Customer Reviews

Going Away Shoes

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I was unfortunately less impressed with this book than I wanted to be. Maybe it was the mood I was in, but everyone in it left me feeling rather depressed. I hope it leaves you feeling better.

The thing with short story collections is that unless you're familiar with the author, you have to be careful because you're not going to know what you're getting into. My favorite short story author is Flannery O'Connor. That woman can do no wrong with the short story. They're so dementedly elegant that you can't put them down. But she is only one of a very few whose short stories I like. The rest . . . meh.

This is one of the meh. I'd never heard of Jill McCorkle before I snagged this book at BEA but I knew it was pretty chicky just from the title. Usually I like some variety with my short stories. This one . . . not so much.

Every single story, save for one, sounds like it could have been the same woman telling the same story over and over again. I didn't see any stretch of the imagination, I didn't see any stretch of writing talent; I just saw a woman cranky with the world telling the same miserable story over and over and over again. Needless to say, I was bored and disheartened.

The only short that carried any weight, that pulled me in at all an invigorated me with the words was "Magic Words." The way it's written reminded me of Ellen Hopkins's book Tricks, where you have a bunch of different stories converging into one plot by the end. That's what this one did and while is had the same disparaging "I am woman in bad relationship" tone, it was meatier, it meant more. The voices varied and I actually believed in the talent I was reading.

Other than that, at the end of the day, I couldn't tell any of the other stories from the rest. I understand the overall theme of the book but it is possible to write different stories within that theme. Really. If you get your hands on this book, pick a story at random and read it. You won't need to read any of the others because they're all the same. But make sure you read "Magic Words," if nothing else. That one's the best out of all of them, by far.

I had looked forward to reading this book of short stories for some time, but what a disappointment. Of the eleven depressing stories, only one contains a shred of hope. For the most part, nearly every protagonist is a woman of the same type -- door mat -- with little to no indication she will ever grow a backbone and stand up for herself.

In the title story, young Debby let family pressure lead her to reject the man she loved. Now middle-aged, Debby has given up her life and career to care for her elderly mother. She gets no help from her sisters, whose lives revolve around their families and expensive shoes. They do make the occasional empty promise of sending Debby on a vacation cruise, where they tell her she might meet a man "Love Boat" style. Along with put-upon women, old TV programs are another recurring theme of the stories.

All of the stories continue in this vein -- women who would rather wallow in regret than act to make changes. They include a woman who was controlled and abused by her brother throughout childhood, but doesn't have the good sense to either put a stop to it or stay away from him now that she's an adult. Another character allows her adult children and son-in-law to control her. The one woman who isn't a door mat is a control freak herself, and has driven away her only child and his family. Her husband has died and now she lives alone and lonely, hated even by the students she taught over the many years before she retired.

I generally like short stories, but I like for them to feel complete. Most of these felt like vignettes from novels, something for the author to read at book signings to illustrate the excellent writing.

It's only because of the excellent writing that I give this book two stars. I deducted one star because, unlike most short stories, I would never read any of these again. I deducted another because I would never be so cruel as to recommend this book. I deducted a third just because I didn't like anything about it but the writing, which was a talent wasted on these depressing and disjointed stories.

I'm dismayed by the negative reviews of this book that I've seen. Yes, the stories as a whole are dark, and the themes are similar, but there is nothing one-note or prefabricated about them. Jill McCorkle has always been interested in the inner lives that go on beneath apparently placid surfaces, and "Going Away Shoes" is excellent overall. Anyone who enjoys realistic short stories with some depth and wit should enjoy these.

One of my favorite stories here is "Intervention." In relatively few pages McCorkle captures the complex dynamics of a family that has a legitimate concern about the father's drinking, but that fails to understand the mother's ambivalence about confronting him. The interplay between the mother's memories of her husband's youth and her recognition of his current impairment is believable and terribly sad. But although the overall tone of the story is dark, it didn't feel overdone or needlessly depressing to me. The memories of youth and joy are so strong, and so vividly rendered, that they lift the characters with them. Maybe I identify with this book because I see myself and my friends dealing with aging parents, and this book was a timely reminder of how much we -- even family members -- don't know about each other.

"Going Away Shoes" reminded me of Elizabeth Strout's "Olive Kitteridge" in terms of theme and tone. Like that book, "Going Away Shoes" doesn't offer easy answers or uplift, but it does offer the pleasures of strongly-rendered characters and insight into particular human struggles. This collection is well worth reading.

Thoroughly enjoyed these short fiction tales, told by a series of female protagonists. Snarky, heartfelt, and intriguing, each story read had me hooked, which is extremely rare for a short story collection. Listen not to the naysayers, not every woman's life is a bed of roses, and these stories, though often heartbreaking, show hope within the wrinkles. Highly recommended.

What I found so amazing in these stories is that Jill McCorkle broke all the "classical" rules of drama. That is, instead of writing about "important" people, her characters are like you or me; and instead of invoking unities of time, place, or action - her tales contain memories of a lifetime and multiple subplots which illuminate each other.

Every story in this collection has great comic-tragic merit. And whether we encounter an angel appearing in the form of a septic tank cleaner or a woman who fastens her seat belt without saying a word, McCorkle introduces us to a host of characters that are both larger than life - yet right next door.

The cover blurb state that it's a hilarious book. The blurb was written by someone who did not read the book - and who is going off of Jill's previous works. This is not an uplifting collection of stories. It's sad. It's bitter. It's bleak. The stories are about people with regrets. Not a good holiday read.