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The Dog of the Marriage: Stories
Amy Hempel's compassion, intensity, and illuminating observations have made her one of the most distinctive and admired modern writers. In three stunning books of stories, she has established a voice as unique and recognizable as the photographs of Cindy Sherman or the brushstrokes of Robert Motherwell. The Dog of the Marriage, Hempel's fourth collection, is about sexual obsession, relationships gone awry, and the unsatisfied longings of everyday life.
In "Offertory," a modern-day Scheherazade entertains and manipulates her lover with stories of her sexual encounters with a married couple as a very young woman. In "Reference # 388475848-5," a letter contesting a parking ticket becomes a beautiful and unnerving statement of faith. In "Jesus Is Waiting," a woman driving to New York sends a series of cryptically honest postcards to an old lover. And the title story is a heartbreaking tale about the objects and animals and unmired desires that are left behind after death or divorce.
These nine stories teem with wisdom, emotion, and surprising wit. Hempel explores the intricate psychology of people falling in and out of love, trying to locate something or someone elusive or lost. Her sentences are as lean, original, and startling as any in contemporary fiction.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
49 people are currently reading
1447 people want to read
About the author
Amy Hempel
49 books1,026 followersAmy 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 the Short Story in 2008, and the Pen/Malamud Award for short fiction in 2009.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews
February 28, 2012
I checked this out from the library because I was thinking of taking a master class with Hempel next month. Her focus will be on language and what she calls the "acoustics of a sentence," and I am very interested in that.
As usual, I continue to struggle with and sometimes be frustrated by some aspects of spare short-short fiction, though there's been some I've absolutely loved, e.g. Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips, the ones included in Where the Dog Star Never Glows by Tara L. Masih and just about everything by Grace Paley.
I liked the longer of these short stories the most and while I could appreciate certain aspects of the other much shorter ones, many times I ended up feeling like the woman who asks "What Were the White Things?" in the story of the same name.
And, yes, I am taking the master class. I signed up for it before I finished the book.
As usual, I continue to struggle with and sometimes be frustrated by some aspects of spare short-short fiction, though there's been some I've absolutely loved, e.g. Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips, the ones included in Where the Dog Star Never Glows by Tara L. Masih and just about everything by Grace Paley.
I liked the longer of these short stories the most and while I could appreciate certain aspects of the other much shorter ones, many times I ended up feeling like the woman who asks "What Were the White Things?" in the story of the same name.
And, yes, I am taking the master class. I signed up for it before I finished the book.
January 2, 2025
Amy Hempel is tremendously underrated as a short story writer. I ordered a bunch more of her collections after finishing this one.
The Uninvited was the one that made me realize how amazing her prose is. She is sparing with her words, but she uses each one to the greatest effect. I loved almost all of the stories.
The Uninvited was the one that made me realize how amazing her prose is. She is sparing with her words, but she uses each one to the greatest effect. I loved almost all of the stories.
January 28, 2021
Ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement), scrimshaw, watercolor painting, learning Swahili, taxidermy, learning to play the zither --- I'm suggesting hobbies for Amy Hempel's editor, given how much free time they clearly have.
December 25, 2022
By a truly colossal margin the single greatest short story collection I've ever read.
February 14, 2021
(3.5*) I'm sure I'll go back to reading Hempel again, now that I have just discovered her, and I wonder why it took me so long to do so, seeing that she's probably the most acclaimed female short story writer in the US today.
If it wasn't clear from the title (and many of the stories in the collection), wiki considers it very important to mention that Amy is a dog enthusiast. Advising all writers to mention their animal preferences in their bio!
If it wasn't clear from the title (and many of the stories in the collection), wiki considers it very important to mention that Amy is a dog enthusiast. Advising all writers to mention their animal preferences in their bio!
July 20, 2010
Two stars. Barely:
Collected Stories review:
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,” and it’s still in my top-five short stories along with “The Man in Bogota.” Both are from Reasons to Live, and if giving a top-ten list, there’s a good chance that a couple more stories from that collection would crowd it out. It’s one of the rare books that I’ve given five stars to for a reason (pun unintended).
