The New York Times Book Review - Naomi Fry
Bergman's decision to structure these stories around the real lives of once on-the-verge-of-eminent, now mostly forgotten women might appear at first didactic…Fortunately, Bergman always historicizes and never idealizes. These stories feel both specific and flexible, depicting characters whose complexity and variability hinder the making of any one unifying "point."
People Magazine
"Fascinating."
The New York Times - John Williams
"[Bergman] nimbly animates the stories when she approaches them from tangential angles, often from the perspective of another character with something at stake."
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Julie Hakim Azzam
"A cleverly constructed, honest, and thoughtful book of stories. Fans of historical fiction and biography will find much to delight and ponder in these pages."
Fresh Air - Maureen Corrigan
"Ingenious… atmospheric… intense, richly imagined tales."
The Huffington Post - Maddie Crum
"By exploring the women who didn't quite make it into history books, Bergman offers thoughtful commentary on the stories we do and don't preserve."
Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Gina Webb
"Bergman’s scenarios are addictive and tantalizing, each one whetting our appetite for more... stunning depictions of how fame’s fire warms with even the slightest contact."
Boston Globe - S. Kirk Walsh
"Graceful prose charged with knowingness and certitude... Thanks to Bergman’s assured writing, many of these women — fictional and historical — will burn bright in one’s mind well after reading these fine stories."
Chicago Tribune - Amy Gentry
"There's an allure to reading about the historical lives of women who bucked social conventions, even when they come, as they so often do, to a tragic end. We read them with an element of wish-fulfillment, searching for assurances that there were other ways to think and be."
Shelf Awareness - Cheryl Crocker McKeon
"Thrill-seeking women abound in the collection, chock-full of bravery, defiance and creativity."
GQ - Tara Wanda Merrigan
"Seek within to find the forgotten. Bergman's well-written short stories tell the tales of women who almost made it into history books."
Kansas City Star - Leanna Bales
"Real women are found at the heart of these tales, women unusual for their times and almost entirely forgotten in ours... Arresting... Sympathetic, never romanticizing often self-destructive behavior, but exploring why these women sought risk taking and the effect of their impulses."
Miami Herald - Connie Ogle
"Stories that are so intriguing you wish they were full-length novels... Bergman revives these often troubled spirits with great compassion."
Minneapolis Star Tribune - Jim Carmin
"Gives us the best of what short fiction offers: a glimpse of intriguing characters, told in unique and varied voices, set in pivotal snatches of their fascinating lives... Bergman is a spry and meticulous writer, and these stories linger in one’s memory long after reading them."
Vanity Fair
"Fearless stories star[ring] an eccentric cavalcade."
Bustle
"Gutsy and expertly written."
MORE Magazine
In these inventive short stories, off-the-radar historical characters—a motorbike racer, a diva, Oscar Wilde’s niece—enter the limelight at last.
The Oprah Magazine O
"Rough-cut gems of a bygone era."
Molly Antopol
"Megan Mayhew Bergman is a tremendous writer — compassionate and intelligent, generous and funny — and Almost Famous Women is a collection filled with empathy, insight and extraordinary psychological precision. Mayhew Bergman has made the women who inhabit this beautiful book come fully to life — I won't ever forget them."
Lily King
Megan Mayhew Bergman breathes life into lives that men and history have cast aside. It is rare that an author is as fearless as her characters. Bergman is, and Almost Famous Women is a stunning feat of great daring.
Anjelica Huston
Lovely and heartbreaking.
Lauren Groff
Megan Mayhew Bergman writes with an astonishing force of empathy, a compassion as bright and illuminating as a klieg light. The reader of Almost Famous Women can't help but be seduced by these eccentric, subversive, passionate women who lived their lives with their entire souls and who were furiously unapologetic for doing so.
Emma Straub
Almost Famous Women is sharp, compassionate, and strong, just like the women depicted in its pages. Megan Mayhew Bergman writes with such precision that we should all quake in her presence. This book only looks like it's made of paper— you are holding priceless diamonds in your hand.
Claire Vaye Watkins
"Every one of these stories is as vibrant, as urgent, as surprising as the women therein. What a thrill to listen as they cohere into a chorus of powerful, affecting and often hilarious voices, each unforgettable, together undeniable. Another stunning collection from the brilliant Megan Mayhew Bergman."
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2014-11-06
In her second story collection, Bergman tells the forgotten tales of women hovering on the edges of history.From Allegra Byron, the poet's illegitimate daughter, to Dolly Wilde, Oscar's niece, this book collects notable women whose lives have been forgotten. As the protagonist of "Who Killed Dolly Wilde?" muses, "[m]aybe the world had been bad to its great and unusual women"—and Bergman seeks to rectify this by bringing their glories and sorrows sharply to life. The tales focus on the characters' changed lives after near-fame and are often narrated by ancillary characters, creating uniquely observant perspectives. In various settings—lavish but morgue-quiet bedrooms, cheerless Italian convents, remote islands—the women deal with their trials large and small. In "The Autobiography of Allegra Byron," a nun struggles as 4-year-old Allegra pines for her famous father, who never visits the convent where she lives despite her constant letters and worsening illness. "The Siege at Whale Cay" finds Joe Carstairs, the fastest woman on water, lording over her own private island but suffering from post-traumatic stress after serving as an ambulance driver in World War II. And Romaine Brooks, a formerly famous artist who hasn't painted in 40 years, spits constant, bitter orders at her servant, Mario—until he turns the tables in the final, mesmerizing paragraphs of "Romaine Remains." "The Internees," though more snapshot than story, provides a vivid and moving account of the women of Bergen-Belsen accepting boxes of expired lipstick during their camp's liberation: "We had pink wax on our rotten teeth. We were human again. We were women." Though some stories seem to reveal more about their fictional narrators than about the women themselves, this gives the collection a unified feel and helps readers see how little the public has understood about these women and their genius. Only "The Lottery, Redux," a spinoff of the Shirley Jackson tale, seems obviously symbolic and mars this otherwise original and surprising collection. A collection of stories as beautiful and strange as the women who inspired them.
