Selected Stories

by Troy James Weaver

"There’s just something weirdly perfect about Troy James Weaver’s stories. Perfect because they are, down to their syllables. Weird because what they do feels so broken it hurts. It’s a kind of double whammy effect, part awe, part ache, that’s truly singular as far as I know."
​​—​Dennis Cooper, author of The Marbled Swarm “I don’t like telling people what to do and I don’t like being told what to do. But right now I’m telling you to read the stories of Troy James Weaver. From the beginning, Weaver’s been unafraid to show us humanity in all its grotesque, stupid, and beautiful glory. His stories are for the young and for the old, for the strong and the weak, for the sick and the dying and the dead. Luckily, if you’re reading this, you’re alive and you’re holding this book in your hands. Read these stories and learn a little bit about what it means to be alive.”
​​—​Joseph Grantham, author of Raking Leaves

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Horror

77 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2020

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The words come pulsing through your chest, pushing out the other side in clots of yearning and authenticity. Just sublime.

[Bud Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this collection and this author. I wrote the introduction to Selected Stories. A mesmerizing sampling of Troy James Weaver’s work. He’s one of the most compelling underground writers telling stories today. Character driven stories full of wondrous sentences that leap between doom and glory. Sometimes his stories remind me of how the films of Gus Van Zandt made me feel when I was 16. Weaver’s writing is a perfect fit for fans of Denis Johnson, Dennis Cooper, Joy Williams, Gary Lutz, and on and on. Weaver is an idiosyncratic writer, who creates his own unique spell. Most of these stories were first written on order forms, while he sat in his car on lunch break in the Midwest, where he works as a florist.

[Jo Quenell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a big Weaver fan, and was initially bummed to see how short this book was. Turns out it's the perfect length--any longer would have been overkill. More is done in half a page than other writers can in a whole chapter. According to a social media post from a few months ago, this will be the last Weaver book for a long while. I sincerely hope not, because not many can catch emotion like he does. These stories hit hard.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of little sucker punches. His characters are poisoned, broken people, coping with loss and grief and boredom in ways that are really fucked up but also really kind of real. While not as gutting as Marigold, Weaver's way with words is still pretty damn mesmerizing. An almost too-short collection, the stories contained here are easily devour in one sitting.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some impressively bleak stories here, though the language is maybe not as sharp as my favorites from Brian Allen Carr or Stephen Graham Jones. Past the halfway point comes the darkly disorienting "Someday Soon". When your senile tenant makes statements like "I still have the knife that killed my brother", and, in your delirium, shows up where she shouldn't, you have to start looking over your shoulder. It ends like this (slight spoiler warning):

I thought killing the cat was a dream I'd wake up from, but even still, it's a beautiful day, can't deny it. And the sun, that spun-gold heat beating into me as I dig, blooms into some kind of strange revelation of better things to come, I forget the stench of her mottled fur as I dig deeper and deeper into the earth, so effusive to the task I hardly notice the little dog licking at my feet. And so what about the rent? One day. Someday soon, perhaps.

And right after, the 2-page "Daydream Nation" (I assume a reference to Sonic Youth, though I can't remember any of the lyrics). I don't want to give anything away, so I can only quote the last sentence:

Only thing I regret is he didn't look the part of a politician.

(3.5 stars.)

[Kelby Losack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each generation there will be maybe two or three but no more than a dozen truly brilliant voices in fiction and Troy James Weaver is one from the here and now. This collection does for mourning what Weaver's "Temporal" did for growing up/growing apart and what "Marigold" did for suicide.

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Selected Stories flawed characters and their struggles bear something profound. Under the deceptively simple narrative style lies an inexplicable stamp that carries each piece into places both potent and moving.

[Joseph Ritchie · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you enjoyed this book you should check out the following,

OR

If you enjoyed the following books you should pick up a copy of “selected stories” immediately;

- Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock
- Steps by Jerzy Kosinski
- Scar City by Joel Lane

[Maria Ryzhova · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to find any information about the author, but the only thing known about him is that he lives in Wichita with his wife and dogs.
Apparently, he works in wholesale floral, which sounds like a tender, beautiful job. But have you seen those people who work with flowers? It’s always the butchiest women in layers of cheap clothes and men looking miserable and definitely hungover.
So if Troy James Weaver really is from this business, it is no surprise that his stories are filled with depressive and struggling characters. What is surprising, though, is the rawness and empathy in his stories. I loved them very much. Thank you, Pavel, for recommending the book. I have no idea how you found it.

[b · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve loved Troy James Weaver’s work since first reading his book Witchita Stories. I’ve read everything that followed. He’s an author that when a new book of his comes out I buy it and then read it, dropping the other books I’m reading. His latest, Selected Stories, I think is hands down his strongest work yet. That’s a tall order to fill given his past books, but it’s true. It’s a short book, filled with short pieces, that will give you pause after each brilliant one. It is excellent, top shelf stuff. Nuanced, heartbreaking, and astute. I highly recommend it.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well Troy James Weaver didn’t let me down—these stories were great.

[Jake Beka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic flash fiction. Really poignant stuff here. Just like Bud Smith says in the introduction to the book, stands alongside Carver as one of the best American writers.

