One Hundred and Forty Five Stories in a Small Box: Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape, How the Water Feels to the Fishes, and Minor Robberies [Hardcover]

Dave Eggers (Author), Sarah Manguso (Author), Deb Olin Unferth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 20, 2007

In the grand tradition of Neapolitan ice cream, ZZ Top, and Cerberus, the tri-headed guardian of Hades, this set combines individual, short fiction collections by three talented practitioners of the short-short form. Manguso’s Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape is a series of crystalline recollections of her childhood misadventures; Eggers’ How the Water Feels to the Fishes brings a deadpan absurdism to the intimacy and vision of his earlier work; and Unferth’s rollicking Minor Robberies unleashes a horde of off-kilter characters and their indelible misadventures. Each author’s work comes in its own hardcover, foil-stamped volume, and the three volumes are housed in an elegant slipcase.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: McSweeney's (September 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193241682X
• ISBN-13: 978-1932416824
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 5.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #409,603 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovingly Crafted, October 25, 2007

By 

Ellen L. - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Hundred and Forty Five Stories in a Small Box: Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape, How the Water Feels to the Fishes, and Minor Robberies (Hardcover)

This box of stories is such a treat! The stories in each of the three books might come from the same tradition and share some sensibilities (the precision of language, lovingly crafted sentences), but each has its own voice, style, and character. And that's part of the pleasure: each book is a discovery! Dave Eggers's collection, for example, is full of miniature portraits, the characters (some named, others nameless) caught in strange predicaments (a boy named Charles, who never has his picture taken; a woman named Puma, who has so many friends she must find a way to escape them). In Sarah Manguso's book, a narrator alternates between peculiar experiences of the adult life and the memories of childhood, each childhood vignette a perfect life lesson (an incident with a cruel science teacher, an encounter with a class bully), though the outcome of each is wonderfully unexpected. Deb Olin Unferth's stories are mysterious and surreal (objects disappear in foreign countries, a woman is transformed into a machine and has an affair), often hilarious ("Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A bit of a brat, so they say. But his wife loved him."), but also recognizable and heartbreaking.

And of course, like all McSweeney's books, this set is exquisitely made. A real treasure!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unferth's Minor Robberies, February 8, 2008

By 

C. Wycoff (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Hundred and Forty Five Stories in a Small Box: Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape, How the Water Feels to the Fishes, and Minor Robberies (Hardcover)

Unferth's Minor Robberies is a rare treat: at times metafictional, at times formally experimental, at times just plain wacky, these short-short stories delight without becoming glib. Standout stories include "Sickos" which features a "very vaguely, very religious" sex worker, "Give Them the Bag" a funny and strangely heart-breaking tale of sisters traveling together, and "Single Percent" a mathematical analysis of romantic commitment. Bring this lovely book with you everywhere so you can catch a story whenever you have a few minutes.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gem, November 19, 2007

By 

Reader (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Hundred and Forty Five Stories in a Small Box: Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape, How the Water Feels to the Fishes, and Minor Robberies (Hardcover)

The three books in this set complement each other well. Although I enjoyed all three, Deb Olin Unferth's Minor Robberies stands out in this group. It is delightfully humorous, adventurous, and with a touch of mystery at times. Unferth's stories cover various topics from relationships, to families, to South American travel, to the lives of great composers and architects. Each story has its own life and ends up in a different place, sometimes an unexpected one. Her stories are accessible, I felt compelled several times to call my friends and read to them out loud. Unferth has a talent for changing an entire story around in one line, and sometimes changing it back with the next. All of the books in this set are carefully written, stylistically interesting and worth reading. I highly recommend it!