Circling the Drain: Stories [Paperback]

Amanda Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 16, 2000

          Enter into the worlds of fifteen young women who, despite their vastly different circumstances, seem to negotiate an eerily similar and unavoidably dangerous emotional terrain. With a visceral bite or a surreal edge, each electrically charged story in Circling the Drain presents women trying to understand the nature of loss--of leaving or being left--and discovering that in the throes of feverish conflict, things are rarely what they seem. By turns dark and lyrical, ferocious and playful, these stories are precise, startling, and undeniably original. Reading them is a cathartic, mesmerizing literary experience.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 15 short stories, Amanda Davis takes the raw emotions of love and loss and throws them into surreal perspective. Sometimes the stories are explicitly fantastic and dreamlike, like the romance with the "boy who chased freight trains" in "Chase." Sometimes the lines between reality and fantasy are blurred--the high school protagonist of "Faith or Tips for the Successful Young Lady," for example, has a "fat girl" companion that only she can see, a mocking chorus that forces her to recall the traumatic incident that led to her suicide attempt. And sometimes the surrealism comes from slowing a "realistic" moment down to closely examine its various perceptual components, as in "The Very Moment They're About," which captures two adolescents just before their kiss. Or in this scene from the title story, when a jilted lover jumps off the Williamsburg Bridge:

Later it is the air she will remember. The sharpness of it as she inhaled: crisp like paper. She could have been breathing paper. There was a rush of sound, like a train passing, or maybe like she was the train. Thick colors swirled and time became molasses as her legs slowly tumbled around behind her and then over her head. She thought that it was like being inside a spin-art toy. She was the blob of paint spreading thinly every which way, spindling in all directions, pulled flat, slow and hard. That was how she tumbled and then time caught up with itself and she dropped.

That intricate dissection of a moment's sensual and emotional register comes through in even the most naturalistic of these stories ("Red Lights Like Laughter," "The Visit"). Circling the Drain reveals Amanda Davis as a skilled crafter of character and tone, and marks her as an author to watch for some time to come. --Ron Hogan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Davis debuts with this often exciting but uneven collection of 15 stories, offering glimpses of women struggling, often in vain, against the magnetic pull of bad men and low self-esteem. At times Davis's prose displays an elegant acumen; elsewhere, it relies unconvincingly on social and literary conventions: "women [are] dormant until rescued by powerful strangers like the cowboy, who appeared to them with magic kisses... to wake them from their sleepy lives." Except that the cowboys are no heroes. Rather, they are con artists, arsonists, philanderers, and often absent. In one of the strongest stories, "Red Lights Like Laughter," a couple stuck in a hotel room during a blizzard seem ordinary until the violent tumult they are running from is revealed. Davis beautifully contrasts the freezing weather and the stuffy, shabby room with the narrator's conflicting emotions for her charming, murderous boyfriend. In "The Very Moment They're About," a sliver of time is cherished on the last night of camp as a teenage couple experience the fading moments of their childish innocence. Davis can aptly illuminate the mysterious connection between men and women, but she also tends to resort to the clich? of the woman scorned. In the title story, a woman finds her actor boyfriend in bed with a man, so she jumps off the Williamsburg Bridge, because "there was nowhere to go," a sentiment that resurfaces often. Most of the female narrators are frustratingly dependent on controlling men who remain inscrutable to the reader. "Chase" is a self-conscious, overwrought fable about a girl who kills a boy's horse to redirect his love to herself. "Faith, or Tips for the Successful Young Lady," however, is a magnificently haunting tale, interspersed with Miss Manners-type guidance, about a formerly overweight teenager who cannot eradicate her demons until the image of her former self stops (literally) following her around. This story showcases Davis's talent, holding out promises of an interesting career for this new author once she settles into a stronger, more confident literary voice. Author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1st edition (May 16, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688179096
• ISBN-13: 978-0688179090
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #315,908 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The start of something special, June 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Circling the Drain: Stories (Hardcover)

Amanda Davis' first collection of short stories gets her career off to a resounding start. "Faith or Tips for the Successful Young Lady" is perhaps her best story--a perfect portrayal of teenage years, when every problem seems like the end of the world. "Prints" shows that Davis understands the power of the "short-short" story. She gets more out of five pages than most writers get out of an entire novel. While some have described her work as dark, many of her stories, especially "Faith," are full of humor.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars amazing...brilliant...I love this writer, November 22, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Circling the Drain: Stories (Hardcover)

I found this book in a friend's pile, pulled it out, and didn't surface for hours. I can't believe it took me this long to get to it. It's diabolically funny, seeringly honest, and remarkably well-written. This is a must read.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well-written short story collection, June 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Circling the Drain: Stories (Hardcover)

This anthology centers on young women struggling with various losses. Some of the losses have recently occurred, but others are much longer, even over two decades. In some cases, males cause the problems these individuals must face. In almost every tale, the woman confronts seemingly invulnerable demons that often times win the struggle as the belief is that there is only one way out of the dilemma.

CIRCLING THE DRAIN is a very melancholy, but well-written short story collection that will leave fans of the sub-genre elated that a new talent has surfaced. Most of the collection is quite good as the haunting females suffer to cope with a crippling devastation. In her debut, Amanda Davis shows she has the right stuff to be a fan favorite for a long time to come.

Harriet Klausner