Too nyorky and relationship oriented for me, but good. ( )

I think by now, I have established that I am a bit of a book nerd. So, it would not be weird, knowing this information, that I do things like- Short Story Saturday! Not that I would actually do or name out loud such an activity. Ok, ok, I may have cried out to my wife- it is Short Story Saturday this last Saturday and there may or may not have been a party hat involved. Tee shirts are definitely not on the way.

If I had to name a type of book that I keep going back to, it is the short story. If I want to grab a quick read, I will often go for the short story/essay knowing I can pick it up and put it down or plow through all of the stories in one sitting. With The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris, it was the latter type of reading, due to the..um...totally not Short Story Saturday declaration.

I always go into short stories knowing this- there will be hits and there will be misses. Ferris' book is no different in that sense. My hope is there will be a lot more hits than misses. The other good news is that Ferris' book does that too. I also desire a short story to be the right length for a short story- about 18 pages or so, but definitely not over 50. The final good news is that Ferris' book excels in that too.

The only negative is I remembered reading a lot of these stories. I read the New Yorker often, so I had read or I was reminded I read many of the stories as I was going along, so I may have gotten through them faster than originally intended. So, I will warn, if you read the New Yorker, this is a collection taken mostly from that magazine. That was the only negative though.

There were more positives in this collection. Many of the stories deal with people, particularly males, struggling with connection and relationships. The first story for example is about a husband and wife, who are hosting a dinner party. The husband complains about how much he hates the people he is going to have dinner with, who are his wife's best friends. They are stood up and when the husband storms out to go find the couple, it turns out they are hosting their own party and he and his wife were not invited. Why? Well, I won't spoil the story.

Many of the stories have that type of vibe- an old man who only complains about his aches and pains, until a prostitute enters his life, a playwright struggling to write the pilot while his actors move on to other projects, a man who cannot interact with others, etc.

I found most of the stories were right on target and I loved this collection. The stories were well written, the right length for a short story, and a tight narrative that got the reader into the world quickly. I recommend this one.

I gave it 4 stars.

* I wish to thank NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book. I received it in exchange for an honest review. ( )

I guess I still don't like short stories.

The story called The Dinner Party was good, but I couldn't get interested in any of the other stories so, into the Library Sale box it goes.

( )

Well that was really disappointing. Listen, I understand that good novelists are often not great at writing short fiction, but the incessant yuppie white man bullshit was just too much. We're done Joshua. ( )

As my first experience with Joshua Ferris, this concise, punchy collection of modern short stories was a solid introduction to his work, and I greatly enjoyed it – but for one major recurring quality. Ferris sure can spin a tale, which conjures a whiff of Armistead Maupin in a bigger city context, with less sanguine charm and far more morose grit. His prose is fantastic and the pacing of each piece is nearly flawless. He is imaginative, emotive, and varied in his enveloping vignettes of emotional damage bubbling up to the surface of the everyman. And by "everyman," I mean exactly that. Across the board, Ferris' stories are centered on both the deep and shallow flaws within compromised males that are missing significant chunks of their emotional stability. Whether these chunks were never imparted or whether they were once present and spirited away by loss, complacency, or neglect is not clear. What is most shocking about this theme is that it very well could describe the majority of actual American male relationships with others and with themselves. These are stark chronicles of loneliness, compromise, wistfulness, and insecurity, and they are probably more realistic than we are comfortable in acknowledging. This brutal exploration of humanity is not the quality by which I am bothered, however. In fact, it's arguably Ferris' strongest facet.

Rather than ending each story with any kind of satisfaction or semblance of closure to diffuse the relentless tension, Ferris deliberately takes advantage of the "negative space" in the unsaid words after the cliffhanger final paragraphs to let the reader come up with their own closure – or, more likely, to linger upon the uncomfortable silence left behind when the storyteller abruptly ceases the tale. While I realize that this is a literary technique used for pointed effect, it becomes something of a tedious signature; after eleven stories in a row, it tends to come off like a teasing pretension. As a result, as I grew familiar with Ferris' style, I also grew trepidatious about coming to the jarring end of another one of his short stories in The Dinner Party. This is disappointing only because I want him to continue ad infinitum, so engrossing are the yarns. I suppose this renders his mission accomplished, and for that he cannot be too harshly faulted.

All in all, Ferris is a powerful writer who appears able to have a go at any genre. He is a truth-teller and is not afraid of confrontation or pain – or about handing it out. That discomfort might not appeal to every reader, but I sure appreciate his contribution to artfully exposing our flaws, faults, and foibles in a dream-hazy yet sobering manner.

Favorites from the collection include More Abandon, Life in the Heart of the Dead, and A Fair Price – though any and all are worth your time and attention. I'm very much looking forward to more of Joshua Ferris' short stories, negative space and all. ( )