Customer Reviews

Oh Baby: Flash Fictions and Prose Poetry

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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.

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.

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.