[justin louie · Rating 5 out of 5]

TJW is one of our best writers. his stories are raw and off-kilter; dispatches from dark psyches of the working class, the no class, told with the poetry of dread, the kind of language that coils into a fist and punches your heart right the fuck out of your chest. not a single false note in here or in any of his works.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Expertly crafted stories that illuminate the darker corners of human existence in America. Troy reaches into the dark spaces I'd rather overlook and pulls out a very fucked up but still beating heart. It beats just like mine.

Favorites:
- Construction
- Dog Person
- Visions of the Night Life

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up at random in a horror book shop, mostly because it was one of few anthologies on display. I was disappointed after working through the first couple of stories to find that this really isn’t a work of horror lit. My disappointment receded as I sat with it for a while, and then inverted itself entirely once I finished the collection. Though this certainly isn’t “horror” as I was searching for it, there’s a bleakness to the world of this collection that does fill that same void. Regardless of genre, the more important fact of the matter is that I’ve found James Troy Weaver.

Like much great short fiction, Weaver’s stories find their subjects after the fact. By the time the vignettes begin, the loss has already been sustained, the battle fought (and usually lost). The dramatic tension comes not from watching someone pursue a goal, but from watching someone slowly walk backwards to get a fuller view of their tattered life.

This collection of quiet moments simulates the feeling of only realizing you’ve cut yourself once you look down and see blood everywhere. That blood feels real, and vital, and so does Weaver’s writing.

[Ryan Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weaver elucidates the tragic beauty in broken, dead-end lives and the tenderness in the neuroses of addiction and dissatisfaction with this small existence within the pages of his stories. Each selection is a small taste of life shrouded and disregarded beforehand but raised to the heavens through the power of his language. A great selection!

[Gunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.7 or 3.8, nigh on 4 stars at this point in time, though I’m thinking this one warrants a reread down the line. One sentence might leave me in the dark, while another will pack a punch. A distinct voice, at least from where I’m sitting.

[zelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

writing style of me when i was 9

[Alan ten-Hoeve · Rating 5 out of 5]

What takes most writers whole books, Troy accomplishes in a matter of sentences. His words level cities and grow some of the most beautiful gardens you will ever see. I haven't read all of his stuff yet, but I plan to. Will probably cut&paste this to all the ones I did read. All so f'n great.

[Bob Comparda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of a bunch of pretty short short stories. Troy James Weaver has a very unique style, reminds me of a dark Scott McClanahan. I don't know how to describe it besides unsettling and amazing at the same time. I especially liked the stories told from the female perspective. Truly original work, I'm excited to read more from this author.

[Jim Ivy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of short stories. Troy Weaver’s writing is like a hi-definition camera snapshot of instances of traumatic or poignant realizations, where the initial impact is sketchy but one glance will fill in the minute details, sometimes, a while after reading. Love the way his mind works!

[David Catney · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Turns out you only get around to knowing folks when they’re gone—when it’s too late, as they say. But maybe too late is exactly the distance you need to feel some closeness, some love.”

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Troy James Weaver's 'Marigold' has me sneezing, coughing, wretching, laughing and crying.

The cigarettes burn the lungs. The liquor burns the stomach. Perfume burns the sinuses. Selling people a dying symbol of beauty burns the soul. Reassuring the damned burns up whatever is left.

But... The valley is still full of birds and God is still something, somewhere. History is a still-life and it burns too, Weaver says.

Bringing to mind 'Jesus' Son' by Denis Johnson and Bukowski's 'Factotum', Weaver walks the terraces of purgation as Pilgrim. There may be two ways out. Neither would be pretty. Troy James Weaver bravely and masterfully scribes the road to our demise, paved with humor and transgenic pollen, the labor of the writer as gambler, coal-walker, taking one last shot at immortality, at the dream.

Redemption. Catharsis. Escape.

[Hatseflats · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first exposure to what I now know is referred to as "flash fiction". The short form of short form fiction, I suppose you could say. Most stories only consisted of a few pages and only took a few minutes to read. It was interesting and there were some examples that left me thinking oh that was good! However, and I don't mean to sound like a bitch but, this could have been editted better. I found several errors involving missing or misplaced words in the Kindle edition I read. However, no shade intended on the writer's creativity, which was definitely there in spades. In fact, I've also bought his novella "Marigolds".

[AB · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were some good and some ugly but there certainly were not any bad.
Like any collection of short stories, there were some hits and misses but to me the hits made up for the misses. Bud Smith introducing this collection got me to try it. This is my first foray into Troy Weaver (I've been looking for a copy of Wichita Stories for what seems like ages now) and I'm happy about it, I liked a lot of the stories.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Troy James Weaver hardly misses. This is a slim, but strong collection of stories that shows a great range. I think this is the first time I've seen Troy write from different perspectives (women, queer men, landlords, crippled veterans) and it all rings hard and true, but with a soft heart when it counts. I'm glad to be alive at the same time as TJW.

[Barry Paul Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great collection of shorts. Filled with disgusting truth and crushing honesty. Some as little as a page long, but still filled with a full universe to suffer inside. Looking forward to exploring more of Weaver’s work. Apocalypse Party strikes again!

[Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first introduction to Mr. Weaver. Really enjoyed what I read and plan to read more of his work.

[Sheldon Birnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful stuff! 💥

[AutomaticSlim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the one Weaver book I wish was longer. Damnit

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