At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom is still excellent. A four-star run. The fact that it’s out of print—and harder to find than Reasons to Live--is another checkmark to picking up the nicely priced and complete Collected Stories, but alas the decline continues: Tumble Home is uneven, but still clocks in at a recommendable three-star level. It’s The Dog of the Marriage that puts the final decline point on the chart, barely crossing the two-star mark. That’s where I was left missing the Amy Hempel who used to make me not what to think after reading her stories—letting the feeling of what she put into me stay for just a little longer—and I wonder if she might have put all that she could into the first collection around and was simply mimicking the success.
I still recommend Collected Stories, but I never know where to tell people to pull the bookmark. There are other writers out there—writers who are going up, not coming down—but for a while there, Amy Hempel was all I needed. The desert island choice. I know these expectations aren’t fair, but the feeling is there regardless. Three stars, but reaching higher.
Collected Stories review:
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,” and it’s still in my top-five short stories along with “The Man in Bogota.” Both are from Reasons to Live, and if giving a top-ten list, there’s a good chance that a couple more stories from that collection would crowd it out. It’s one of the rare books that I’ve given five stars to for a reason (pun unintended).
At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom is still excellent. A four-star run. The fact that it’s out of print—and harder to find than Reasons to Live--is another checkmark to picking up the nicely priced and complete Collected Stories, but alas the decline continues: Tumble Home is uneven, but still clocks in at a recommendable three-star level. It’s The Dog of the Marriage that puts the final decline point on the chart, barely crossing the two-star mark. That’s where I was left missing the Amy Hempel who used to make me not what to think after reading her stories—letting the feeling of what she put into me stay for just a little longer—and I wonder if she might have put all that she could into the first collection around and was simply mimicking the success.
I still recommend Collected Stories, but I never know where to tell people to pull the bookmark. There are other writers out there—writers who are going up, not coming down—but for a while there, Amy Hempel was all I needed. The desert island choice. I know these expectations aren’t fair, but the feeling is there regardless. Three stars, but reaching higher.
May 28, 2008
eroticism as flower arranging ...said with great great respect to flower arranging. or, i guess, metaphorically: flower arrangement as eroticism. some confluence of care and courage and winging-it, bold lechery and a gourmet's rarefied lust. from it: "Renoir told Matisse he would pick flowers in the fields and arrange them in a vase, and then he would paint the side he had not arranged." an awesomely patient artist, waiting for the detail, sifting through life for the sentence. a convincing poet. and spectacularly gutsy. i liked it much more than i expected it too... funny and clever--though i kinda expected that; deep and beautiful--and i expected that less.
May 28, 2014
Despite the high rating and laudatory blurbs, I really didn't like this collection that much. The writing was okay, but it was like looking at an abstract painting or listening to free verse, both of which I am not too keen on. Yes, occasionally you will get something beautiful anyway, and enjoy it, but overall I want my stories to be more story. I don't want to feel that the writer (or artist) was slumming, conning the readers that they had produced something great. I liked the title story and "The Afterlife." Some parts touched me and I thought, "Exactly." But overall, it really wasn't my bag.
March 2, 2021
Se cierra este compilado de cuentos con El perro del matrimonio, en esta ocasión las historias son con el sentimiento a flor de piel, reflejan un profundo amor, e inclusive hay un cuento que tiene un toque sugerente y atrevido, otro aspecto destacado es el amor a los animales, en especial a los perros, como criaturas entrañables, a veces queridas y otras tantas maltratadas.
Cierro este ciclo de lecturas de Amy Hempel con nostalgia pero con satisfacción por haber disfrutado la lectura y haber conocido a esta autora llena de formas de contar que importa tanto o más, que las cosas que cuenta.
Cierro este ciclo de lecturas de Amy Hempel con nostalgia pero con satisfacción por haber disfrutado la lectura y haber conocido a esta autora llena de formas de contar que importa tanto o más, que las cosas que cuenta.
