No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories [NOOK Book]

( 46 )

Overview


Award-winning filmmaker and performing artist Miranda July brings her extraordinary talents to the page in a startling, sexy, and tender collection. In these stories, July gives the most seemingly insignificant moments a sly potency. A benign encounter, a misunderstanding, a shy revelation can reconfigure the world. Her characters engage awkwardly -- they are sometimes too remote, sometimes too intimate. With great compassion and generosity, July reveals their idiosyncrasies and the odd logic and longing that ...
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No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories

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More About This Book

Overview


Award-winning filmmaker and performing artist Miranda July brings her extraordinary talents to the page in a startling, sexy, and tender collection. In these stories, July gives the most seemingly insignificant moments a sly potency. A benign encounter, a misunderstanding, a shy revelation can reconfigure the world. Her characters engage awkwardly -- they are sometimes too remote, sometimes too intimate. With great compassion and generosity, July reveals their idiosyncrasies and the odd logic and longing that govern their lives. No One Belongs Here More Than You is a stunning debut, the work of a writer with a spectacularly original and compelling voice.
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Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble
Already a darling of the indie avant-garde, performance artist and award-winning film director Miranda July now storms the literary ramparts with a collection of transcendent short fiction that adds luster to her reputation. Peppered with startling (and sometimes shocking) plot twists, the 16 stories in this anthology feature lonely misfits riddled with eccentricities, longing for connection, and desperate to invent some happiness in a world that throws up barriers at every turn. As she did so memorably in her art house hit Me and You and Everyone We Know, July forces us to see the humanity in people who are less than lovable, laying bare their vulnerabilities with exquisite and unexpected tenderness. With rave reviews from respected literati like Dave Eggars, Rick Moody, and George Saunders, this debut collection seems poised to make a big splash.
Sheelah Kolhatkar
… there are stories like “Something That Needs Nothing,” about two girls who run away together. This is July at her best — funny and insightful, offering moments of utter heartbreak through deeper, more sophisticated storytelling. The exploits of the narrator and her girlfriend, Pip, who “saw herself as a charming street urchin, a pet for wealthy mothers,” as they cope with a roach-infested apartment, break up and reconnect, are both tender and gripping. Even as the narrator discovers a talent for peeling off her clothes in a grimy peep-booth, one can’t help rooting for her, awkwardness and all.
— The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
It's a testament to July's artistry that the narrators of this arresting first collection elicit empathy rather than groans. "Making Love in 2003," for example, follows a young woman's dubious trajectory from being the passive, discarded object of her writing professor's attentions to seducing a 14-year-old boy in the special-needs class she teaches, while another young woman enters the sex industry when her girlfriend abandons her, with a surprising effect on the relationship. July's characters over these 16 stories get into similarly extreme situations in their quests to be loved and accepted, and often resort to their fantasy lives when the real world disappoints (which is often): the self-effacing narrator of "The Shared Patio" concocts a touching romance around her epilectic Korean neighbor; the aging single man of "The Sister" weaves an elaborate fantasy around his factory colleague Victor's teenage sister (who doesn't exist) to seduce someone else. July's single emotional register is familiar from her film Me and You and Everyone We Know, but it's a capacious one: wry, wistful, vulnerable, tough and tender, it fully accommodates moments of bleak human reversals. These stories are as immediate and distressing as confessionals. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
A filmmaker (Me and You and Everyone We Know) and multimedia artist (www.learningtoloveyoumore.com), July brings her trademark whimsy to this debut story collection. The protagonists here are lonely dreamers, and what they dream about is often a little creepy: a territorial type, wondering whether she is getting her money's worth out of the patio she has to share, falls asleep while her neighbor has a seizure on the bench beside her; a middle-aged woman fantasizes about seducing Prince William to the sounds of Mike and the Mechanics; a disgruntled secretary goes to absurd lengths to befriend her boss's wife. Betrayals small and large seem to be the norm, and inappropriate sex abounds: student-teacher, therapist-patient, consensual incest, molestation. Some of these couplings are startling, but others are clich s that drag down an otherwise witty and unusual book. The best moments here are small-a spectacular failure in sewing class, an unexpected visit from a neighborhood boy, a lost dog named Potato-and as they accrue the collection becomes an exhilarating read.-Leora Bersohn, doctoral student, Columbia Univ., New York Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
An accomplished debut collection of 16 stories, simultaneously bizarre and achingly familiar. July wrote, directed and starred in the indie film Me and You and Everyone We Know, and the same slightly anguished humor informs these stories, peopled by misfits and loners not quite apprised of their own lowly status. The characters interact tentatively, inappropriately. They are dangerously lonesome people (despite their naive attempts to connect) who have a lot of awkward sex. In "The Sister," an old bachelor is fixed up by fellow factory worker Victor. Victor's sister Blanca is always just out of sight, misses dates, becomes the stuff of mythology between the two men-until it becomes clear on a drugged-out night what Victor's intentions really are. The longest of the collection, "Something That Needs Nothing," follows two lesbians after high-school graduation as they run away to Portland, Ore. There they rent a cockroach-infested studio and try to find work, preferably one servicing an older woman willing to support them. Things don't work out quite so dreamily, as one girl abandons the other to earn a living at Mr. Peeps Adult Video Store and More. "Mon Plaisir" traces a couple's decline from passionless (including some of the saddest sex possible-he "nurses" her while she masturbates) to mute, as they find they like each other more when they get work as extras in a movie. There are a number of evocative short pieces-a woman teaches some seniors how to swim, a teacher believes her teenage poltergeist lover has taken the form of one of her Special Ed students, a woman who has had a port-stain birthmark removed from her face wonders if her husband would love her if she still had it. Thestories have an otherworldly quality, but instead of being fantastical, they are emblematic of a modern loneliness in which the boundaries of normal behavior become useless, where the best that can be hoped for is a kind of aggressive voyeurism. A smart, original collection.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781416539674
  • Publisher: Scribner
  • Publication date: 5/15/2007
  • Sold by: Simon & Schuster
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 224
  • File size: 894 KB

