AM/PM [Paperback]

Amelia Gray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2009

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.

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.)
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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. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Featherproof Books; Original edition (August 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977199274
• ISBN-13: 978-0977199273
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #334,848 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My God!, September 23, 2009

By 

Michael Wolfe - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: AM/PM (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.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Could Not Recommend It More, September 23, 2009

By 

Stacey Swann - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: AM/PM (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.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wowee zowee, March 1, 2010

By 

E. Bell (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: AM/PM (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.