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Black Tickets: Stories
Jayne Anne Phillips's reputation-making debut collection paved the way for a new generation of writers. Raved about by reviewers and embraced by the likes of Raymond Carver, Frank Conroy, Annie Dillard, and Nadine Gordimer, Black Tickets now stands as a classic.
With an uncanny ability to depict the lives of men and women who rarely register in American literature, Phillips writes stories that lay bare their suffering and joy. Here are the abused and the abandoned, the violent and the passive, the impoverished and the disenfranchised who populate the small towns and rural byways of the country. A patron of the arts reserves his fondest feeling for the one man who wants it least. A stripper, the daughter of a witch, escapes from poverty into another kind of violence. A young girl during the Depression is caught between the love of her crazy father and the no less powerful love of her sorrowful mother. These are great American stories that have earned a privileged place in modern literature.
Wedding picture --
Home --
Blind girls --
Lechery --
Mamasita --
Black tickets --
The powder of the angels, and I'm yours --
Stripper --
El Paso --
Under the boardwalk --
Sweethearts --
1934 --
Solo dance --
The heavenly animal --
Happy --
Stars --
The patron --
Strangers in the night --
Souvenir --
What it takes to keep a young girl alive --
Cheers --
Snow --
Satisfaction --
Country --
Slave --
Accidents --
Gemcrack
With an uncanny ability to depict the lives of men and women who rarely register in American literature, Phillips writes stories that lay bare their suffering and joy. Here are the abused and the abandoned, the violent and the passive, the impoverished and the disenfranchised who populate the small towns and rural byways of the country. A patron of the arts reserves his fondest feeling for the one man who wants it least. A stripper, the daughter of a witch, escapes from poverty into another kind of violence. A young girl during the Depression is caught between the love of her crazy father and the no less powerful love of her sorrowful mother. These are great American stories that have earned a privileged place in modern literature.
Wedding picture --
Home --
Blind girls --
Lechery --
Mamasita --
Black tickets --
The powder of the angels, and I'm yours --
Stripper --
El Paso --
Under the boardwalk --
Sweethearts --
1934 --
Solo dance --
The heavenly animal --
Happy --
Stars --
The patron --
Strangers in the night --
Souvenir --
What it takes to keep a young girl alive --
Cheers --
Snow --
Satisfaction --
Country --
Slave --
Accidents --
Gemcrack
288 pages, Paperback
First published September 28, 1979
About the author
Jayne Anne Phillips
49 books520 followersJAYNE ANNE PHILLIPS is the author of Black Tickets, Machine Dreams, Fast Lanes, Shelter, MotherKind, Lark and Termite, and Quiet Dell. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Bunting Fellowship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Winner of an Arts and Letters Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she was inducted into the Academy in 2018. A National Book Award finalist, and twice a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, she lives in New York and Boston.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
October 9, 2014
...the girl half dazed on sidewalk falls over, lays down like she’s home.
Black Tickets is a book of startling confessions, refuted sins and daring apathy. It’s beautiful, unsettling and reckless. It’s an acerbic masterpiece which recoils at the thought of refinement and perfection. It belongs to a different world- a world of cheap motels and flickering neon lights, of broken homes and failed road trips, of stifling love and unfathomable desire. It’s like a foreign movie that seeks stories in closed bars and communicates the stench of empty bottles. Like the person with a new address every day, it indulges in unabashed wanderlust.
She drove fast the first few hours. The sun looked like the moon, dim, layered over.
It’s like those solitary travelling in the early hours of morning when night and day dissolves into indifference. It’s a cul de sac that ends up in ambiguity. These are the heavy thoughts that tread on transparent, thin ice. In the garb of rational persona, the wavering minds are directing their own rebellious scenes here. There is a sickening irresolution about life but commendable conviction about all those bad ideas. Here the strangling seems a lesser evil than giving birth. The vocabulary that defines the lives of these people is completely different from mine. The words mostly rhyme with filth, madness and longing. There is beauty but that of a morning glory. It’s enough.
Them stars are just holes in the sky after all. And while I’m sleeping in that hot bed everything I ever thought of having falls into em.
It’s like a musical riddle with teasing directions. I felt myself receding into an unfamiliar territory of impersonal and mysterious kind. Maybe this is as real as real gets but it’s one frightening reality. The words are embedded within small space while leaving generous margins but that hardly warrants understanding of these stories. The characters mostly remain in a fugue state and those who are conscious are deliberately driving towards the maelstrom of false emotions that urge them to carve up a dreamy fairy tale. If only there was a prince charming in waiting.
Surrounded by the blur of her own movements, the thought of making him happy was very dear to her. She moved it from place to place, a surprise she never opened. She slept alone at night, soul of a naked priest in her sweet body.
Jayne Anne Phillips is a sexy Flannery O’Connor, a blunt Carson McCullers and the ever poetic and powerful, Adrienne Rich. And you haven’t read her yet? :-)
January 31, 2009
If someone asked me to describe Flannery O'Connor as music, I'd refer them to classic blues and hard-edged folk like Son House and Leadbelly and early Dylan.