Meet the Author


Miranda July is a filmmaker, writer, and performing artist. Her work has been presented at sites such as The Kitchen, the Guggenheim Museum, and in two Whitney Biennials. She wrote, directed, and starred in her first feature-length film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, which received a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. July's short fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper's, and Zoetrope, and has been heard on Public Radio. Raised in Berkeley, California, she lives in Los Angeles.
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Read an Excerpt


This Person

Someone is getting excited. Somebody somewhere is shaking with excitement because something tremendous is about to happen to this person. This person has dressed for the occasion. This person has hoped and dreamed and now it is really happening and this person can hardly believe it. But believing is not an issue here, the time for faith and fantasy is over, it is really really happening. It involves stepping forward and bowing. Possibly there is some kneeling, such as when one is knighted. One is almost never knighted. But this person may kneel and receive a tap on each shoulder with a sword. Or, more likely, this person will be in a car or a store or under a vinyl canopy when it happens. Or online or on the phone. It could be an e-mail re: your knighthood. Or a long, laughing, rambling phone message in which every person this person has ever known is talking on a speakerphone and they are all saying,You have passed the test, it was all just a test, we were only kidding, real life is so much better than that. This person is laughing out loud with relief and playing the message back to get the address of the place where every person this person has ever known is waiting to hug this person and bring her into the fold of life. It is really exciting, and it's not just a dream, it's real.

They are all waiting by a picnic table in a park this person has driven past many times before. There they are, it's everyone. There are balloons taped to the benches, and the girl this person used to stand next to at the bus stop is waving a streamer. Everyone is smiling. For a moment this person is almost creeped out by the scene, but it would be so like this person to become depressed on the happiest day ever, and so this person bucks up and joins the crowd.

Teachers of subjects that this person wasn't even good at are kissing this person and renouncing the very subjects they taught. Math teachers are saying that math was just a funny way of saying "I love you." But now they are simply saying it, I love you, and the chemistry and PE teachers are also saying it and this person can tell they really mean it. It's totally amazing. Certain jerks and idiots and assholes appear from time to time, and it is as if they have had plastic surgery, their faces are disfigured with love. The handsome assholes are plain and kind, and the ugly jerks are sweet, and they are folding this person's sweater and putting it somewhere where it won't get dirty. Best of all, every person this person has ever loved is there. Even the ones who got away. They hold this person's hand and tell this person how hard it was to pretend to get mad and drive off and never come back. This person almost can't believe it, it seemed so real, this person's heart was broken and has healed and now this person hardly knows what to think. This person is almost mad. But everyone soothes this person. Everyone explains that it was absolutely necessary to know how strong this person was. Oh, look, there's the doctor who prescribed the medicine that made this person temporarily blind. And the man who paid this person two thousand dollars to have sex with him three times when this person was very broke. Both of these men are in attendance, they seem to know each other. They both have little medals that they are pinning on this person; they are badges of great honor and strength. The badges sparkle in the sunlight, and everyone cheers.

