The Middle Stories [Hardcover]

Sheila Heti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2004

Part Dorothy Parker, part José Saramago, with shades of George Orwell, Sheila Heti has arrived on Canada's literary scene a fully formed artist. Balancing wisdom and innocence, joy and foreboding, each story in The Middle Stories leads us to surprising places. A frog doles out sage advice to a plumber infatuated with a princess, a boy falls hopelessly in love with a monkey, and a man with a hat keeps apocalyptic thoughts at bay by resolving to follow a plan that he admits he won't stick to. Globe and Mail critic Russell Smith has described Heti's stories as cryptic fairy tales without morals at the end, but really the morals are in the quality of the telling and in the details disclosed along the way. Look where you weren't going to look, think what you wouldn't have thought, Heti seems to say, and meaning itself gains more meaning and more dimensions. Heti's stories are not what you expect, but why did you expect that anyway?

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Her prose is brilliantly crafted and everything about her stories is surprising and yet rings true." -- Hour

"Heti writes with ethereal quality, the kind of fantastic matter-of-factness that characterizes dreams, myths, fables, and nightmares." -- Vancouver Sun

"Heti's stories continue to raise eyebrows... Completely original and beautifully crafted." -- Maclean's --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Sheila Heti is the recipient of the 2003 K. M. Hunter Arts Award for literature.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: House of Anansi Press; First Edition edition (April 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0887841740
• ISBN-13: 978-0887841743
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,428,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars disturbing yet understated nightmares, May 1, 2003

By 

K. Palla "beebop" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Middle Stories (Paperback)

Heti's series of short stories were incredibly surreal yet wholly believable.The undercurrent running throughout is the same one you would expirence in a nightmare where nothing blood-and-guts horrible occurs, but you feel a building sense of or horror anyway. It is disquieting, unsettling, sometimes strangely funny, and I was hooked. For some reason parts of the book reminded me of a Dali painting. This is also one of the few books I've seen who's cover is just as innovative as the stories themselves.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heti is the real deal, April 1, 2003

By 

OilCanBoyd (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Middle Stories (Paperback)

the OilCan has to give it up for McSweeney's. This collection will wake you out of your obviously humdrum life. The stories are fantastic and will stay with you long after the reading process is done. O Canada

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Whimsical but Slight, January 11, 2007

By 

Ichthyornis (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Middle Stories (Hardcover)

Stories that reimagine fairy tales, stories that take odd surrealistic turns, and yet these felt slight to me, not fully imagined, but abandoned.