Reviews for Baby: & other Stories

The average rating for Baby: & other Stories based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-06-19 00:00:00 Floyd Allen A REVIEW AND A COMMENT ABOUT THE DAMN BLURB Suppose a guy writes a book of short stories about lawnmowers. You'd have to say he had a particular interest in them, I'd say. But suppose all these lawnmowers were either broken or leaking oil all over the lawn or aggressively running over someone's foot and severing a toe, you'd be forgiven thinking that the author had some bad grass-cutting experiences which he was working through by means of his art. So here's a book of ten stories which are all relentlessly punishingly laser-focussed on the topic of women who 1) have married the wrong guy and now hate him, 2) who have no intention of ever having sex with him ever again, 3) who have either one or two kids which they now think was on balance a disastrous idea because they don't really like them any more; 4)who live in Brooklyn and 5) are alcoholics. This is the demographic of nine out of the ten of the stories in Baby. If there is anything autobiographical about these stories, and far be it from me to make a facile assumption, but please see the above motorised gardening equipment related paragraph, then one might be predicting early death from cirrhosis of the liver or 20 to life for spousal homicide for Paula Bomer. So I am exercising my compassionate nature and hoping - hoping! - that these stories are products of her vivid yet melancholy imagination. For all you miserablists out there this will be like mother's milk. THE COMMENT ABOUT THE DAMN BLURB I quote : Paula Bomer is a dangerous writer. The short stories in her debut collection are subversive portraits of the modern American family. Huh - what? Noooo, not again! Subversive - really, someone has got to take this word outside and set it up against a wall and let it smoke a last cigarette, I'm sure it will want to as smoking is now so subversive - then shoot it, shoot this damn word and get a doctor to confirm it's dead, then scrape up the remains and tip them into a box and haul the box all the way down to Mexico and up the side of Mount Popocatapetl, which is an active, violent volcano, and throw the box over the side, into its fiery bowels. End of. This word is now the most meaningless of all known adjectives - once so useful, once alluring, palely, febrilely fascinating, but now irredeemably debased by the collective laziness and uncaring witlessness of all the world's marketing consultants, copywriters and blurbmeisters. What this word now means is hey, you're a cool person ain't chew - wanna read a cool book? Yeah sure you do. Then go see a cool movie. Yeah. I made a 30 second search of the Guardian newspaper and I got this: Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi, a subversive as well as satisfying, book.… Poetry should be subversive How to be subversively funny Peter King's subversive fantasy That is one of the more interesting subversive possibilities of film. Channel 4's original 'subversive, bold, risk-taking spirit is there to be reawakened'. Then I made a 20 second search of Goodreads and I got these titles : Teaching as a Subversive Activity Film as a Subversive Art Subversive Spirituality Subversive Cross Stitch : 33 Designs for your Surly Side Don't tell the Grown Ups : The Subversive Power of Children's Literature The Underground Church : Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus So please note, there's nothing left to subvert now we've done for Jesus and knitwear. Find another word. This one has left the building.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-07-26 00:00:00 Daniel Brown These stories are what would happen if Mary Gaitskill characters got married and had kids. Brilliant, subversive, psychologically rich stuff.