This person suddenly feels the need to check her post office box. It is an old habit, and even if everything is going to be terrific from now on, this person still wants mail. This person says she will be right back and everyone this person has ever known says, Fine, take your time. This person gets in her car and drives to the post office and opens the box and there is nothing. Even though it is a Tuesday, which is famously a good day for mail. This person is so disappointed, this person gets back in the car and, having completely forgotten about the picnic, drives home and checks the voice mail and there are no new messages, just the old one about "passing the test" and "life being better." There are no e-mails, either, probably because everyone is at the picnic. This person can't seem to go back to the picnic. This person realizes that staying home means blowing off everyone this person has ever known. But the desire to stay in is very strong. This person wants to run a bath and then read in bed.

In the bathtub this person pushes the bubbles around and listens to the sound of millions of them popping at once. It almost makes one smooth sound instead of many tiny sounds. This person's breasts barely jut out of the water. This person pushes the bubbles onto the breasts and makes weird shapes with the foam. By now everyone must have realized that this person is not coming back to the picnic. Everyone was wrong; this person is not who they thought this person was. This person plunges underwater and moves her hair around like a sea anemone. This person can stay underwater for an impressively long time but only in a bathtub. This person wonders if there will ever be an Olympic contest for holding your breath under bathwater. If there were such a contest, this person would surely win it. An Olympic medal might redeem this person in the eyes of everyone this person has ever known. But no such contest exists, so there will be no redeeming. This person mourns the fact that she has ruined her one chance to be loved by everyone; as this person climbs into bed, the weight of this tragedy seems to bear down upon this person's chest. And it is a comforting weight, almost human in heft. This person sighs. This person's eyes begin to close, this person sleeps.

Copyright © 2007 by Miranda July

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Table of Contents


Contents

The Shared Patio

The Swim Team

Majesty

The Man on the Stairs

The Sister

This Person

It Was Romance

Something That Needs Nothing

I Kiss a Door

The Boy from Lam Kien

Making Love in 2003

Ten True Things

The Moves

Mon Plaisir

Birthmark How to Tell Stories to Children

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Introduction

No One Belongs Here More Than You

Reading Group Guide

Discussion Questions:

1. Many of the characters in Miranda July's stories are lonely, vulnerable and tentative, yet clearly the intent of the author is not to expose or ridicule them but to make them sympathetic to the reader. Are there characters in these stories who unexpectedly win your heart? Are there some whose behavior you cannot understand?

2. In The Shared Patio, the narrator explains that telling Vincent Chang "it's not your fault" was "really the only thing I had ever wanted to say to anyone, and be told" (pg. 7). What does she mean by this?

3. In The Swim Team, "Maria" tells Kelda that resisting putting her face into the bowl of water is "the body telling you it doesn't want to die" (pg. 16). What is it that divides the three elderly people in this story to sign up for swimming lessons?

4. The narrator in Majesty educates people on earthquake safety, engaging her own fears. And she dreams of Prince William? Yet she says "Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy to hope for something else" (pg. 31), why does she have this dream? Is there a strange optimism in Miranda July's stories?

5. What does The Man on the Stairs represent? Why does the narrator think about the friends she dislikes and the boy at the gas station when she first hears him coming towards her room? Instead of waking Kevin or calling for help, why does she get out of bed and face him by herself?

6. "We do terrible things, we make wars, we kill out of greed. So who are we to say how to love" (pg. 43). Does the narrator in The Sister truly believe his argument for preferringteenage girls, or is this a rationalization that allows him to continue his behavior? When does he first realize Blanca doesn't actually exist? And why does he acquiesce to Victor?

7. What is the "dark shape" in Making Love in 2003? As an adult, why does the narrator believe this darkness has been transformed into her student, Stephen Krause? After discovering he has another girlfriend, why does she write "Peace" on the chalkboard?

8. In Mon Plaisir, what is the significance of Carl and the narrator practicing Buddhism, tai chi, macrobiotic diets, and favoring only things that are "MEANINGFUL" (pg. 148)?

9. In Birthmark, why does the narrator regret her decision to remove her "stain?" What did this mark represent to both her and others? When it reappears, why does her husband believe she'll finally want to have a child with him?

