Do Not Deny Me: Stories (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. National Book Award–finalist Thompson (for Who Do You Love) delivers a deeply affecting collection that elevates the quotidian to the sublime. In the title story, Julia, a young woman œembarrassed for œpeople [who] talked about guardian angels or spirit guides, visits a psychic after her boyfriend dies. Faced with the ability to access the world beyond, she recoils sharply. The collection goes on to explore a bewildering array of experience, from a young wife denying her husband's white-collar crimes in œLiberty Tax to the concerned neighbor of œLittle Brown Bird who is powerless to help a little girl being molested by her father. In œEscape, a man who has suffered a stroke finds himself at the mercy of his increasingly abusive wife. Determined to get away from her, he's pleasantly shocked when she solves his problem in a way he never counted on. Thompson immerses readers in details and emotions so consuming and convincing that the inane vagaries of modern life can take on near mythic importance. This collection shows the confidence and power of a writer in her prime. (June)
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Review

"Thompson...delivers a deeply affecting collection that elevates the quotidian to the sublime....explore[s] a bewildering array of experience...Thompson immerses readers in details and emotions so consuming and convincing that the inane vagaries of modern life can take on near mythic importance. This collection shows the confidence and power of a writer in her prime."-- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"[Thompson's] particular grace...may be that her language and approach at first seem so straightforward that it's only partway through reading a story that, like one of her characters, we experience the surprise of a new world unfolding from the ordinary....twilit, elegiac...downright funny, too...Reviewing such a remarkable writer, one's own words can seem too ordinary, but Thompson's talent is such that it can overcome even those limitations."-- Booklist, Starred Review

"I don't deny it. I didn't know Jean Thompson's short fiction until I began reading this new volume of a dozen stories -- and didn't stop. Move over, Alice Munro, this gifted writer now sits in my mind near the throne of the short-story queens and kings of old. She is a master of dialogue, character, pacing and plot, and -- anyone who loves the form will have to cheer about this...Thompson employs spare, plain language, whose rhythms she assembles appropriately for various occasions."-- Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune

"[In] Jean Thompson's immensely satisfying new collection...emotional movement is small but powerful....The prose brims with unforced insight."-- Richard Rayner, Los Angeles Times

"[Thompson's] latest collection, Do Not Deny Me, is compelling, funny, thought-provoking.... Thompson is an astute observer of the pitfalls of contemporary life, how it isolates and challenges, how it brings out one's worst and best. Her clear-eyed, thought-provoking stories highlight rare, precious moments of grace even as she wisely notes the human tendency toward selfishness, pettiness and general bad behavior."-- Connie Ogle, The Miami Herald

"Thompson...takes us to a disturbing place in this darkly beautiful collection of short stories...Enthusiastically recommended."-- Library Journal

"The experiences of ordinary people...are precisely depicted in this fifth collection from the increasingly accomplished Thompson...who wields illuminating quotidian details and stunningly apt clichés with lethal skill, demonstrates how closely their desires and disappointments parallel and echo our own....Wonderful work from a contemporary master of scrupulous observation, plain statement and unvarnished common sense."-- Kirkus

"[Thompson's] at home anywhere and everywhere. She's at home in the skins of women and men, young and old, losers and winners, tyrants and victims, flakes and dupes and dopes and geniuses and soldiers and bikers and moms. Her characters hail from small towns and big cities. In her sparkling and sometimes heartbreaking short stories...Thompson channels all kinds of personalities, but she does it so artfully, with such supple, unaffected grace."-- Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune

"Thompson takes tragic, ordinary figures and lifts them to the sublime in prose that's often as funny as it is sad."-- Jeanne Kolker, Wisconsin State Journal

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416595635
• ISBN-13: 978-1416595632
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,723 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like Looking In A Mirror, May 31, 2009

By	Jill I. Shtulman (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

The short story form is an art and few writers have truly mastered it -- Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Tobias Wolff come to mind. Jean Thompson is among those rarefied authors. I loved her winsome collection "Throw Like A Girl", and couldn't wait to delve into her latest collection.

I was not disappointed. These twelve stories reveal how Americans truly live -- it's like looking in a mirror. All the nuances are pitch perfect, to the point that you say, "I know that guy!" Or, "That reminds me so much of someone I used to know..."

Each reader is bound to have his or her own favorites; I particularly enjoyed "Mr. Rat", the story of a presumably young man in a large, impersonal corporation, who seems at first to be bored and lethargic... and ends up being something far more horrible, a genius at self-preservation and a master at throwing his best friend "under the bus." Then there's "Escape", a tale of Hurley, a stroke victim, and his wife -- two unpleasant people who have a visceral hatred for each other. The twist at the end is reminiscent of O'Henry.

You'll meet people who build treehouses to escape from life's mundanity, women who sing in German and try to save little girls, a divorcee who suffers the blind date from hell, the young "golden couple" who are victims of today's economic times and, in their own way, survivors. Some stories will make you laugh out loud, others will make you wince in self-acknowledgement. All are little gems in their own unique ways.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Fine Collection of Stories from Jean Thompson, June 3, 2009

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

(What's this?)

Quietly, through four novels and four story collections, Jean Thompson has been proving herself one of the finest storytellers at work in the United States. Readers of past collections such as Throw Like a Girl and Who Do You Love will expect plainspoken prose of great resonance -- stories that stay with the reader long after the book has been closed. Do Not Deny Me brings more of the same -- reports from the world of the daily, but how fierce the daily!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's Harder to Find a Good Short Story Writer Than it is to Find a Gold Nugget on the Sidewalk, June 9, 2009

By	Bonnie Brody "Fairbanks Reader" (Fairbanks, Alaska) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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Finding a good writer of short stories is more rare than finding a gold nugget on the sidewalk while you're taking a walk. Jean Thompson is an excellent writer of the short story genre. There are several favorites that I have in this collection.

My all-time favorite is the first story, 'Soldiers of Spiritos'. Ms. Thompson takes on all the politically correct 'isms' that are currently in vogue in academia. The story is about a drama teacher who feels worn-out and out of place on the faculty. At the same time, he is busy writing a science fiction satire about his colleagues who look down on him and sometimes do not even acknowledge him. We see his sensitive side and that he really cares when he can get through to his students on some level.

Another wonderful story is 'Little Brown Bird'. A woman is working on a quilt and hidden among the appliques in plain sight is a little brown bird. The woman befriends a young girl from a troubled family next door and realizes that the girl's life is as visible as the little brown bird.

'Escape' is a story of two older folks who live to hate each other. Sadly, the husband has had a stroke so he is at a disadvantage in the 'let's see how I can get her back' category. They manage to torment each other and the story is sad to read but most of us know at least one couple like this.

On page 251, Ms. Thompson says. "I think you're destined for something wonderful. Not sainthood, exactly." . . ."But some other kind of shining, special life. No matter what things might look like now." Sadly,in each of her stories, nothing much better than the current unhappiness that each character is facing is likely to appear on the horizon. She uses the term "emotional pollution" on page 250. That is what we see in all of the stories - - sadness, anger, bitterness, despair, hopelessness and the repetition of those same mistakes that got each character to the miserable place that they find themselves in now.