If anything's going to save the characters in Amelia Gray's debut from their troubled romances, their social improprieties, or their hands turning into claws, it's a John Mayer concert tee. In AM/PM, impish humor and cutting insight are on full display. Readers tour the lives of 23 characters across 120 stories full of lizard tails, Schrödinger boxes, and volcano love. June wakes up one morning covered in seeds; Leonard falls in love with a chaise lounge; Betty insists everything except flowers are a symbol of her love for her husband; Andrew talks to his house in times of crisis. Written every morning and night for two months, these brief vignettes (50 to 100 words) recall Donald Barthelme in their whimsy and subtle yet powerful emotions. An intermittent love story as seen through a darkly comic lens, AM/PM mixes poetry and prose, humor and hubris to create a truly original work of fiction.
AM/PM
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Book Description
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
A series of brief, anecdotal episodes featuring occasionally recurring characters marks this delectable debut from Gray. Numbered from 14 to 133, and appearing on facing pages marked AM and PM, these vignettes explore the love tangles of characters like Betty and Simon, listening through the window to a screaming argument by neighbors on the street and discussing whether they should react as Raymond Carver or Superman, or Martha and Emily as they test glass tabletops (and each other) while shopping for furniture. Muted, humorous epiphanies occur: Carla, a woman with two daughters, is moving out on Andrew and trying to pack up her glassware in newspaper (softened by the humid air) without waking him; later, she dates the Amazing Chet, who makes his living guessing people's weight. Friends Missy and Chastity do yoga and debate the attributes of attractive men, while Hazel, on the facing page, ponders her universal need to express something inside of her. At moments screwy, prickly and pleasantly surprising, Gray's short shorts deliver youthful snapshots about being nuts in love. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Amelia Gray is a writer living in Austin, TX. Her writing has appeared in The Onion, American Short Fiction, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, DIAGRAM, and Caketrain, among others. Her work has been chosen as the finalist for McSweeney's Amanda Davis Highwire Contest and the DIAGRAM Innovative Fiction Contest. She received an MFA from Texas State University in San Marcos.
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More About the Author
Amelia Gray is the author of AM/PM (Featherproof Books) and Museum of the Weird, (Fiction Collective 2). She blogs at ameliagray.com.
Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The only book that's saved my life and never worn out the ass pocket of my twelfth pair of favorite jeans is Amelia Gray's AM/PM, and I can't exactly explain why, but here goes:
When I was in AA I carried around a little pocket-sized Big Book that my sponsor called a "trucker book" because, I guess, I used to be a trucker and trucks don't have bookshelves. But then it wore through my ass pocket and fell out, down a sewer crack probably, and I missed it like hell so I drank again.
Finally I replaced it with the Tao Te Ching, which is amazing if not a bit vague and stupid to pull out if you're a trucker trucking through construction on an icy I-80 while texting and swigging from a flask. I assume that Tao is still in the seat crack in a salvage yard. It was good to me.
AM/PM is the only devotional that's routinely saved my life. People, this book will save your goddamn life! And your jeans, and, God help you, your John Mayer concert T, but not your ex - but probably even your dying dog and hydroplaning semi. This book doesn't care if you drink again or if you ever apologize or keep secrets or have ever run over an already dead dog, because you gave those dogs another chance at an afterlife.
60 days, 60 devotionals, 60 glasses of wine, 60 dead dogs that you can bring back to life. No, you're right. You don't have to.
When I was in AA I carried around a little pocket-sized Big Book that my sponsor called a "trucker book" because, I guess, I used to be a trucker and trucks don't have bookshelves. But then it wore through my ass pocket and fell out, down a sewer crack probably, and I missed it like hell so I drank again.
Finally I replaced it with the Tao Te Ching, which is amazing if not a bit vague and stupid to pull out if you're a trucker trucking through construction on an icy I-80 while texting and swigging from a flask. I assume that Tao is still in the seat crack in a salvage yard. It was good to me.
AM/PM is the only devotional that's routinely saved my life. People, this book will save your goddamn life! And your jeans, and, God help you, your John Mayer concert T, but not your ex - but probably even your dying dog and hydroplaning semi. This book doesn't care if you drink again or if you ever apologize or keep secrets or have ever run over an already dead dog, because you gave those dogs another chance at an afterlife.
60 days, 60 devotionals, 60 glasses of wine, 60 dead dogs that you can bring back to life. No, you're right. You don't have to.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By E. Bell
Format:Paperback
In AM/PM Amelia Gray writes characters that are utterly bizarre and entirely recognizable (often as ourselves, or myself, at least). It is funny and sad and gross and beautiful. I finished this book completely satisfied yet desperate for more. It's simply gorgeous--inside and out.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By SRS
Format:Paperback
This tiny paragraph is a symbol of my love for AM/PM. It is heartfelt and gushing.It is still, all these months later, more than a little in awe. It is fuzzy and warm and also weeping in the corner. It is insufficient but sincerely meant, this tiny paragraph, which is a symbol of my love for AM/PM.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
AM/PM
Quick, but heady read. Not a book to 'escape' into. I hope to give it a few more reads through. Enjoyed it very much.
Published 24 days ago by K. Kieser
4.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome
I like how short the stories are. And it's teaching me alot of things I don't usually venter into daily. I'm still reading it but so far it's awesome.
Published 27 days ago by Seth Andrew
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful bursts of fiction
This little book packs a powerful punch. Amelia Gray has written 120 short bursts of fiction that are mostly beautiful, thoughtful insights into the hearts of her characters. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Marc S
4.0 out of 5 stars
Companionable
Prose poems saved from preciosity by humour. 'Tess awoke to the realization that cows become meat, though they eat none, and the same goes for vegetarians. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Simon G. Barrett
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poignant and Beautiful
Amelia Gray's AM/PM is an exceptional gem. Her collection of vignettes, anecdotal observations, and shorts are so moving it makes many other works of comparative craft seem bloated... Read more
Published on September 30, 2010 by E. M. Jenkins
5.0 out of 5 stars
AM/PM delivers, slowly over time, quickly in doses
You get a sense of what is going to happen with the cover art. Things are not quite real, instead surreal, they are more than they seem. Read more
Published on March 7, 2010 by Richard Thomas
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Edges of Her Body Are Very Cold
We know Amelia Gray is a good writer because she wrote a tiny white book called AnteMeridian/PostMeridian. Read more
Published on November 23, 2009 by Exordia N.
