Stacey Richter

Twin Study: Stories is a collection of short stories by Stacey Richter which has garnered attention for her interesting narrators. I agree that her narrators are not standard in any way, but a few of them cross the line between wacky and annoying. A few, like the one in “Habits and Habitat of the Southwestern Bad Boy,” I find unsympathetic and hard to listen to. This may have been by Richter’s design, but if I’m going to read a store told by someone a bit offensive, I need to feel some modicum of sympathy for them. This is not the case in a couple of Richter’s narrators. These narrators are in the minority, though, and many of them, such as the one in the title story “Twin Study,” are both funny and sympathetic. Richter’s stories shine when the reader can see through the quirky voice of the narrator into her pain.

One story that is of particular note is “Velvet,” the second story in the volume. Velvet is a dog on an adventure and the story is told by a third person narrator who remains close to Velvet’s point of view. The tone of the story performs a very fine balancing act between being a sappy animated movie about a dog and a cynical look at life through a dog’s eyes. The story is a realistic look at adventure and its consequences and Richter manages to make it a thoughtful story for adults without turning it into a negative caricature. This story in-and-of-itself, in its demonstration of Richter’s control of her craft, makes the volume one to pick up and enjoy.

(also posted on my blog at http:///www.timfredrick.com)… (meer)

I picked up this collection after reading Richter's story in [book:Tin House: Fantastic Women]. Not every story here was "genre-bending," but that didn't matter. I loved the writing all the same, particularly the diaglogue. I read it, cover to cover, in a week--which is lightspeed for me (when I'm not reading flash fiction). This collection gets a five, though, because the connecting thread between the stories was so clear: Women on the cusp of transition, some opting to change direction while others don't; where either choice makes some happy, and others not so much.… (meer)

This is a book of finely constructed satires. Each narrator and character is given a distinct voice, which is important considering their wide variety, from a prepubescent boy (A Prodigy of Longing) to the ghost of an accidentally amputated leg (Rules for Being Human), the latter a considerable feat of imagination. There are others which show off a bravura technique: A Groupie, a Rock Star is a close reading of 30 seconds in the life of the title characters, and Sally's Story takes the story of a praeternatually gifted dog and constructs something quietly shocking.

Note that these stories are seldom comic. I laughed exactly once: "This evening Vlad is wearing black suede boots, circa 1989. A very pointy toe. He's sitting with the verbs, Pat and Bob." (Rules for Being Human)

I confess that I when I realized that the 'Satan' of the title story was merely a twentysomething geek's online name, I started to feel let down; but the story goes places so unexpected it quickly overcame the hurdle of thwarted expectation.

The stories:
The Beauty Treatment
An Island of Boyfriends
Goal 666
Sally's Story
The First Men
The Ocean
Rats Eat Cats
Rules for Being Human
Prom Night
My Date With Satan
A Groupie, a Rock Star
Goodnight
A Prodigy of Longing… (meer)