10. When and why does the relationship change between Deb and Lyon in How to Tell Stories to Children? Do you consider their family relationship in the best interest of the three adults, or the child? If her eyes are "triumphant" (pg. 201) when she brings Ed Borger home, what is Lyon trying to win?

11. In Something That Needs Nothing, "Gwen" noticed "We were always getting away with something, which implied that someone was always watching us, which meant we were not alone in this world" (pg. 75). Several of the characters in other stories also mention the idea of someone looking over them. Is this a way of assuring loneliness?

12. Are there any overarching themes that link these stories together? Did you find connections between the characters — do they occupy similar worlds?

13. Discuss the sense of loneliness in this collection. Which characters feel isolated from the rest of society? Is this their choice? Do any of them change?

Enhancing Your Book Club Tips:

1. Not only is Miranda July an award-winning author, she's also an accomplished filmmaker and performer. Before discussing No One Belongs Here More Than You, watch her movie Me and You and Everyone We Know.

2. To find out more information about Miranda July's projects, visit her website at: www.mirandajuly.com.

3. Miranda and artists Harold Fletcher created a participatory website: http://learningtoloveyoumore.com/ Visit it and share what you thought with your bookclub!

Read More Show Less

Reading Group Guide


No One Belongs Here More Than You

Reading Group Guide

Discussion Questions:

1. Many of the characters in Miranda July's stories are lonely, vulnerable and tentative, yet clearly the intent of the author is not to expose or ridicule them but to make them sympathetic to the reader. Are there characters in these stories who unexpectedly win your heart? Are there some whose behavior you cannot understand?

2. In The Shared Patio, the narrator explains that telling Vincent Chang "it's not your fault" was "really the only thing I had ever wanted to say to anyone, and be told" (pg. 7). What does she mean by this?

3. In The Swim Team, "Maria" tells Kelda that resisting putting her face into the bowl of water is "the body telling you it doesn't want to die" (pg. 16). What is it that divides the three elderly people in this story to sign up for swimming lessons?

4. The narrator in Majesty educates people on earthquake safety, engaging her own fears. And she dreams of Prince William? Yet she says "Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy to hope for something else" (pg. 31), why does she have this dream? Is there a strange optimism in Miranda July's stories?

5. What does The Man on the Stairs represent? Why does the narrator think about the friends she dislikes and the boy at the gas station when she first hears him coming towards her room? Instead of waking Kevin or calling for help, why does she get out of bed and face him by herself?

6. "We do terrible things, we make wars, we kill out of greed. So who are we to say how to love" (pg. 43). Does the narrator in The Sister truly believe his argument for preferring teenage girls, or is this a rationalization that allows him to continue his behavior? When does he first realize Blanca doesn't actually exist? And why does he acquiesce to Victor?

7. What is the "dark shape" in Making Love in 2003? As an adult, why does the narrator believe this darkness has been transformed into her student, Stephen Krause? After discovering he has another girlfriend, why does she write "Peace" on the chalkboard?

8. In Mon Plaisir, what is the significance of Carl and the narrator practicing Buddhism, tai chi, macrobiotic diets, and favoring only things that are "MEANINGFUL" (pg. 148)?

9. In Birthmark, why does the narrator regret her decision to remove her "stain?" What did this mark represent to both her and others? When it reappears, why does her husband believe she'll finally want to have a child with him?

10. When and why does the relationship change between Deb and Lyon in How to Tell Stories to Children? Do you consider their family relationship in the best interest of the three adults, or the child? If her eyes are "triumphant" (pg. 201) when she brings Ed Borger home, what is Lyon trying to win?

11. In Something That Needs Nothing, "Gwen" noticed "We were always getting away with something, which implied that someone was always watching us, which meant we were not alone in this world" (pg. 75). Several of the characters in other stories also mention the idea of someone looking over them. Is this a way of assuring loneliness?

12. Are there any overarching themes that link these stories together? Did you find connections between the characters -- do they occupy similar worlds?

13. Discuss the sense of loneliness in this collection. Which characters feel isolated from the rest of society? Is this their choice? Do any of them change?

Enhancing Your Book Club Tips:

1. Not only is Miranda July an award-winning author, she's also an accomplished filmmaker and performer. Before discussing No One Belongs Here More Than You, watch her movie Me and You and Everyone We Know.

