Customer Reviews

Head: Stories

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After reading the NY Times review I was excited to get my hands on this book. Unfortunately, the feeling I kept getting was someone that was writing for other writers and not a general audience. It would be hard not to fall into such a trap, I suppose. With all the raves from peers and others, the poor guy must have felt like the world was looking over his shoulder. (for a great example of how the short story writer can achieve writing for the masses without sacrificing art, look at 'Venus Drive' by Sam Lipsyte).

The master of 20th century fiction, John Updike once said writers workshops worry him because it creates an insulated environment. I'm not saying Tester is not a real talent - clearly he is. I'm only suggesting he focus next time on substance over style. Not giving up on Tester, and I look forward to his future work.

Tester was a former student of Gordon Lish, who published his first novel DARLING at Knopf, and was a flop. Amy Hempel was in class with Tester. Amy hempel was the judge who chose this book. Is this a coincidence...hardly...even if the manuscriot was blinded, Hempel would reconize her friend's writing, which has a tell-tale sign of Lish influend prose...this is proof that Saranbande's book contest is rigged. Most of them are. Publishers hold contests to drum up revenue to publish a book they already have but don't have the funds for; they just put the book out and "say" it won.

It's not a bad book. Has a 1990s minimalist feel that is easily recognizable, some good sentences here and there, but lacking in substance elsewhere. The long time between Tester's firts novel nd this collection shows he probably had a very hard time getting published, so hempel rigged this contest for him.

There are 11 loosely linked stories in this collection that tracks a former farm boy from the Florida swamps to his growing up and dealing with fearful and blundering romances. In fact, most of these stories deal with the main characters fear in almost everything. These stories can be funny at times, and yet very erotic. Tester has a way of really exposing his characters for who they really are, and by the way he uses language in each sentence you know right away the narrator has a stutter. Two of the stories I really enjoyed were:"The Living and the Dead" about a gay drifter who hooks up with a rich young Italian in the shadow of the Vatican, and "Floridita" about a mother and her three children listening to audiotapes sent home from Vietnam by their soldier-father. "Floridita" brought back memories of sending my own tapes back home to my parents when I was serving in Vietnam.

At first I didn't think I was going to enjoy this book, but you'll find as you read further and further into this book, you'll really enjoy these stories. They leave a lasting impression on you!!

Beautiful spare stylish prose with great movement. Couldn't put it down until I finished every story. Especially wowed by "Wet" and "Bad Day."

I started reading Head at a friend's house and couldn't put it down. William Tester's writing is elegant, his characters true and complex, and his stories thoughtful and sometimes funny and often heartbreaking. The longer stories (my favorite is Floridita; also love Wet) are especially good. Tester creates the types of scenes and characters that stay with you -- I find that parts of the book will come back to me when I'm going about my day, cooking dinner or riding the bus or whatever. At a time when glibness often passes for art, it is inspiring to find a writer who is not afraid to look closely, seriously, honestly, at everyday moments that define a life. I recommend this book without reservation. It is worth your time.

where is the heart in any of theses stories by W. Tester? While brilliantly crafted, "Head" lacks, on the whole, substance. I felt a bit like Dorothy in the land of Oz... disappointed...there is no wizard, only a rumpled old man playing games behind a curtain... Sincerity on the author's part, the beating of a real heart within the stories, would certainly enoble this work. While he is certainly a wordsmith... certainly learned his "chops" and earned his MFA, the stories seem like literary exercises... formulaic at best. Tester plays petty games with his readers... One feels that he writes for an especially narcissistic club of perhaps three or four others within his super hip literary world. Tester's language is beautiful, but ultimately empty... his stories functioning as literary exhibitionism in the worse sense. Where is the truth, the spirit or soul in "Head"? Disappointing... I'd much rather read James Salter, Denis Johnson, or Lorrie Moore... not a poor attempt to parrot them.

William Tester wrote it, brilliantly, all by himself.