Do the Windows Open? [Hardcover]

Julie Hecht (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 21, 1997

In an interconnected anthology of short stories, a freelance photographer and macrobiotics devotee pursues her art, capturing in a series of vignettes the hilarious horrors, mishaps, and foibles of modern life. A first collection. 15,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Do the Windows Open? is a smashing debut by short-story writer Julie Hecht. Bound together by the insight and wit of her neurotic narrator, Hecht's short stories document the mania of the modern day in devastating detail. Hecht's narrator, a forty-something photographer, moves through the world burdened by the mundane and tawdry incidentals of contemporary existence. Taking in fertility clinics, hairpieces, obnoxious speech patterns and omnipresent consumer demographics, nothing escapes her eye or avoids her comment. The intelligence of her judgment negates the inanity of much of what she sees, and her stories become a tragicomic critique of her affluent and stifling social milieu.

From Publishers Weekly

It's surprising that Hecht, a longtime contributor to the New Yorker and a winner of the O. Henry Prize, hasn't published a book before this. These nine stories are all narrated by the same bracingly neurotic heroine, a 40-ish photographer named Isabelle who has a lot to say on virtually everything from the intricacies of macrobiotic cooking to whether or not her optician is or was a Nazi, the son of Nazis, a neo-Nazi or, at the very least, a Nazi sympathizer. When she's not working on her idiosyncratic photo-essays (flowers in decline, reproductive surgeons and their dogs), Isabelle spends an inordinate amount of time chasing down objects essential for her daily life, like organic vegetables and reversible alpaca coats from England. Meanwhile, she keeps up a barrage of exceedingly manic diatribes on such pressing subjects as the greenhouse effect, the passage of time and how annoying Swedish people can be?all expressed in borderline hysterical, impeccably crisp diction, like Miss Manners with the wrong prescription. The best of these stories are hilariously funny, filled with the horrors of modern life (bad architecture, traffic jams, the smell of peanuts on the bus) and wacky exchanges with her loudmouthed reproductive surgeon, Dr. Loquesto, her careless floor sander, the guy at the Discount Drugs or her neighbors in Nantucket and East Hampton. Some of the stories may remind the reader of a long phone conversation with a batty, obsessed neighbor who doesn't know when to hang up. You may breathe a little sigh of relief when they're over?but then again, her point of view is so entertaining, you can't wait for her to call back.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (January 21, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067945201X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679452010
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,272,923 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I am comforted by this lucid worldview., March 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Do the Windows Open? (Hardcover)

Thank God for this book. When I first encountered it I had nearly teetered into the abyss of believing that the way we live now has a rational underpinning. Julie Hecht possesses a brilliance that is at once undeniable and subtle. She sees things. To her critics, I can only say that worthwhile literature is not required to have formulaic plotting, at least in the traditional sense. Something doesn't have to "happen." Characters don't have to be drawn with giant magic markers. There is great power in the small. The quiet voice. To those who prefer the opposite, get a Tom Clancy book.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hooked On Hecht, May 4, 2000

By 

Bruce Loveitt (Ogdensburg, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Do the Windows Open? (Paperback)

I am always hesitant to recommend fiction to other people because enjoyment of fiction is so subjective and so personal. I feel so strongly about the stories of Julie Hecht, though, that I had to write this review. When I see an issue of "The New Yorker" that has a new Hecht story it just makes my whole week. It is hard to define her style but perhaps calling her the Steven Wright of short story writers would give you some idea! She makes the most oddball but humorous (in a bittersweet way) observations using a deadpan delivery. Her narrator, always the same person in all stories, is alienated and lonely and neurotic but touching and engaging because of her humor and intelligence. Hecht's stories have no grand themes and contain no momentous events. She writes of the mundane daily activities of her protagonist: going to the health food store; riding on a bus; a visit to the doctor. The activities are not important; it is Hecht's observations of other people that will resonate within you. If you enjoy lowkey writing which is concerned with the behavior of everyday people I think you will enjoy these stories as much as I did. I can't wait for Ms. Hecht's next collection of stories. Unfortunately, I think it will be awhile as her stories come out very infrequently!

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laughed Just As Hard The 2nd Time!, May 14, 2001

By 

Sunny Afternoon (Birmingham, MI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Do the Windows Open? (Paperback)

It's so comforting to know that there are other neurotic people out there! This book is a laugh-riot. I loaned it to my friend, and she loved it so much that after she read it, she went and bought a copy. When she gave it back, I reread it and laughed just as hard the 2nd time. It's genuinely hilarious if you are the type of person who can agonize and analyze forever.