2. To find out more information about Miranda July's projects, visit her website at: mirandajuly.com.

3. Miranda and artists Harold Fletcher created a participatory website: learningtoloveyoumore.com/ Visit it and share what you thought with your bookclub!

Read More Show Less

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 46 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(23)

4 Star

(12)

3 Star

(4)

2 Star

(2)

1 Star

(5)

Your Rating:

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 46 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted July 11, 2007

    A reviewer

    I've found that people either adore Miranda July or loathe her. I am, personally, in the former. These stories were a nice break from all of the seemingly heavy things I've been reading lately- not that they were not meaningful, because, oh, they were. They were not full of superfluous language and clichés. They were like how it would be if someone told you about something that had happened to them or possibly, how you may think/narrate/feel inside your head. I found the book exceptional!

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 18, 2008

    for those who don't 'get' it

    I was browsing reviews for this book and I became irritated with people who did not understand July's writing. She is not writing, 'The sky is blue...' She goes above and beyond imagination. For those who like quirky, this book is it.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 9, 2008

    Brilliant.

    This is a work of genius, a trans-genre satirization of modern life captured by way of a secular medium in the holest of ways. In keeping with avant-garde genius, this work should be trivialized, rejected and missed by the mass-minded. July, in both contemporary and historic terms, has done justice to literature in the 21st Century I truly cannot think of literary statements more articulate on the periodic condition in the last 100 years save for Henry Miller, Albert Camus, J.D. Salinger, Ira Levin, Brett Easton Ellis,and Chuck Palahniuk. Though in short-story format, her work must be considered equal to those formerly mentioned. Furthermore, I don't think a single pair of literate eyes could disagree.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 4, 2008

    A reviewer

    Miranda July is the most wonderful writer of our generation. Her stories are so full of emotion and truth that they make your heart ache. This book is one of the most achingly poignant books I have ever read. Do yourself a favor and buy this book now!

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 25, 2007

    A reviewer

    As in her other work, July seeks to find connectedness between individuals, between the idividual and nature, and to her audience. She pretends to be a naive dreamer, but she is an observant witness to both human cruelty and naivete. Her stories have little to do with realism or with characters or with 'storytelling.' They are essays told in the form of narrative jokes, and comic timing is one of their primary strengths. I haven't been so captivated by the short story form since I discovered Kafka and O'Connor. July uses it to her ends, and has created, I think, a new kind of fiction in the process. I call it 'cosmic' because it views reality, desire, and being as an interconnected whole.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 4, 2012

    Miranda July Is An Artist

    She impresses me with everything she does and this book is no exception.

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  • Posted October 1, 2011

    Me and You and Everyone in Miranda's World

    Because all but one of the stories in this collection are told in the first person, it is easy for me to visualize Miranda July, the writer, director and star of the film Me and You and Everyone We Know, as that character. Even though there are references to physical descriptions of some of these that don't resemble Miranda July at all, it is still easy to see the viewpoint as hers. I read these stories with an all-encompassing fascination not so much because of what they were really about or because of thematic threads but because of her unique perspective on the world and her skewed yet totally accurate way of expressing her observations. The difficulty I had with the film, which I did admire for its audacity and unique vision, was that other characters also seemed to be mouthpieces for Miranda and it would have been much more palatable for me, steeped in my realistic world view, to accept one character making these observations. Honestly, I simply haven't met many people with a bizarre perspective as unique and imaginative as Miranda July's. With these stories, however, all the observations, all the metaphors, all the unlikely connections are made by a Miranda surrogate and so they can all be seen as installments in a continuing monologue she delivers to the planet. What I carry with me are recollections of breathtaking passages such as the following:
    That is my problem with life, I rush through it, like I'm being chased. Even things whose whole point is slowness, like drinking relaxing tea. When I drink relaxing tea, I suck it down as if I'm in a contest for who can drink relaxing tea the quickest. Or if I'm in a hot tub with some other people and we're all looking up at the stars, I'll be the first to say, It's so beautiful here. The sooner you say, It's so beautiful here, the quicker you can say, Wow, I'm getting overheated.
    Or this:
    Past a certain age, they give up on the name games, which is regrettable for someone like me who loves anything that involves going around a circle and saying something about yourself. I wish there was a class where we could just keep going around the circle, around and around, until we finally said everything about ourselves.

    I will be interested in seeing more films from her. However, I really look forward to more fiction/autobiographical observation/rambling/whatever she wants to call what she writes. These stories have inspired me in my own creativity more than most of what I've read in many years. I cannot bestow any higher praise than that.

