Moon Deluxe

by Frederick Barthelme

This collection of eighteen stories depicts in clearly observed detail the texture of modern life, while illuminating the pathos and strangeness that subtly permeates the everyday

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Barthelme's works are known for their focus on the landscape of the New South. Along with his reputation as a minimalist, together with writers Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie, Amy Hempel, and Mary Robison, Barthelme's work has also been described by terms such as "dirty realism" and "K-mart realism."He published his first short story in The New Yorker,and has claimed that a rotisserie chicken helped him understand that he needed to write about ordinary people.He has moved away from the postmodern stylings of his older brother, Donald Barthelme, though his brother's influence can be seen in his earliest works, Rangoon and War and War.
Barthelme was thirty-three year editor and visionary of Mississippi Review, known for recognizing and publishing once new talents such as Larry Brown, Curtis Sittenfeld, and Amy Hempel early in their careers.

Reviews

[Rayroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raymond Carver, Margaret Atwood and John Barth give “Moon Deluxe” high praise, and for good reason, the seventeen short stories that make up Frederick Barthelme’s collection are sublime and simple yet they speak at such a human level. These "Southern" stories take place in the 1980’s, among the back roads, coast highways,strip malls, apartment complex swimming pools, Shoney’s, Safeway’s, and diners of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. What they also have in common is each is about people bored or lonely or both, who meet other people and have everyday conversations , that turn into something meaningful or revealing, small talk that makes you feel less alone among strangers and detached loved ones. Frederick Barthelme writes so simplistic, effortlessly and with sort of a beautiful optimistic sadness, about people lost and lonely looking for human connections, whether they are single bachelors who watch too much T.V., stalkers, or avid middle age toy collectors. Like in life, it’s the small moments with loved ones or strangers that make this a moving read that shouldn’t be passed up. In the age a iPhone facetime, where people date more on-line, where people rather than start conversations in the check lisle or on the bus, instead play Candy Crush and avoid each other, we need more everyday connections like the one's in this book!

[Amanda Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love, love, a thousand times love. I read this on a roadtrip down the California coast, which is a highly preferential landscape for reading this. I've selected a few friends to attempt to coerce into reading this, only people that I thought would either truly enjoy it or at least give it an honest and open-minded review, but I've failed. I haven't met anyone personally who has read this. It's the kind of book where I would be hard-pressed to say that I "like" it. Is it enjoyable? I guess. I just know that I felt completely immersed not only in the story but in the whole feeling of the book. A very cohesive collection, despite none of the stories being linked.

Definitely not for everyone.

[Jackson Lyda · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Edward’s not a threat, is he? You’re not a threat, are you, Edward?”
“I don’t guess so. To my dismay”
“What a wonderful thing to say,” Lily says.
- Moon Deluxe

“Is this the end of linear causality?”, Margaret Atwood wonders on the back of my copy of Moon Deluxe. And the easy answer is no: the lineage of ideas that lead to this collection is easy to trace. Barthelme takes the stories of Raymond Carver, clubs them to death, drains them of blood and props them up, withered and dry, for the reader to ponder. Where Carver has respect for the characters he writes, Barthelme wants to use them as punchlines in clever jokes. Where Carver mingles sadness with elements of grace, Barthelme’s stories sit still in a bog of malaise. Where Carver’s stories - sad as they are - have a human, vital heart at their core, Barthelme’s are about as cold and derivative as a photocopy.

The stories here feel formulaic in a way their surreal elements can’t mask. Again, do these stories buck linear causality? Is anything here really inexplicable or strange? Not in a meaningful way. A cold logic pervades the book, one that isn’t shaken even at its weirder turns.

Who amongst us has been to a Safeway? A dinky dinner alone? When Barthelme is praised for capturing “the mood and tempo of our times,” in a way that reminds one critic, I shit you not, of THELONIUS MONK, this is what they’re talking about. The stories are relatable not because we sympathize with what characters feel, but because they take place at Shoney’s. Descriptions abound of surfaces, cars, furniture… the picture is vivid, even familiar. The eye for precise detail is undeniable. But it’s seldom used to do anything interesting.

