You Are Not the One: Stories [Paperback]

Vestal McIntyre (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 21, 2004

In this debut collection of eight compulsively readable stories, Vestal McIntyre combines honesty and compassion with hilarious dialogue—bringing together the comic milieu of David Sedaris with the spot-on perceptions of Adam Haslett's You Are Not a Stranger Here. With "ONJ.com," a young woman in advertising decides she wants a gay man in her life, almost as if she were shopping for a poodle. Unluckily, the gay man she finds, a good-looking and fast-talking freelancer, isn't as pleasant and "fun" as she had hoped. In the loopy "Dunford," a lonely, aging architect with a suppressed fascination for female escorts decides impulsively to take the opportunity of his wife's absence to set up a date. Sadly for Dunford, he realizes too late that his escort doesn't share his penchant for masturbation in car washes. Quieter notes are sounded in "Foray" about a bookish teenaged recluse discovering an unexpected emotional connection to his family after his mother asks him to read Moby Dick to his young, mentally retarded cousin. And "Nightwalking" centers on a woman sleepwalker whose mother's death frames the occasion for a rocky family reunion. You Are Not the One marks the auspicious arrival of an exciting new talent.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Carroll & Graf's cover copy claims that McIntyre "brings together the comic milieu of David Sedaris with the exquisite crafting of Alice Munro," and while McIntyre does offer quirky scenarios (teenage hoodlums kidnapping a kid in a kangaroo costume; a 40-something wife performing a cocaine-fueled interpretive dance for a roomful of younger strangers) and moments of subtle insight (though they are hardly Munrovian), what he delivers primarily is a kind of unharnessed intelligence and insufficiently edited creativity, which he demonstrates in a bumpy series of eight stories revolving around the need for love and acceptance, whether it is from a lover, oneself or one's pet octopus. In "Binge," cocaine-snorting Lynn attends a party, ruminates on her attraction to a younger woman, considers her annoyance at her husband and, after the aforementioned dance, finds redemption of a sort thanks to a subway preacher. As an attempt at poignancy, it falls flat; it reads like a sudden end-stop for a garrulous narrator. "Octo" is similarly challenged, as a boy must part with his beloved and now deceased pet octopus, and a roller-coaster ride serves to symbolically link him—in terror—with his nasty sister. "ONJ.com" and "Disability," which consider complicated relationships between young gay men and their associates, ring true, however; the latter especially points to McIntyre's promise.
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From Booklist

In this quirky collection of short stories, McIntyre proves himself an exciting new voice in literature. "Octo" is a tragicomic tale of a disturbed 12-year-old and his voracious pet octopus. In "ONJ.com," a young advertising woman decides that she wants a gay man for a friend. When a freelancer with a penchant for Olivia Newton John and other men comes to work for her, she is delighted until she learns that he wants something from her, too. The strongest story is "Disability." While Frank is not completely honest about the level of his disability, he honestly cares about the people in his life. And while he is busy taking care of them, he finds something for himself. The last story is a quieter piece. "Nightwalking" tells the story of a woman sleepwalking through the major events in her life, figuratively and actually. Filled with witty dialogue, strong and varied characters, and the power to move and disturb, this is a brilliant debut. Elizabeth Dickie
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 325 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (December 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786714336
• ISBN-13: 978-0786714339
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #613,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am the author of two books of fiction, as well as many published stories and essays.

Lake Overturn, my first novel, won the Grub Street National Book Prize and a Lambda Literary Award. It was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, a Washington Post Best Book of 2009, and was nominated for the Ferro-Grumley Award and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.

My first book, You Are Not the One: Stories, published in 2005, was also a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and Lambda Award winner. It was published in the UK and Italy, and led to my receiving fiction fellowships from the NEA and the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Originally from Idaho, I lived for many years in New York City, where I was a waiter at Restaurant Florent in the Meatpacking District. Now I live in southeast London, where I'm working on a second novel and wrapping up a collection of stories based on my years in New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best debut collection I've ever read, December 1, 2004

By 

Harry Crowley "Harry" (Cincinnati, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Are Not the One: Stories (Paperback)

A couple months ago, I got ahold of an advanced reader's copy of this short story collection. And I devoured it in three days. It's brilliant, and I have been telling everyone I can that Vestal McIntyre is the next big thing. There are several debut collections that You Are Not the One reminded me of, including David Leavitt's Family Dancing, Michael Chabon's A Model World, and Robert Bingham's Pure Slaughter Value. But McIntyre's book is vastly superior to all three. Like those writers (and Lorrie Moore, his closest literary relative), his prose is gorgeous and funny and stylistically unique. But his immensely original characters are so sympathetic--even when they are behaving badly--that by the end of each story, they feel like close relatives or old friends. You love them, forgive, and mourn their absense. I honestly don't understand how anyone could not love, could not respect, could not enthuse about this book. It is best debut collection I've ever read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Collection of Truly Outstanding Short Stories, August 5, 2009

By 

C. E. Selby "Eric Selby" (Miami Beach, FL) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: You Are Not the One: Stories (Paperback)

Vestal McIntyre, wherever you are, please publish more stories--and soon. This is one of those rare books where not one story is unappealing. I have spent a lifetime teaching English and retired only to find myself back teaching, this time in a college setting. So "Binge" was a great way to begin in a college setting with a professor who has no idea how to really connect with students. Mr. McIntyre creates brilliant first-person narration. "Sahara" is a good example. The characters, high school students in pick-ups, are just delightfully stupid, seen through this unique narrator. The author is a master of dialog. I found it interesting that in some stories he uses quotation marks whereas in others he does not. But that matters not because every piece of conversation is just what the characters would say.

I like that some of the characters are disabled. "Octo" is unforgetable as is "Foray." If I were told to select my favorite, I would have to toss a coin to decide which of these two. In "Octo" the central character cannot attend school. We are not quite sure exactly why, but that only makes the story better. He has a pet, a very unusual pet--I won't tell you what--and the pet outgrows its home. Then in "Foray" the first-person, rather haughty teenager turns out to be a little kinder than the reader expects. When I arrived at Call me Ishmael, I knew I would be in for a rare treat. And it was better than I could have expected.

If there were more stars, I would add at least two.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very worth your while!, June 24, 2008

By 

Pacific Lover (SF Bay Area, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Are Not the One : Stories (Paperback)

I was inspired to write a review of this book of short stories, even though I didn't buy it, but found it at my local library. How lucky that the book I was looking for was not there, and this cover attracted me. More preface to my actual review: I rarely read short stories anymore, because I can never find "good ones", and when I read the "bad ones" it frustrates me that I can't put my finger on WHY I find them bad - just left feeling kind of bitter (for wasting good reading time) and blah and disappointed. But but BUT! I was SO pleasantly surprised by Vestal's stories (can I call you Vestal? Ves?), and still I am not quite sure how to characterize short stories, even good ones. Multiple levels of humor? Insight a little bit beyond his years? Subtly insightful, while delightfully entertaining, leaving me smiling and/or thinking afterwards? Yep, I'd even venture he has achieved range.