July 18, 2017
2006 notebook: really like the cryptic, short, packed stories. Sometimes I think they should be more cryptic, compact and less wiseguy-ey. But excellent, all, nonetheless. 'Beach Town', the opening story, about an eavesdropper, a woman viewing her licentious neighbour's behaviour, is very well put together.
April 28, 2020
This collection, the fourth that I have read by Hempel, is about falling in and out of love and/or lust, the carnage that can be generated, and the emotional detritus that is left behind. I particularly enjoyed “The Uninvited”, a sort of ghost story; “The Dog of the Marriage”, on the relative merits of husbands v. dogs; and “The Afterlife”, examining the perils of being a widower. Rick Moody, the writer of the introduction to this book, called another of its short stories, “Offertory”, “one of the most erotic . . . in contemporary literature.” And I agree. But it is by no means an exercise in soft porn; it is a thoughtful examination of carnal obsession, the role of memory in long-term relationships, and the psychological function of fantasy. This is probably the best of the collections I have read; and I look forward to her next one—“Sing To It” (2019).
July 25, 2007
The Dog of the Marriage, Amy Hempel. New York: Scribner, 2005. Hardcover, $20.00 ISBN 0-7432-6451-7
I finished Amy Hempel’s latest short story collection, “The Dog of the Marriage,” on a visit to the Georgia O’Keefe museum in Santa Fe. During this particular visit the museum hosted an exhibit, “Moments in Modernism: Georgia O’Keefe and Andy Warhol, Flowers of Distinction” and on the wall for this exhibit were quotes by both authors. One by O’Keefe made me think immediately of Hempel’s work and certainly of “The Dog of the Marriage.”
“Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. It takes time—we haven’t time—and to see takes time, like having a friend takes time”.—O’Keefe
Like O’Keefe, Hempel is a microscopic visionary highlighting what others don’t take the time to see. Not content to paint pretty reality to scale, they both expose the insides, everything that would remain hidden at first glance, pistil, stamen, fleshy petals, longing, instability, desperation, vulnerability, stasis, recovery.
Hempel’s narrative voice in “The Dog of the Marriage” is at once detached and achingly intimate. In the title story, Hempel’s narrator experiences the loss of a relationship and marriage, and is caught in a moment of reflection.
“Did I invite this? Is it like sitting in prayers at school when the headmistress says, “Who dropped the lunch bags on the hockey field?” and although you went home for lunch, you think, I did, I did.”
Hempel turns her microscopic lens on humanity with stripped to the bone sentences that lend power to her work. In a story reminiscent of Virginia Woolf’s “Three Guineas,” Hempel’s “Reference # 388475848-5” is the narrator’s written response to a parking citation. The tale twists through a long explanation of the events leading to the ticket ending in a plea for justice.
In her finally story, “Offertory,” a narrator is coaxed by her lover to divulge details of a past romantic encounter with a couple, the result is a sexual Scheherazade. In addition to the narrator’s storytelling, there are moments of delicate and telling reflection.
“It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it.”
Dogs that appear throughout the narrative are harbingers of what’s missing for the narrators: stability, loyalty and love. They are created as characters, not simply symbols of what’s missing. The narrators also experience what they lack in their human connections in their relationships to canine companions.
Works by both Hempel and O’Keefe invite us to pause, take an extra beat, then two, then three as we witness the everyday, a flower or a failed marriage, from the inside out. We are to enjoy every subtle color change, each dip and fold, the way they look when they fade and fall.
I finished Amy Hempel’s latest short story collection, “The Dog of the Marriage,” on a visit to the Georgia O’Keefe museum in Santa Fe. During this particular visit the museum hosted an exhibit, “Moments in Modernism: Georgia O’Keefe and Andy Warhol, Flowers of Distinction” and on the wall for this exhibit were quotes by both authors. One by O’Keefe made me think immediately of Hempel’s work and certainly of “The Dog of the Marriage.”
“Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. It takes time—we haven’t time—and to see takes time, like having a friend takes time”.—O’Keefe
Like O’Keefe, Hempel is a microscopic visionary highlighting what others don’t take the time to see. Not content to paint pretty reality to scale, they both expose the insides, everything that would remain hidden at first glance, pistil, stamen, fleshy petals, longing, instability, desperation, vulnerability, stasis, recovery.
Hempel’s narrative voice in “The Dog of the Marriage” is at once detached and achingly intimate. In the title story, Hempel’s narrator experiences the loss of a relationship and marriage, and is caught in a moment of reflection.
“Did I invite this? Is it like sitting in prayers at school when the headmistress says, “Who dropped the lunch bags on the hockey field?” and although you went home for lunch, you think, I did, I did.”
Hempel turns her microscopic lens on humanity with stripped to the bone sentences that lend power to her work. In a story reminiscent of Virginia Woolf’s “Three Guineas,” Hempel’s “Reference # 388475848-5” is the narrator’s written response to a parking citation. The tale twists through a long explanation of the events leading to the ticket ending in a plea for justice.
In her finally story, “Offertory,” a narrator is coaxed by her lover to divulge details of a past romantic encounter with a couple, the result is a sexual Scheherazade. In addition to the narrator’s storytelling, there are moments of delicate and telling reflection.
“It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it.”
Dogs that appear throughout the narrative are harbingers of what’s missing for the narrators: stability, loyalty and love. They are created as characters, not simply symbols of what’s missing. The narrators also experience what they lack in their human connections in their relationships to canine companions.
Works by both Hempel and O’Keefe invite us to pause, take an extra beat, then two, then three as we witness the everyday, a flower or a failed marriage, from the inside out. We are to enjoy every subtle color change, each dip and fold, the way they look when they fade and fall.
August 21, 2010
I guess if I had to use one word to describe Amy Hempel's stories, it would be spare. She does not over-describe emotions, setting, or characters. It is all laid out cleanly and precisely. She uses the bare minimum of words to get her story across; probably less.
The story that spoke to me the most was "The Uninvited." A woman who volunteers at a rape-crisis hotline is attacked and worries that she might be pregnant. She is better at dealing with crisis in other victims than she is at dealing with her own headaches. Sounds familiar.
The story that spoke to me the most was "The Uninvited." A woman who volunteers at a rape-crisis hotline is attacked and worries that she might be pregnant. She is better at dealing with crisis in other victims than she is at dealing with her own headaches. Sounds familiar.
May 19, 2010
With the exception of Junot Diaz, there is no other author I hate as much as Amy Hempel. She is too good for the rest of us, and it makes it hard for any blossoming writer to think they will ever do half as good as her. Where many other authors take pages to evoke an emotional response, Hempel does so with mere words. She is an author to envy and to learn from. I can't sing my hate-praise loud enough for her.
February 25, 2011
I liked one of these stories: "Reference # 388475848-5"... but I didn't love it, it was just okay. The others all felt emotionally constipated to me, dry, sterile, boring. I didn't get any hint of that compassion mentioned in the official review, nor any emotion. These all felt like workshop exercises instead of compelling narratives. Obviously, other people feel that this woman writes superbly well, so I guess her voice is just one I am unable to appreciate.
June 27, 2020
There was too much happening in the stories, also I couldn't follow the abrupt scene changes. There was one short story which had one line; is this supposed to be some experimental literature, if it is I don't get it. It had some good stories, I liked the stories 'Jesus is waiting', 'Afterlife' and 'Offertory'.
November 17, 2017
Devastated, reborn, relit all over again, skimming back to the first page to read again and again. Every story, whether a sentence or 20 pages, is a whole realized world, every bit of it as concrete and elusive as our own. There is the time before you read Hempel and then everything else.
October 14, 2007
Amy Hempel's stories are extraordinary for what they leave out. Her incredible economy makes me want to reread and reread.
February 6, 2010
Referred as the best short story writer of all time, well, yes, in many regards, i would have to agree,,,,.
