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You Are Not the One: Stories Paperback – December 21, 2004
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"If you're interested in the way we live now, read these funny, destabilizing, and superbly crafted stories."--Edmund White
In this debut collection of eight compulsively readable stories, Vestal McIntyre combines honesty and compassion with hilarious dialogue. With "ONJ.com," a young woman in advertising decides she wants a gay man in her life, but the good-looking and fast-talking gay coworker she meets isn't as pleasant and "fun" as she had hoped. In "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. 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.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateDecember 21, 2004
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.58 x 8.2 inches
- ISBN-100786714336
- ISBN-13978-0786714339
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
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About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Grand Central Publishing
- Publication date : December 21, 2004
- Language : English
- Print length : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0786714336
- ISBN-13 : 978-0786714339
- Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.58 x 8.2 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #5,948,209 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #842 in LGBTQ+ Humorous Fiction (Books)
- #3,359 in LGBTQ+ Literary Fiction (Books)
- #6,779 in Dark Humor
- Customer Reviews:
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.
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- Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2005Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseVestal McIntyre has written eight very fine stories here, everyone of which is unique and original. The plots are as different as the kidnapping by teenage hoodlums of a busboy wearing a kangaroo suit to lure customers to the restaurant where he is employed to a man, no longer in love with his very successful wife, who hires a prostitute to have sex with him while driving his Mercedes through an automatic carwash. Mr. McIntyre is very wonderful with words and can do a lot with a little: "She looked at his tired gray eyes and lipless mouth. He had a habit of chewing on the inside of his cheeks." Another example: "The cousins slept scattered around the downstairs like shoes on the floor of a messy closet". And drinking brandy is like "swallowing candlelight."
While all eight stories are excellent, the last two are quite brilliant. In "Foray" the narrator Ray reads MOBY DICK to a young relative, Vance, who has Down syndrome. The story overwhelms the reader with its compassion as the young Vance is touched by hearing this great epic read aloud. When the narrator finishes MOBY DICK as the Pequod and its crew were "swallowed by the sea," "Tears streamed down Vance's face and fell into the sand. His hands moved from the armrest to cling to my [Ray's] arm as if there were something I could do for all those men. For him it had been not tragedy, but disaster." In the final story, "Nightwalking," three adult children for the first time after the death of their mother all get together with their father and each other. This little gathering sounds too much like family get-togethers too many of us have experienced. One sister is much more welcome if she shows up with her husband and child, rather than alone. A brother brings a new woman friend to meet his family for the first time and gets turned on by the idea of sleeping with her in his old bedroom from childhood. And, of course, somebody brings up a dicey topic at dinner which offends another sibling. Sound familiar?
Mr. MCIntyre in this his first collection writes stories that both delight the reader and leave him all the more wise for having read them.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2008I 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.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2004Format: PaperbackA 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.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2008Format: PaperbackThis is the kind of book where you think about and miss the characters long after you've finished reading. You start the book by building up a quick and eager pace, but towards the end you slow down because you don't want it to be over. I can't wait for the author's next book.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2005Format: PaperbackThis collection offers the kind of rewarding experience readers desire and so seldom get. The story "Sahara," about the mistaken-identity kidnapping of a boy wearing a kangaroo costume, is just one example of how original, touching, and wildly entertaining this book is. Vestal McIntyre is a major talent, and YOU ARE NOT THE ONE is one of the sharpest, funniest and most well-crafted story collections I've ever read. I highly recommend it.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2005Format: PaperbackVestal McIntire's world of characters is one well worth visiting. He has an astute vision of the human condition and manages a focus of modern living with clarity and humor that is biting and wise. ONJ.com, Dunford and Disability are my favorites.
