Going Away Shoes [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Jill McCorkle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 2009

Jill McCorkle, a master of the short story whose work has been compared to that of Alice Munro and Lorrie Moore, is a writer whose characters insist on our immediate and total attention. Here, in her first collection in eight years, are eleven new stories bristling with her signature wit and weight. One way or the other, all of these stories are about women looking love in the face without flinching.  Some of them are confronting the reality of domestic disruption; others are simply flirting with the possibilities—and dangers—of change. McCorkle's characters make mistakes but aren't interested in hiding behind them. They get divorced or quit their jobs or tell people to step aside, and they move on.

From the first story, about a modern-day Cinderella contemplating escape, to the last, "Me and Big Foot," an idyll about finding the perfect prince, McCorkle’s collection is the genuine article, the work of a great storyteller who knows exactly how—and why—to pair longing and laughter.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A lack of narrative distance and interchangeable protagonists sink McCorkle's latest short story collection. The constant barbs aimed at the siblings and the cold-hearted, overmedicated mothers of the parade of ubiquitously decent and forlorn heroines in Another Dimension, Going Away Shoes and Happy Accidents reveal little about either the abusers or the so-called victims. Most of McCorkle's analogies and insights into human nature come from television shows and feel one note, such as when a character in Another Dimension owns Manolos in order to be like Sarah Jessica Parker. Too many of the protagonists are motivated by identical feelings of self-pitying vindictiveness. There is Ann in Another Dimension, whose relationship has soured with her abusive and manipulative brother, Jimmy, as well as Debby in Going Away Shoes, who sacrificed her career to care for a dying mother and spoiled siblings. McCorkle (Creatures of Habit) does manage a few heartfelt descriptions, but the pervasive venom too soon becomes toxic. (Sept.)
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Review

"McCorkle is an expert at engineering catharsis through good salty rants, but the best thing about these stories is the sense of romance and wonder in long-overdue journeys of self-discovery." --New York Times Book Review
(The New York Times Book Review )

"[A] remarkable collection . . . Bold and addictive, Going Away Shoes is a find." --People
(People Magazine )

"There are writers who seem to write it like it is--the quietness of their characters is not exaggerated, nor is their drama. They could live down the street or in the next apartment. Jayne Anne Phillips, Antonia Nelson--these are writers whose characters have no special aura, no golden ticket. Jill McCorkle's characters are like this." --Los Angeles Times
(Los Angeles Times )

"McCorkle's latest book gives us 11 reasons to smile . . . 11 cheerfully furious stories about women who have come to a screeching halt in their pursuit of happiness . . . The joy of reading and rereading each of these marvelous stories is to discover the truths encoded into each step of every hard-won journey--and to find ourselves along the way." --Atlanta Journal Constitution
(Atlanta Journal Constitution )

"The stories are small tributes to tenacity and spirit and choice--even when that choice is simply to keep putting one foot in front of the other." --Miami Herald
(Miami Herald )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; 1 edition (September 22, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565126327
• ISBN-13: 978-1565126329
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #786,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening..., November 3, 2009

By 

mcryan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Going Away Shoes (Hardcover)

I liked the dark tone of the book in respect to its attempt to uncover and shine a light on what middle age women really think and feel. The various levels of depression, resignation, anger, frustration, and overall sadness of many of the women feels real and as deserving of a voice as anyting else. It's almost as if these stories are the other side of the stories we almost never hear. However, McCorkle and a few other recent authors' both fictional and autobiographical are beginning to talk more about these emotions as the central theme in their stories. McCorkle also does a great job of offering a full story in just a few pages and makes it look easy in the process. I wasn't overwhelmingly in love with any of the characters or the book as a whole but I was glad to have taken the time to read it. The thing I liked best is the way that McCorkle really nails the "you would be surprised" factor of the mothers, daughters, and wives who make up her central characters. Some examples of this are you would be surprised to know that not all mothers like the people their children have become, or that caring for an aging and sick parent might be pure drudgery and filled with unresolved resentments, an overwhelmingly isolating task. Jill McCorkle succeeds in getting us to look within and ask those hard questions and hopefully to look at others and realize that most of the time, we have little to no idea of who they really are.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stories that are funny and heartbreaking at the same time., October 18, 2009

By 

E. Samuels "Book lover" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Going Away Shoes (Hardcover)

Prior to reading Going Away Shoes, I was not a major fan of the short story, but now, after reading this collection, I am tempted to go out and search for more. The stories in this collection are exceptionally well crafted and are able to deliver a Dickens length novel's worth of character development and emotion in a surprisingly short number of pages. The characters and topics in each story are so different that each story seems to deliver the impact of an entire novel. Wow. Most of the stories in the collection tickled my funny bone and touched me..... great combination.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eleven touching novels in one little book!, October 10, 2009

By 

crazycatlady (Hillsborough, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Going Away Shoes (Hardcover)

Even if your preferences lean toward novels rather than the short story form, you should still give Jill McCorkle a try. The author of
several novels, she has also produced a number of excellent short story collections; her latest, GOING AWAY SHOES, is wonderful. All of the eleven stories in this volume center around a similar theme--women
leading lives of varying degrees of quiet desperation, or as one character puts it, "the comfort of discomfort." They examine
their less than satisfactory relationships and regrets for what might have been. And then they go on the best they can.

Yet the stories here are more than a series of vignettes of
depressed, frustrated women. How each of these women cope with their
lives makes for a touching, heartwrenching, yet often funny mix of
emotions. Each story is as memorable as the last; from the regretful
"Another Dimension," to the frightening "Magic Words" to the lovely,
heartbreaking "Intervention," to the bitterly funny "P.S.", each
examines a similar theme, yet each is special in its own way. My
favorite is "Happy Accidents," in which the heroine manages to
gain spiritual guidance from noted philosopher Bob Ross, the star
of the old PBS series, THE JOY OF PAINTING. How she manages to
hold onto her bearings through paint-by-number kits and a TV painting show is by turns funny, sweet and profound.

The book is expertly summed up in its last story, "Me and Big
Foot," in which the protagonist experiences a "perfect" relationship--does it exist, or is it as illusory as the legendary
creature known as "Big Foot"? By the time you reach this final story, you may realize the answer. And you may look back on these
stories as you might remember a month's worth of enjoyable novels.