hazy pieces of the past sometimes coming into focus while others remain just out of reach, reminded me of some of my favorite masters of memory, Michael Ondaatje and Kevin Barry.

Ultimately the stories that moved me the most were the ones that left much unexplained; as a reader I would be desperately trying to sort through the clues and hazy implications to understand what had actually happened. Because the story was left with intentional gaps, I would be particularly engrossed, trying to fill in those mysteries with my own imagination. I felt this most strongly in "Spark," where we never learn what happened, but are left to piece together the characters' lives as they stand now after a life-changing event. I had similar feelings about Part I of the title story (The Wave), before I realized the answer would be revealed in the next two parts.

This is a brilliant, creative, and thought-provoking book from a powerful and poetic voice; I would recommend it highly to anyone who loves the craft of language and the magic of a story well told.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong collection of dark, experimental, female-centered stories. The earlier ones have a sort of awkward romantic feel to them. The later stories are intertwined trailer park noir about sisters of junkies and the various travails they face and how they get revenge.
"Love Story" is a bit jarring, in part because it is the only story in the collection that seems to be trying to be funny, but also maybe because it's also a little trite and falls flat.
"Unbeautiful" worked the best as far as concise fury, even if it lacked the allure of the title novelette.
Solid read, overall.

[Morgan Bell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very winding writing style, sometimes in second-person, has the feel of a diary entry.