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  • Posted May 7, 2010

    I Also Recommend:

    A Gin-Pissing-Raw-Meat-Dual-Carburetor-V8-Son-of-a-Bitch from Los Angeles: Collected Poems, 1983-2002

    Something that needs nothing

    a collection of short stories from artist/performer/writer Miranda July. while i wouldn't call this book un-put-down-able, i can't say i've found too many collection of short stories that are, her unique perspective is highly entertaining.
    each story defies categorization and, often times, after envisioning the story's voice in my head and my body, the short story revealed the protagonist to be an elderly man or someone else unexpected.
    my favorite story was Something That Needs Nothing. it expressed the quirkiness and self-reflection that a fan of July's "You Me and Everyone We Know" will anticipate and appreciate.
    As with all of Miranda July's work, a must for the permanent collection.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 2, 2009

    Creative and original

    Miranda July's creative wanderings are captivating. I marvel at the intellect that can come up with such diverse and original stories.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 25, 2008

    Just not into it...

    These stories do have an unfamiliar feel and a very post-modern vibe to them - the loneliness of the human condition - which unfortunately I'm not into reading. I think this book is a matter of taste and is not for everybody.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 2, 2008

    No One Should Pay More Than $5

    After reading all the hype surrounding Mirianda July's book and reading some of her fiction in the New Yorker, I also thought her book would be amazing. I was wrong. Most of her fiction left me wondering what she meant? July tries to hard to be witty and intelligent and it comes off as being whimsical. To make matters worse, I rented her movie and was again befuddled.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 15, 2008

    It's Nothing But Whimsy

    These are not really stories,but a collection of whimsy that could only be enjoyed by women who think their cats are their children,single pollyannas who border on being spinsters,and psuedo intellectuals who read too much in to everything. As far as the reviewer who was kind enough and arrogant enough to note that she's a librarian goes just because you're surrounded by books doesn't mean you have good taste. Miranda July should not follow this joke of a book up with another. People should just go and buy Katzenjammer by Jackson Tippet McCrae. Oh yeah,an even better title for Ms. July's book would have been Nobody Deserves to Read This. Give Me My Money Back!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 4, 2008

    Are you kidding?

    Well, I think this book would be entertaining to people who watch too much television, or have decided to give up any attempt at becoming intelligent. I still have hope for the world, so I will continue to read other books.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 30, 2007

    A reviewer

    I dont see how anyone could say these stories didn't have emotion. I think a lot of the point was that the characters were 'nondescript'and that she didn't spend unnecessary time and words 'fleshing them out'. I love people who use the 'anyone could do it' defense, like folks who go to the museum and look at a Pollock painting, and go 'I could just throw some paint at a canvas too'. Well you didn't, and he did. Or in this case, she did. And I personally think the results are that great balance of funny and sad and awkward that July has become known to envoke. I supose if your not into her other works, you have no reason to like this. But then, I really wouldn't see the point of reading someone's book if you are going about it with preconcieved notions and biases about how they are 'overhyped' (It's funny the magic of marketing it mentioned, because I heard nothing in the media about this book's release. I happoned upon it by chance amongst the New Releases while I was waiting for a friend at the bookstore). I really enjoyed this book, and I think that most people who go into it without any expectations of what fiction should-or-shouldnot be will too.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 20, 2007

    More Hype Than Anything Else

    In this day and age,marketing is the only true talent left in any form of enetertainment. Hyping Miranda July's collection of stories is a fine example. Dumb as it sounds,all the reviews for this collection would have you believing that Ms. July possess this incredible,almost stupendous technique for fiction. The truth is anyone with a decent grasp of writing could have written these stories. Most of the characters are nondescript,and could have been fleshed out alot more. Short stories should be sudden revelations of character and emotion. What you have here,like you do with most fiction now,is a test for the geniuses at marketing to push such mediocrity on an unassuming public who most likely will buy it thinking that its brilliant. At best,Miranda July's work is an excercise in fiction,not a finished work that could be put along side greats such as The Prince Of Tides and James Baldwin's Just Above My Head. Miranda has no real literary style,which will allow her to fit in with all the crap out there. Fiction has long since become the shabbiest whore in the brothel with all the pathetic attempts to glitz it up. Consider Miranda July's work to be one of those attempts.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 1, 2010

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 25, 2008

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 31, 2008

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 31, 2013

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 22, 2008

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