Pillow Talk in Europe and Other Places

by Deborah Levy

From the author of Billy and Girl, this collection of stories explores the emptiness at the center of the characters' lives and their attempts to fill this lack. In "Cave Girl" Cass goes through a sex change, not to become a man, but rather to become "less of a real girl and more of a pretend woman." Her surgery transforms her into a woman desired by all men--including her brother. "Conversations with Famous Artists I Have Known" relates an afternoon discussion between two women, one who chose motherhood and a routine life at the expense of her creativity, the other a world famous, self-centered artist. In these stories about friendship, motherhood, and the search for enduring love, rules about decency and kindness are broken and repaired as men and women attempt to achieve an elusive sense of fulfillment.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Female Authors, British Literature, Literature

103 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2003

About the author

Deborah Levy trained at Dartington College of Arts leaving in 1981 to write a number of plays, highly acclaimed for their "intellectual rigour, poetic fantasy and visual imagination", including PAX, HERESIES for the Royal Shakespeare Company, CLAM, CALL BLUE JANE, SHINY NYLON, HONEY BABY MIDDLE ENGLAND, PUSHING THE PRINCE INTO DENMARK and MACBETH-FALSE MEMORIES, some of which are published in LEVY: PLAYS 1 (Methuen)

Deborah wrote and published her first novel BEAUTIFUL MUTANTS (Vintage), when she was 27 years old. The experience of not having to give her words to a director, actors and designer to interpret, was so exhilarating, she wrote a few more. These include, SWALLOWING GEOGRAPHY, THE UNLOVED (Vintage) and BILLY and GIRL (Bloomsbury). She has always written across a number of art forms (see Bookworks and Collaborations with visual artists) and was Fellow in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1989-1991.

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Six of the nine stories in this volume I'd already read in other Levy collections (5 are in Black Vodka) and the three 'new' ones are not amongst her very best. But enjoyed reading (or re-reading) them all anyway.

[Martine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ikke det beste jeg har lest av Deborah Levy, men er alltid vanskelig å gi en samlet vurdering av noveller! Det er skrevet veldig bra, og fine refleksjoner i novellene.

Fra Cave Girl:
I used to be scared of open spaces until I realized it was indoors that was the most frightening.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, I'll admit it. I was seduced by the title. Any book with "pillow talk" and "Europe" in the title has got to be worth reading.

In this collection of short stories, Deborah Levy examines what it's like to be a mother with fat arms (been there) and not being able to walk fast enough to keep up with your beautiful, thin friend.

She writes about a young girl who transforms herself into someone eerily beautiful, caring, fun -- so unlike her original self that she is feared and desired by her brother, the narrator.

The stories are bizarre, surreal, completely engaging and thought-provoking. The only story I didn't love was "Vienna", told in a male voice, that seemed so detached that this reader was disengaged.

I admire Ms. Levy for taking that risk.

This is the first book I've read by Deborah Levy and I'm definitely going find more of her work.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely, spare stories that are alternately obscure and disturbing.

[Juliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I certainly don’t want to talk about the things she’s asking me. Not that. Not at 4pm. The low time. The time that feels like I have stones in my pockets.” I thought I’d read all of Deborah Levy’s books, until an updated list of her work appeared in Real Estate, including three out of print books, and Pillow Talk in Europe and Other Place was one of them. Of the stories in this collection, I’d already read five, which had appeared in Levy’s Black Vodka: ‘Pillow Talk’, ‘Vienna’, ‘Cave Girl’, ‘Simon Tegala’s Heart in 13 Parts’ and ‘A Better Way to Live’ — stories of love and failed relationships, adultery, women who want to be something else. This is one of the collection’s overarching themes: opener ‘Conversations With Famous Artists I Have Known (But Who Don’t Necessarily Know Me)’ offering up a view of women undone both by the decision to have children and not to, the ways in which mothers with no interiority are as deathly uninteresting as artists with no care for those around them. Later, in ‘Clearing The Air’, marriage is an uncertain refuge from the chaos of life, while in ‘Emptiness’, the lives of two estranged lovers, united for the monthly breakfast they share, leads to chaos — jellyfish and cells, neediness and indifference and an abandoned doll — all detritus from the end of love. Finally, ‘The Way She Walked’ serves as a return to the weight of motherhood from the first story, reminding us that “Love is difficult but it’s the best way of being in the world.”

[Singleton Makin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will say she has proven to me she can create other characters outside herself , her prose I mean.

Personally though some of these seem like extra stuff or side bar random stories from magazine subscriptions…to get a paycheck or to write for a certain intelligentsia literary journal, like All-Story ….or The Sun.

But the key is she is still consistent with the symbols and her metaphors are brilliant. I learn more about writing than enjoying her stories for sheer pleasure. They are truthful realistic painful stories …. And so they command center stage and seem sad blind and arrogant but again consistently served and so they are honest!

Lastly I say I read this and will read more of her work because it is different and I was first lassoed in by her book about writing compared to George Orwells essay “Why I Write”
That book is more brilliant and drew me inward toward her magic experiments in prose and even more her ability to jump time without being cliché….no she uses it as a jumping or diving board into her own life….

Maybe there why I liked that one better than this as I could see her real life her real character vs these imaginary people randomly sliced into slices of life, take it or leave it.

Enjoy it but realize she is someone to reread not just rush through in one sitting. The flavor is better if you let it stew a bit….

[Lisa Jewell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm grateful to my bestie for Pillow Talk. As always Deborah Levy is cryptic and deeply deep. I always learn so much when reading Deborah Levy, and I continue to be utterly in love with her mind and pen.

Pillow Talk is a slim book with at times larger than life stories.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but not my favorite.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this slim collection of short stories, Levy once again works her magic with the English language -- and offers fresh insights into the human condition. Her prose is spare, but each one of them packs an emotional punch. You'll want to read these stories once, twice, and maybe three times -- each time discovering something new.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

It show you a very different perspective of a persons thoughts during conversations.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

things don't go so well for these lovers.