February 12, 2010
I love Amy Hempel's prose. My favorite story from this book is Jesus is Waiting--there's a video of a reading of it by Julianna Margulies at http://www.flypmedia.com/content/spre...
November 22, 2010
"Lesbian fights are the worst, Carolee said - nobody ever walks out and slams the door because they're both women and want to talk about their feelings."
November 17, 2017
Mostly annoying
one whining voice, walking dogs
I'd divorce them all.
one whining voice, walking dogs
I'd divorce them all.
May 14, 2024
Amy Hempel is my favorite short story author; she is a master of the medium, making clear that short stories are an art form in their own right that is distinct from novels and poetry. Her fourth volume of short stories is every bit as great as her first two, Reasons to Live (1985) and At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom (1990), and is more consistent than her third Tumble Home (1997). The standout for me in The Dog of the Marriage (2005) is “The Uninvited.” In Hempel’s sparse, minimalist style, it delves into themes of trauma, rape, abortion, and being “haunted” in a metaphorical and literal sense. As with all of her stories, it is well-constructed and emotionally powerful. I highly recommend giving her work a chance. Yes, she is capable of writing the “perfect sentence,” but her work is far more than that.
STORY TITLES AND QUOTES:
Beach Town
“Nobody thinks about the way sound carries across water. Even the water in a swimming pool.”
“They told the wife to watch the sun rise and set, to look for solace in the natural world, though they admitted there was no comfort to be found in the world and they would all be fools to expect it.”
*
Jesus Is Waiting
“In a tornado outside Baltimore, in a broken neighborhood off I-95, I asked the attendant in a Mobil station, 'Where’s anywhere else?' The man didn’t even point.”
“On the day before a holiday, you feel you have a destination just by being on the road with so many people who do. Have a destination, that is.”
“...if something goes wrong, it is not the car that’s at fault. Bad form to blame something for the damage one does. I just mow them down—and drive on.”
“I would like to be scrambled and served with sausages at an all-night diner.”
*
The Uninvited
“I was fifty years old, and ten days late. If menopausal, go on estrogen; if pregnant, go on welfare.”
“...storm doors and windows had never been put up, so, like clocks not changed from Daylight Savings Time, wouldn’t the absence of these fixtures be just right in a few more months?”
“I did not call the police. Two years of working a hotline, and I did not report it.”
“Some of the group never said the word man. Instead they said “potential rapist.” There were men who wanted to donate money, but there was a faction among us who did not feel right accepting donations from future rapists.”
“Sometimes the body takes over to make a decision the mind can’t make.”
“Lesbian fights are the worst, Carolee said—nobody ever walks out and slams the door because they’re both women and want to talk about their feelings.”
“By the time the family voted funds for an alarm, there was nothing of value left to protect.”
“I was told that the only people who saw this ghost (“the White Lady”) were women who married into the family and of whom the White Lady approved. So one night I faked a rattled look and told my future husband that I had just seen a ghost when I went upstairs for more pillows.”
“Just when you begin to think you’ve dreamt it, it comes again.”
“She said she never sang the songs that people knew because to do so would be to hold the dying when the point is to help the dying let go.”
“I had always thought women’s clinics should replace their posters of “The Desiderata” and Erté’s Nouveau nymphs with reproductions of Hans Holbein’s An Allegory of Passion, with its caption from Petrarch’s Canzoniere: “E cosi desio me mena”—“And so desire carries me along.”
It is not always a matter of being careless, you know.
It is not always desire, either. Except as the desire to save oneself by doing what one is told to do by the person who has the knife.”
“Successful collaborations inspire envy in me. But ‘collaborate,’ someone once told me, also means ‘to betray.’”
“Even when it was not my fault, I was lectured on the imperative of responsibility, a sitting dog being told to sit.”
“You can do anything with ease if you act as though you do it all the time—dance, sunbathe nude, talk someone out of hurting you.”
“He said we would be lovers. He began to cry. I felt him begin to get hard.”
*
Reference #388475848-5
“...we walked another couple of blocks to see a second movie, one he wanted to see, and I didn’t tell him I had already seen it because by that time I just wanted to sit next to him in the dark.”
