Customer Reviews

Female Trouble: Stories

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These stories are wonderful, very well-written, sharply observed. Nelson has an eye for detail that is so right on, so observant, filled with an underlying snappy wit. All of these stories are very strong and will motivate the reader to explore her novels. Enjoy.

Antonya Nelson's stock in trade is her laser-like understanding of and her affinity for the foibles and miss-steps of we mortal human beings. Anyone familiar with her "Nobody's Girl" or in particular "Living to Tell" can attest to that.
In "Female Trouble" she sets her sights on a close to her heart, I would assume subject, women: Professional women, divorced women, suicidal women, mother-earth women, young women and old women, pregnant women and the men who are fortunate enough to cross their paths.
"Female Trouble" is a short story collection. And I know I am going to get a lot of grief for this but it is a form of which I am not particularly fond. Ideally, a short story should be all of a piece. You should not crave for more. The author has to quickly create a world, inhabit it with interesting characters and resolve the story so that the reader is satisfied at it's resolution. The first story of this collection, "Incognito" is very well written and the premise is unique: a close group of three high school friends create an imaginary person, one Dawn Wrigley and use this persona as a means to act out all of their adolescent fantasies. The problem is at this story's end I craved for more, wanted loose ends tied, needed more information, felt cheated.
On the other hand in "One Dog is People," Nelson creates a world in which the basic premise of the story is tied up in a logical fashion with no lose ends hanging. This story also includes some of her most incisive writing: "A few days later I was sitting in traffic after dropping the children off at school. I relied on their disappearance every day; I could not stand such thorough neediness. And yet, as soon as they'd been swept into their buildings...I missed them. I fell under the heavy weight of guilt: how could I not be grateful? How could I not cling to what was left to me, cling and cherish?"
"Stitches" is in part about the relationship between a college-age girl (Tracy) and her mother (Ellen): "It was unnerving to be this girl's mother. She was so forthcoming. So frankly healthy...how had she gotten this way? Ellen felt somehow excluded from the process. She (Ellen) kept secrets---not in drawers or closets or diaries, but in her heart, behind her eyes, on her lips. Tracy's admirable openness seemed not to have been inherited from Ellen, so it must have come from her father."
As with most story collections, the quality here is variable. But what does not vary is Nelson's obvious love for her characters and her unflinching desire to get at the heart of things through the use of her gorgeous, even voluptuous writing style.

I very much enjoyed this collection of short stories. Each one had at least one phrase or passage that was so succinct, so perfect, almost an exact description of a feeling or thought that the reader probably thought he or she was the only one to have ever had. The characters are believeable, complex, 3 dimensional. Each story was a little package that I wanted to savor before going on to the next. A strong collection.

Antonya Nelson's mastery with words leaves me speechless. Female Trouble is a work of art created by a master.

I read few short stories anymore, mostly because they all run together in a blur of sameness, with an abrupt ending that is supposed to be mysterious and deep but instead feels obtuse and pointless. But Antonya Nelson's work is different. Her stories suck you in -- things happen. There's also the sheer beauty of the writing and her insight into human behavior -- women, in particular -- which is subtle but powerful, sort of like coming around a corner and smacking into an old friend. You instantly recognize the foibles and habits of her characters, who are real without being boring.

Antonya Nelson's collection of short stories, "Female Trouble", revolves around just that: women who are having trouble, often because of their womanhood or one of its attendant issues. Nelson manages to explore this over-exposed territory with enough insight and originality, and little enough shrill Bridget-Jones-ripoff whining, to make her stories worth reading.

And they're good stories. Nelson does everything a writer of short stories should do. She's skilled at crafting character and plot, her command of language is unwavering, and each story is self-contained, unique, and distinct from the others in the collection.

Still, something is missing. This is a good book, but not a great one. Nelson pulls her punches. Her subtlety and sense of balance - characters who are odd but not crazy, plotlines that are curious but not implausible - is what makes the collection worthwhile, but Nelson doesn't seem to know when to be direct. Her writing is good, but too muted to be powerful, and it's frustrating to read. She has great ideas, well-developed characters, the perfect setup, and then you turn the page and it's over. The stories all end in the proper story-ending way, with a climax and resolution, but there's no bang. Nearly every story left me wishing for just one more paragraph - that perfect event or line of dialogue or turn of phrase - something to push me over the edge from interested to affected, something to make her stories less strange and more profound.

These stories are wonderful, very well-written, sharply observed. Nelson has an eye for detail that is so right on, so observant, filled with an underlying snappy wit. All of these stories are very strong and will motivate the reader to explore her novels. Enjoy.

Antonya Nelson's other story collections are wonderful, but this new one, FEMALE TROUBLE, is by far the best work of her career. These stories are a little less cynical than those from FAMILY TERRORISTS, and her quirky humor and perfect prose still shine through. The National Book Award committee has, in the last few years, named story collections to their finalist group (Jean Thompson; Dan Chaon). If they're paying attention this year, Nelson should draw their attention -- there's no better short story writer in America today. Canada has Alice Munro; Ireland has William Trevor; we have Antonya Nelson.