Do Not Deny Me: Stories

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Do Not Deny Me: Stories (eBook) Pub. Date: 12/1/2009 Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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Do Not Deny Me: Stories (Original) Pub. Date: 6/9/2009 Publisher: Simon & Schuster

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Overview

Jean Thompson, heralded as "America's Alice Munro...one of the best contemporary short-story writers" by Kirkus Reviews, delivers twelve exquisite new stories that combine her beloved trademarks of dark humor, seductively sharp wit, and uncanny observations on human nature. Do Not Deny Me is a fictional primer on how Americans live day to day: Thompson's characters — a middle manager in the midst of midlife crisis, an urban single visiting her best friend turned suburban mother, a grieving woman looking for guidance — are instantly recognizable in their predicaments, foibles, and sensibilities.

A brilliantly wrought exploration of the myriad circumstances that Americans are experiencing right now, this superlative collection perfectly captures the joys and amusements, trials and sorrows of its fictional inhabitants. Do Not Deny Me should be savored, word by word.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

National Book Award-finalist Thompson (for Who Do You Love) delivers a deeply affecting collection that elevates the quotidian to the sublime. In the title story, Julia, a young woman "embarrassed" for "people [who] talked about guardian angels or spirit guides," visits a psychic after her boyfriend dies. Faced with the ability to access the world beyond, she recoils sharply. The collection goes on to explore a bewildering array of experience, from a young wife denying her husband's white-collar crimes in "Liberty Tax" to the concerned neighbor of "Little Brown Bird" who is powerless to help a little girl being molested by her father. In "Escape," a man who has suffered a stroke finds himself at the mercy of his increasingly abusive wife. Determined to get away from her, he's pleasantly shocked when she solves his problem in a way he never counted on. Thompson immerses readers in details and emotions so consuming and convincing that the inane vagaries of modern life can take on near mythic importance. This collection shows the confidence and power of a writer in her prime. (June)

Library Journal

Thompson (Who Do You Love) takes us to a disturbing place in this darkly beautiful collection of short stories-her fifth. We see lives falling apart, relationships soured and occasionally violent, and hope distant and elusive. The characters, youngish suburbanites who are all well depicted, are often drawn to each other by a terrible loneliness, but even their most basic attempts at human connection usually fail. Some fail for predictable reasons (pettiness, jealousy, meanness), others for reasons that are more complex and perhaps ultimately unexplainable.
—Patrick Sullivan

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Kirkus Reviews

The experiences of ordinary people making their claims to be understood and respected are precisely depicted in this fifth collection from the increasingly accomplished Thompson (Throw Like a Girl, 2007, etc.). The characters in these dozen stories are people we all know, or can easily imagine. When a lonely woman accepts a married friend's Thanksgiving invitation, she becomes enmeshed in a domestic hornet's nest ("Wilderness"). An office worker ("Mr. Rat"), who thinks he's God's gift to the female colleague with a crush on him, first sees himself as a newly compassionate and sensitive person, then realizes with both chagrin and relief that he is "a genius at self-preservation." Wives betrayed by dishonest or indifferent spouses, husbands and fathers smothered by family responsibilities, an accident victim who learns he isn't the center of the universe, a bereaved young woman initially comforted and eventually terrorized by her new psychic "friend" (in the eerie title story)-all first swim into our ken as odd, unlikely specimens, but then Thompson, who wields illuminating quotidian details and stunningly apt cliches with lethal skill, demonstrates how closely their desires and disappointments parallel and echo our own. Three stories are especially impressive. A man enfeebled and speechless following a stroke yearns for a means of "Escape" from his embittered, condescending wife, who unintentionally (and ironically) provides it. In "Her Untold Story," a continuation of "Wilderness," a divorced suburban mom seeks a new life, taking up jogging, then risking a blind date and meeting a "stranger" who's as much a part of her rejected past as her infuriating ex. In the lovely "Treehouse," adisillusioned dad finds in the title project a refuge from a world "grown too large . . . too cluttered with bewilderment and pain. Now he had made it small enough to fit inside himself."Wonderful work from a contemporary master of scrupulous observation, plain statement and unvarnished common sense. Agent: Henry Dunow/Dunow, Carlson & Lerner

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781416595632
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 6/9/2009
Edition description: Original
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 624,187
Product dimensions: 5.56 (w) x 8.52 (h) x 0.75 (d)

Meet the Author

Jean Thompson is the author of Who Do You Love: Stories, a 1999 National Book Award finalist for fiction, and the novels City Boy and Wide Blue Yonder, a New York Times Notable Book and Chicago Tribune Best Fiction selection. She lives in Urbana, Illinois. Visit her at www.jeanthompsononline.com.

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MJinPA

Posted May 5, 2010

I Also Recommend:

Undeniably Satisfying

This is the first I've read of Jean Thompson, and I think I'm in love. What a perfect title: I felt sated at the end of each story and yet couldn't put down the book. It didn't hurt that the first story, "Soldiers of Spiritos", struck a deep chord. (If sitting down with a good book is one of your greatest pleasures - a far greater pleasure than later deconstructing that book - I think you will love it, too.) "Escape" is a killer of a short story: perfect characters, perfect pacing, perfect climax, perfect ending. If I were to write one short story, I'd love it to be "Her Untold Story". I read the climax with delighted horror. And the title track is pitch perfect, exquisitely stirring up feelings of loss and longing. If you love short stories and think you'd like some kind of an honesty hybrid between Elizabeth Berg, Alice Munro, Mary Karr, and Jeannette Walls, you will certainly enjoy this collection. I highly recommend it.
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Anonymous

Posted September 15, 2009

Wonderful book of short stories by a very talented writer who has a unique voice.

This is a beautifully written book of short stories. The characters are memorable and the stories stay with you. This would be a good book for book club discussions. Her style is original and imaginative.
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Lynie

Posted August 31, 2009

more from this reviewer

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WOW

Jean Thompson's stories are wonderful! Especially loved ESCAPE. Only bad thing is that I now have to go buy all of her other books.
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Anonymous

Posted May 31, 2009

Recommended by WSJ for Summer Reading List

http://tinyurl.com/myca6y

"Ms Thompson has been called America's Alice Munro and in this collection of delicate tales of modern life she earns the comparison. . . Ms Thompson's puckish spirit comes through in every story, but each one is completely original."
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Posted January 14, 2010

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