If someone asked me to describe Jayne Anne Phillips' Black Tickets as music, I'd sit her down with a playlist that included a narrow band of blues/post-blues tunes infused with rock and punk, like Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac doing I Loved Another Woman , Catpower singing Robert Johnson's Come on in My Kitchen , PJ Harvey doing Dylan's Highway 61, Catpower again doing Tom Waits' Yesterday is Here , Lightnin Hopkins doing Katie May and Frisco Blues, Rickie Lee Jones doing the Hendrix tune Up From the Skies, Patti Smith doing This Dead City.
Hard tunes, substantial and sad, close to the bone and tingling the flesh, mainly sung by women who have a way of making the substance occur as deceptively ethereal.
You could call it edgy, but it wouldn't capture the meditative, dream quality of these stories - it's as if Tarkovsky parachuted onto the set of an early Scorsese film. Highly condensed tales of dislocation and yearning and glimmers of transcendence, crafted as well as anything from the poets, it's fucking magic. It hurts.
a sample that doesn't give anything away, just a little glimpse of the ground Phillips covers here:
The sewing woman lived across the tracks, down past Arey's feed store. Row of skinny houses on a mud alley. Her rooms smelled of salted grease and old newspaper. Behind the ironing board she was thin, scooping up papers that shuffled open in her hands. Her eyebrows were arched sharp and painted on...
If someone asked me to describe Jayne Anne Phillips' Black Tickets as music, I'd sit her down with a playlist that included a narrow band of blues/post-blues tunes infused with rock and punk, like Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac doing I Loved Another Woman , Catpower singing Robert Johnson's Come on in My Kitchen , PJ Harvey doing Dylan's Highway 61, Catpower again doing Tom Waits' Yesterday is Here , Lightnin Hopkins doing Katie May and Frisco Blues, Rickie Lee Jones doing the Hendrix tune Up From the Skies, Patti Smith doing This Dead City.
Hard tunes, substantial and sad, close to the bone and tingling the flesh, mainly sung by women who have a way of making the substance occur as deceptively ethereal.
You could call it edgy, but it wouldn't capture the meditative, dream quality of these stories - it's as if Tarkovsky parachuted onto the set of an early Scorsese film. Highly condensed tales of dislocation and yearning and glimmers of transcendence, crafted as well as anything from the poets, it's fucking magic. It hurts.
a sample that doesn't give anything away, just a little glimpse of the ground Phillips covers here:
The sewing woman lived across the tracks, down past Arey's feed store. Row of skinny houses on a mud alley. Her rooms smelled of salted grease and old newspaper. Behind the ironing board she was thin, scooping up papers that shuffled open in her hands. Her eyebrows were arched sharp and painted on...
April 11, 2019
I got this because I read that her style was an inspiration to William Gibson when he wrote Neuromancer. Maybe. It's a bunch of short stories told in stream-of-consciousness. I could guess at origins & where they would go afterward, but these were ugly snapshots. A very little went a long way. For instance, one of the early stories is a young girl (12?) thinking about the people that she will & has had sex with.
I didn't care for the style, although since they were short stories, stream-of-consciousness worked better than in a novel. The subject matter ran the gamut from depressing to totally repugnant. Were there any bright spots? I have to admit to skimming more & more.
I'll agree that the pace was headlong & the pictures were clearly painted, but they were just too ugly for me to look beyond them to enjoy the style. My overall rating is yuck, don't inflict this on yourself.
I didn't care for the style, although since they were short stories, stream-of-consciousness worked better than in a novel. The subject matter ran the gamut from depressing to totally repugnant. Were there any bright spots? I have to admit to skimming more & more.
I'll agree that the pace was headlong & the pictures were clearly painted, but they were just too ugly for me to look beyond them to enjoy the style. My overall rating is yuck, don't inflict this on yourself.
July 19, 2011
I live to find books like this. I don't know what I want to do with my life other than find those books that make you vibrate with excitement - this was one of those books. Sometimes it feels like I'll never find another book that hits me hard, ever again and then I do and my faith is restored. The only reason I want to live to be old, old, old is so that I might find every good book in the world and experience what I felt with reading this, it was amazing.
Some of the stories lost me but I think that had more to do with my lack of focus than anything else but there were several stories that pained me because they were so good. I don't dog ear pages in my novels but this one has quite a few. There's nothing I can say to convey how much I loved this book. I can't even write a proper review because I'm still flushed and dumb struck with awe.
Some of the stories lost me but I think that had more to do with my lack of focus than anything else but there were several stories that pained me because they were so good. I don't dog ear pages in my novels but this one has quite a few. There's nothing I can say to convey how much I loved this book. I can't even write a proper review because I'm still flushed and dumb struck with awe.
January 14, 2011
Ground-breaking, brilliant, masterful.