“There is a theory of healing based on animals in the wild. People have observed animals that barely escaped a predator, and they say these animals lie down and shake, and in so doing somehow release the trauma. Whereas human beings take it in; we don’t work it out, so it lodges in us where it produces any number of nasty effects and symptoms.”
“...the truth is, I’m shaking—right now, writing this letter. My hand is shaking while I write. It’s saying what I can’t say—this is the way I say it.”
*
What Were the White Things?
“He said the mind wants to make sense of a thing, the mind wants to know what something stands for.”
*
The Dog of the Marriage
“I suppose there are many things one should try not to take personally. An absence of convenient parking, inclement weather, a husband who finds that he loves someone else.”
“The man who would have been my employer at the record company asked me why I wanted to work there. I said, ‘Because I love music,’ and he said, ‘Maybe the love affair is best carried on outside the office.’”
“There are those of us who seek Fran out in the hope that something of her rubs off.”
“Down the road from the school is one of those classic mansions you admire until you notice it’s a funeral home.”
“Dreams: the place most of us get what we need.”
“There are people whose goodness brings them to do this work, and there are those of us who come here for it. Both ways work.”
“After an early spring of taking the marriage apart, I was glad to have every day the same.”
“I see the viewfinder swing wide across the lawn, one of those panning shots you always find in movies, where the idea is to get everybody in the audience ready for what will presently be revealed—but only if everybody will just be very very good, and very very patient, and will wait, with perfect hope, for the make-believe story to unfold.”
*
The Afterlife
“When my mother died, my father’s early widowhood gave him social cachet he would not have had if they had divorced. He was a bigger catch for the sorrow attached.”
“I was not used to that kind of attention, and seeing through it didn’t mean I didn’t also like it.”
“She would get to his house when it was still light enough to see fog blowing down the street from the bay window in the living room.”
*
Memoir
“Just once in my life—oh, when have I ever wanted anything just once in my life?
*
Offertory
I realized reading this story again in 2024 that it is a direct continuation of the novella “Tumble Home” that concludes Hempel’s third book of short stories . That story, in turn, was a direct continuation of her short story “Tom-Rock Through the Eels” found in her second book of short stories . Her narrators are always unnamed. I wonder how autobiographical Hempel’s stories are.
“It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it.”
“...exigencies of the tiny life, a life that opened up inside me at night in a downtown loft on an ugly street in a city rebuilding itself.”
“That is when the place became a sanctuary for me, and which of us does not need sanctuary all the time?”
“I am not allowed to bring him anything but myself.”
“There is an almost unbridgeable gulf between what an artist sees and what an artist paints.”
“He could not wait to get rid of them so he could enjoy remembering them.”
“I was aware of the point at which a compliment becomes a trap, because you are expected to keep doing the thing you are praised for; resentment will follow when you stop.”
“You said in your letter that humiliation brings the softness of heart that allows you to listen to God.”
“If you believe in God,” I said.
“Or in humiliation,” he said. (p. 395 of The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel)
This is a direct quote from “Tumble Home,” a work which is all a letter being written to the man the narrator is with in “Offertory”:
“Where is the consolation in this? It is in humiliation, which brings the softness of heart that allows you to listen to God.” (p. 271 of The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel)
*
Hempel’s bibliography (as author, if not otherwise noted):
Reasons to Live (1985)
At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom (1990)
Tumble Home (1997)
Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs (1999) [editor, with Jim Shepard]
The Dog of the Marriage (2005)
The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel (2006) [collection of Hempel’s first four books of short stories]
New Stories from the South 2010: The Year's Best (2010) [editor, with Kathy Pories]
The Best Small Fictions 2017 (2017) [editor, with Tara L. Masih]
The Hand That Feeds You: A Novel by A.J. Rich (2015) [pen name - A.J. Rich is a collaboration between Hempel and Jill Ciment]
Sing to It: Stories (2019)
**
Citation:
Hempel, A. (2007). The dog of the marriage. In Hempel, A. (Ed.), The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel (pp. 305-404). Scribner. https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Stor... (Original work published 2005)
Title: The Dog of the Marriage
Author: Amy Hempel
Date: 2005
Genre: Fiction - Short story collection
Page count: 139 pages
Date(s) read: 4/28/24 - 5/3/24
Book #92 in 2024
**
August 6, 2019
Amy Hempel is as brilliant as ever here. After publishing her first novella in her previous collection, Tumble Home, many of the stories here are in longer form than usual. But she still has this incredible gift for concision (and can still write a gripping, stand alone paragraph when she wants).
