Oh Baby: Flash Fictions and Prose Poetry (Paperback)

~ Kim Chinquee (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The book is a wonderful debut collection of prose poems and flash fictions, short short stories of beautiful precisions and understated passions. While the bricks with which Chinquee constructs her fictions - failed or failing relationships, childhood friendships, and the intricacies of family life - are not uncommon, the architecture she creates with them is rare indeed: stories now full of light, now somber, now opening the reader's eyes to an utterly new space.

About the Author

Kim Chinquee's fiction and prose poetry had appeared in numerous journals including Noon, Conjunctions, Denver Quarterly, Fiction, New Orleans Review, The South Carolina Review, Notre Dame Review, Mississippi Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Willow Springs, elimae, and many others. She is the recipient of a Henfield Prize and Pushcart Prize. She teaches creative writing in Michigan.

Product Details

• Paperback: 104 pages
• Publisher: Ravenna Press (February 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979192188
• ISBN-13: 978-0979192180
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #359,427 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Me, who was I?, February 28, 2008

By	Myfanwy Collins (New England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Be prepared: Oh Baby, Kim Chinquee's debut collection, will knock your socks off.

It's a book about love: mother for child; child for mother, for father; man for woman; woman for man and man and man. Love for running. Love for vodka. A drawer of blood.

It's a book about women: a runner, an artist, a nurse, a mother, a girlfriend, a wife, a daughter. A woman who lives in England, in the midwest, in some nameless place.

A woman.

But mostly, it's a book about identity in which the author constantly scrutinizes these women to find out which one is the one. In "Purple" she asks: "Me, who was I?" and then never answers the question. And then in "Wig" she talks of buying a wig and says: "When I got back to the hotel, I put it on and thought I looked like Kim Chinquee."

And this is what we're all looking for: that time and place where we most feel like ourselves. When we are no longer pretending and donning our wigs. Do we ever find it?

Taken seperately, these stories will hurt you; taken together as one in this collection, they will clobber you and rob you of your breath.

Read it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars, February 29, 2008

By	Kyle Minor "reader" (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews

Kim Chinquee's debut is a must-have for those enjoy the short fiction of Lydia Davis, Diane Williams, Christine Schutt, etc. These stories have little in common with the narrative conventions of the "Gather 'round the campfire, children, and let me tell you a story" school. Be prepared, instead, for a freight train hopping hobo to jump from the woods, hold a knife to your throat, and rasp, "Listennnnnnnnnn!!!!!" Be prepared, too, for the Stockholm Syndrome sure to follow. Even after the knife has been put safely away, you'll stay.

5.0 out of 5 stars An anthology of entertaining flash fiction and vividly descriptive, lyrical poems , July 11, 2008

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Life is an endless chain of failure and success. "Oh Baby" is an anthology of entertaining flash fiction and vividly descriptive, lyrical poems by author Kim Chinquee as she speaks about her life, her relationships, her childhood, and her family - and the success and failure found in them all. A charming book through and through, "Oh Baby" is a must for poetry lovers and community library poetry collections.