As for emotion, it’s all one note. The big theme here is unbridgeable male loneliness. Or at least loneliness that the average man is too incompetent to bridge. These men at the center of the story are always emasculated by some vague force. They yearn for women, success, each other. There are glimpses of something like happiness or contentment - but the point is they’re unattainable, elusive. Always belonging to someone else. Possibly even completely theoretical. When, in a stab at subversion, the narrators do end up with what they think they want, the rest of the story is just watching them fumble with it, unsure of what to do now that it’s in their possession. The longing, it seems, is endless.

Why do Frederick Barthelme’s stories all force the reader (even going as far to use the second person) to inhabit this world through the minds of sad, inept men? It’s not, I assume, because Barthelme is writing from a place of honesty or personal conviction. Surely, he must see that there’s more to modern life - and even more nuanced (compelling even!) flavors of loneliness.

The reason, I’m afraid is this: even for an educated, well-read guy like Barthelme sad is easier than happy and stupid is easier than thoughtful. It’s also, to certain people, kind of funny. But only funny in a cheap, pathetic, shit-eating sort of way.

“I told her I was ready for anything. I thought that sounded pretty good - wry and romantic, something from a modern movie full of wood-sided station wagons and blue-green pools, the kind of movie Hollywood started making in numbers about five or six years ago, in which ordinary life is made fun of and made mysterious and beautiful at the same time. These are my favorite movies now, which is why I thought my line was pretty good.”
- The Browns

[kemmm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ini awalnya diniatkan sebagai sampingan bacaan atas novel-yang-ya-ampun-lama-bangat-kelarnya. Saya tidak terlalu muluk membawa ekpektasi. Lagipula, udh pernah baca kumcernya yg Chroma (uniknya, Moon Deluxe ini dibeli dengan niat yang sama juga saat beli Chroma: penasaran aja) dan ngerasa biasa.

Tapi di sini, mengejutkannya, saya benar-benar menikmatinya.

Bagaimana kelakar tipis-tipis yg kadang tiba tiba nyempil (dan itu sangat efektif!), juga karakter" yang low-key romantis tapi juga menggemaskan, dan kejadian-kejadian komikal atau yg agak depresif di tempat yang bisa datang dari tempat atau kejadian paling sederhana sekalipun.

Kisah-kisah pinggiran tanpa terlalu ada drama yang perlu mengangkatnya untuk menjadi menarik.

[Ofelia Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has stories that suddenly end and leave you confused which is good because all people should be confused as much as possible. If I'm at home and alone and I feel not-confused and like I understand things even when I look out the window and see other people walking around the grass-field or running in the gym or something then I read one of these stories so I can feel confused. Understanding things is delusional or something. Read this book and go Wal-Mart and walk around and you will exist suddenly in the moment where you are human.

[Gideonleek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like his writing—especially the story where they go to the supermarket. People call his style K-Mart Realism. But I think it’s more like neon pink apartment complex with a courtyard pool Realism.

[John Pappas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange, quirky and optimistic stories set in the neon-lit parking lots and motel courtyards of a 1980s America where microwaves were novelties and technology was increasing exponetially. These stories mostly feature strangers or neighbors (or both) discovering or rediscovering connection with another human being in the light of this encroaching technology. The stories thematically are sort of like anti-Raymond Carver, without the fear and despair, but very stylistically similar to his minimalist writing.

[Tori · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up because I wanted a Donald Barthelme collection. I was disappointed. But I soldiered on.

He's fond of gimmicky/experimental narrative choices. Like writing in the second person. Which generally reads like this, to me: You are an adult male. You notice attractive women. Nothing much happens.

The inside of a refrigerator is described as "bright and precise" in the short story "Lumber." This was pretty much the highlight of any sentence in any story in this.

[W.T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no better writer of short fiction in America. And this book is just the tip. Read it all. Read it now.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sits somewhere on the continuum between Don DeLillo's White Noise and Robert Altman's 3 Women.

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is a perfect snapshot of apartment-dwelling singles along the Gulf Coast in the early 1980s. That's why I give it five stars. I'll admit I was skeptical because I'm such a fan of Fred's brother Donald. But Fred Barthelme is very much in the Raymond Carver quotidian dirty realism category. Ray even blurbs the book on the front cover—something he rarely if ever did. Margaret Atwood also blurbs on the back cover which was a head-scratcher until I saw that the male main character in every story is almost asexual, somehow resisting all come-ons from the newly-liberated wanton women of the 70s. I guess that appealed to MA's anti-patriarchal propensities. IOW, this collection felt "safe" to her, LOL.