The notable difference between this and her other books is quite how sexual many of the stories are -- the last two most notably. She explores sexuality starkly, often with strong language, and in "Offertory" connects it into a recurring theme from her works: honesty and deceit and their limits in communication, one that always has a metatextual element as we are led to think about the truthfulness of her stories, or indeed any stories. Perhaps this is why she has shied away from the vulnerability of narrating sexually intimate stories until this point.
I believe I've rated every book of Hempel's five stars, making this one no exception. Like the others, it stunningly conveys how delicate, lonely, trying and yearning a human life can be.
Favourite stories:
The Uninvited
What Were the White Things?
Offertory
The notable difference between this and her other books is quite how sexual many of the stories are -- the last two most notably. She explores sexuality starkly, often with strong language, and in "Offertory" connects it into a recurring theme from her works: honesty and deceit and their limits in communication, one that always has a metatextual element as we are led to think about the truthfulness of her stories, or indeed any stories. Perhaps this is why she has shied away from the vulnerability of narrating sexually intimate stories until this point.
I believe I've rated every book of Hempel's five stars, making this one no exception. Like the others, it stunningly conveys how delicate, lonely, trying and yearning a human life can be.
Favourite stories:
The Uninvited
What Were the White Things?
Offertory
January 26, 2023
Very humorous. Very insightful with genius coursing through every line. A glorious work of fiction. Clever put-downs, thoughtful quips and heart, reading this collection is like mainlining the most truest truths within us. The narrators are oft neurotic, oddly witty and self-aware in such a way that's almost too good to be true. Amy is such a skilled writer. How she achieves what she achieves without the slightest hint of 'fat' on any of these (punch)lines, should be the envy of all stand-up comedians. A masterpiece.
My favourite stories are OFFERTORY; THE AFTERLIFE; THE DOG OF THE MARRIAGE; THE UNINVITED; TUMBLE HOME; THE REST OF GOD; TOM-ROCK THROUGH THE EELS; UNDER NO MOON; AT THE GATES OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM; THE DAY I HAD EVERYTHING; MURDER; THE MOST GIRL PART OF YOU; THE HARVEST; THREE POPES WALK INTO A BAR; IN THE CEMETERY WHERE AL JOHNSON IS BURIED; NASHVILLE GONE TO ASHES; BEG, SL TOG, INC, CONT, REP; & TONIGHT IS A FAVOR TO HOLLY.
My favourite stories are OFFERTORY; THE AFTERLIFE; THE DOG OF THE MARRIAGE; THE UNINVITED; TUMBLE HOME; THE REST OF GOD; TOM-ROCK THROUGH THE EELS; UNDER NO MOON; AT THE GATES OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM; THE DAY I HAD EVERYTHING; MURDER; THE MOST GIRL PART OF YOU; THE HARVEST; THREE POPES WALK INTO A BAR; IN THE CEMETERY WHERE AL JOHNSON IS BURIED; NASHVILLE GONE TO ASHES; BEG, SL TOG, INC, CONT, REP; & TONIGHT IS A FAVOR TO HOLLY.
March 9, 2024
The themes of this collection of short stories revolve around sexual obsessions, deteriorating relationships, and a pervasive sense of dissatisfaction in everyday life. Hempel’s skill in blurring the lines between fiction and reality is remarkable, imbuing every narrative with a sense of authenticity and relatability. Once again, I found myself using this book as my diary.