I lived in Houston from '82 to '85 and this was exactly how it was. So many details accurate to the era (the first carphones, people constantly eating, drinking and smoking). These are all prosperous, hedonistic white people, never really worrying about money or social issues. They're also authentically quirky in ways that aren't overly annoying.

I can just see Fred teaching at various colleges, living in apartments and cranking out these stories. Using thinly-veiled autobiography at times. This is an insulated world, no current events or sanctimony—which makes it somewhat timeless and quite readable even today.

[Mitchell Waldman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yes, it was the eighties and people were trying to write New Yorker, Raymond Carver stories that had great detail and no endings. I'm a fan of Barthelme, enjoy his detail in this work, and I know this apparently put him in the public eye, but still, it was the eighties, it was the style at the time and New Yorker stories? I'm not a huge fan. I like his novels better.

[Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book so so much. It is just a vibe.

[Camille · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the delight of this viewpoint from a different time fades away, there's not much behind in terms of plot, insight, or wonder. Stephen King's guest-editor round for an esteemed short story collection once puzzled me for its pretty evident preoccupation with the indulgenences and petty scheming of the upper middle class, but after reading this I'm understanding a bit better (1) how often 'good writing' echoes the same preoccupations with power that obviously run the people who have enough to give out literary awards, and (2) how much of mainstream '80s creative culture was dominated by a particular bored, luminous, and destructive flavor of that. Maybe every culture's arts scene is, but it's the obvious/given that doesn't make it into people's reminisces of those times. And it doesn't leave you much to hold onto.

My original comments: Crisp and bizarrely current (somehow the references to Tab and Izod and truly awful 80s decor don't trip you up). Full of ratty schlub narrators who stalk young women in grocery stores or decline threesomes, and vicious exes acting out. Everyone is always trying to drag someone off to dinner and it's always raining. Occasional workplace harassment and brief mention of paedophilia add to the nastiness but these vivid snapshots have an energy that's slow to disappear.

[Lucynell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very peculiar collection depicting the aftermath of the battle of the sexes as it is played out in condominiums, malls, and bars across pre-Internet (and less-polarized) suburban America. Moral indecision, sexual cowardice, adultery and middle class loneliness, all the pretty things that make up that very American genre, ''dirty realism'' so attractive, are filling up the silence and drunk-like negotiations between the surviving warriors and the casualties-to-be. It's sometimes funny, sometimes sad, warm, often baffling. This sort of language I often have trouble with, here also. But then the sun (probably salmon-pink) breaks through and It's tempting to go back and reread the previous story because you're almost sure you must have missed something. I'll probably read this book again. One or two of the stories are really, really good.

[Sean Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frederick is a master. His stories are commonplace incredible. I have no idea why I fall in love with his characters or why I even care about them or what they do next. Yet somehow again and again I have to know what happens and then when it isn't anything extraordinary I am filled with this sense of contentment for no good reason. Just ordered another book by him. Very excited to read it. If you love Carver, read Barthelme.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had two of the best short stories I have read in a long time. I took it back to the library, so I don't remember their titles, but one was about a man who follows a woman around a department store. It has a great scene about listening to hurricane reports on the radio that made me feel expansive and content.

[jeremiah]

sappy dirty realism:
"I told her I was ready for anything. I thought that sounded pretty good—wry and romantic, something from a modern movie full of wood-sided station wagons and blue-green pools, the kind of movie Hollywood started making in numbers about five or six years ago, in which ordinary life is made fun of and made mysterious and beautiful at the same time" (The Browns, 74.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of Frederick Barthelme. At times, this collection can get a little repetitive--hapless guy in over his head--but the writing is brilliant. I love his voice. Love his characters. Love him.

[melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wonder what ever happened to juked.com.. The old juked.com....

[Lucas Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

i like dirty realism, or whatever this is.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This guy wants to be Raymond Carver. He doesn't succeed.

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Legendary but defunct twitter feed @Apathyiscool once tweeted something re the potential pleasure that could be derived from Barthelme's fiction vs that derived from completely dismissing him.

[Rand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very eighties. The one about the creepy guy in the mall was ace.

[Tom Bensley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems like a sadder collection than the other Barthelme I've read, The Law of Averages, maybe, but magic all the same.

[Karim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't believe it's not Ann Beattie!!!!!