While most of the stories were compelling and had my attention wrapped around their finger, others fell short. However, this was just a minor setback and doesn’t overshadow my overall very positive review. Even less favorable stories still had fantastic elements.
Hempel’s ability to convey just enough without overindulgence is very powerful as well, her language is precise and cutting and carries through each story; evoking raw emotions with every word.
I would be interested to see if Hempel was at all inspired by Grace Paley, because I could really feel her voice through Hempel’s words.
While most of the stories were compelling and had my attention wrapped around their finger, others fell short. However, this was just a minor setback and doesn’t overshadow my overall very positive review. Even less favorable stories still had fantastic elements.
Hempel’s ability to convey just enough without overindulgence is very powerful as well, her language is precise and cutting and carries through each story; evoking raw emotions with every word.
I would be interested to see if Hempel was at all inspired by Grace Paley, because I could really feel her voice through Hempel’s words.
June 9, 2025
📚 Le Chien du mariage – Amy Hempel
Ce recueil se lit rapidement, grâce à une plume fluide et une écriture fine, presque ciselée. Le format court en fait un bon roman transitoire, idéal après une lecture émotionnellement lourde ou dense. Hempel maîtrise l’art de la suggestion, du non-dit, et crée une atmosphère parfois étrange, souvent touchante.
Cependant, malgré la qualité stylistique, je suis restée sur ma faim : je n’ai pas réussi à saisir le fond de l’histoire ni à comprendre pleinement l’intention de l’autrice. Ce flou narratif, bien que volontaire, m’a empêchée de m’attacher véritablement aux personnages ou de ressentir un fil conducteur.
Une lecture intrigante, mais qui, pour moi, manque un peu d’ancrage émotionnel ou de clarté narrative.
Ce recueil se lit rapidement, grâce à une plume fluide et une écriture fine, presque ciselée. Le format court en fait un bon roman transitoire, idéal après une lecture émotionnellement lourde ou dense. Hempel maîtrise l’art de la suggestion, du non-dit, et crée une atmosphère parfois étrange, souvent touchante.
Cependant, malgré la qualité stylistique, je suis restée sur ma faim : je n’ai pas réussi à saisir le fond de l’histoire ni à comprendre pleinement l’intention de l’autrice. Ce flou narratif, bien que volontaire, m’a empêchée de m’attacher véritablement aux personnages ou de ressentir un fil conducteur.
Une lecture intrigante, mais qui, pour moi, manque un peu d’ancrage émotionnel ou de clarté narrative.
July 16, 2020
With the majority of stars given below by others I feel I may have ‘missed’ something? I’m not a fan of short stories as they tend to just tickle the ivories and really not go anywhere. I was waiting for something to grasp me as according to the blurb “these are astonishing stories, hilarious and surprising and insightful” by The Guardian no doubt. Well I truly must have nodded off in sheer boredom or just did not get what the point was here. What a damn boring book for me. Sadly I could not wait to finish it but then thought why did I even bother. Her other ones might be better but I’m loathe to even try again.
December 31, 2021
Amy Hempel loves dogs as much as I do, but that's not the only reason I enjoy her stories. Her writing reads as though it were just herself simply and plainly telling stories. It's very hard to tell that the stories are about more than just a woman who works with dogs being divorced because her husband has fallen in love with someone else, more than a lover who wants to hear stories about her prior sexual escapades with a married couple, more than just getting a ticket for improper display of license plate. They are all about people, things we feel or don't feel about one another, the contradictory in all of us. Except dogs. Dogs are good, always.
September 18, 2024
A collection of stories all from the point of view of women. Felt like it was going to be really up my alley but most of the stories fell a little short for me. There were two stories that I really loved - The Afterlife, a story about a woman’s father and his life after the loss of his wife / the narrator’s mother, and titular story The Dog of the Marriage which is centered on the things left behind after a relationship ends. Amy Hempel is a very sympathetic writer and she’s able to subtly get at the feelings of the narrators without it ever feeling like she’s hitting you over the head with it.
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