I'm sure many writers have been inspired by the stories in this collection. Phillips published these stories in the 70's, the style of which now seem to be all over the internet. I have to admit that there were two stories that befuddled me at their ends (as a lot of these short-short stories in general seem to do to me) but I still think that's my lack of perception and not the author's fault.
Two of the stories also seem to have the same female lead character but with different names (and even have the characters relating the same anecdote unless I'm confusing that with Machine Dreams which I read recently) , but that's a very minor quibble; I'm sure these numerous stories were written over a span of many years.
The strength of Phillips' writing is in her amazing way of painting a complete picture with just a few words -- absolutely amazing.
I loved "1934" and "Snow," and the final story left me breathless.
I'm sure many writers have been inspired by the stories in this collection. Phillips published these stories in the 70's, the style of which now seem to be all over the internet. I have to admit that there were two stories that befuddled me at their ends (as a lot of these short-short stories in general seem to do to me) but I still think that's my lack of perception and not the author's fault.
Two of the stories also seem to have the same female lead character but with different names (and even have the characters relating the same anecdote unless I'm confusing that with Machine Dreams which I read recently) , but that's a very minor quibble; I'm sure these numerous stories were written over a span of many years.
The strength of Phillips' writing is in her amazing way of painting a complete picture with just a few words -- absolutely amazing.
I loved "1934" and "Snow," and the final story left me breathless.
December 19, 2008
I'm embarrassed to say I had not read the complete book before, just the shorter stories in various anthologies. While I had always enjoyed her brief ones, I was blown away by the longer ones. I can only imagine why this book is not taught more in Lit classes, perhaps because of the very gritty content, but it should be. It's a real lesson on what can be done with the English language and with narrative voice. I was less entranced by the title story than by some of the others, such as Country. Simply brilliant.
January 31, 2010
If anyone is interested where poetry meets prose, this is where it begins. Astonishingly forward and musical. The beat, the hum of her writing, it is like the beating of one's heart.
September 9, 2022
This collection is written very poetically, so at times it was hard for me to fully grasp what was happening in the stories. I feel like I would definitely benefit from a second read, but I also just don’t see myself wanting to read this again anytime soon lol
March 18, 2011
So thrilled to have found JAP. She certainly gives Mary Gaitskill a run for her money. Dark, sexy, surreal stories, this was a real joy to read. Also, this must have been some of the first flash fiction, back in 1975. Great collection, off to read more of her work.
July 6, 2011
Ok. another rule-breaker.. read this one AGES ago, but I just added Christie Malry's Own Double entry, because it was one of the few books that made me laugh out loud (and to cry as well), and on that flip side, I add, Jayne Anne Phillips's short story collection, Black Tickets.
As the book-track of my life goes this is a huge milestone. As I recall, I stumbled upon this as a junior in high school, i think I had just gone to a reading by Harlan Ellison (who! a story for another time!), and there was announcement for JAP's reading of this work. I never made it, but it came on the radio, and well I was mesmerized. I can modestly say, that I was a precocious reader (to which i have not always been served well, I read some things much too young, and missed a lot, and I also missed out volumes of material for the younger reader that I never really gave a shot).. but still another day for that.
but this book hit me as a landslide. a landslide like Stevie Nicks's song and a real one. Emotional stories that hit the gut, and hit the gut hard. At the time I was just learning about acting and a character and Stanislavsky and Uta Hagen and never thought fiction could duplicate a real performance or the real itself. I even gave a copy of this to one of my most influential teachers (in memoriam Nancy Donohue), I read and re-read these short stories and really wanted others to get it. so much yearning, loss, need that you are forced to despair and and I hope find others to reach out to... eventually I found Carver, others (let's through Nick Cave in there and some TC Boyle just because i want to) but this was one of the first that really showed me adult feeling and reactions and concepts and i have no idea, but I know no one else who heard of it, and well that is wrong. I had read other deep books, but chiefly from other eras.. (Holocaust books, Zola, Byron, other so-called classics of the human condition) but this one hit me. hard. once again, i give my guarantee. if you buy it and don't like it, I will reimburse your and sign you up for a heart transplant.
As the book-track of my life goes this is a huge milestone. As I recall, I stumbled upon this as a junior in high school, i think I had just gone to a reading by Harlan Ellison (who! a story for another time!), and there was announcement for JAP's reading of this work. I never made it, but it came on the radio, and well I was mesmerized. I can modestly say, that I was a precocious reader (to which i have not always been served well, I read some things much too young, and missed a lot, and I also missed out volumes of material for the younger reader that I never really gave a shot).. but still another day for that.
but this book hit me as a landslide. a landslide like Stevie Nicks's song and a real one. Emotional stories that hit the gut, and hit the gut hard. At the time I was just learning about acting and a character and Stanislavsky and Uta Hagen and never thought fiction could duplicate a real performance or the real itself. I even gave a copy of this to one of my most influential teachers (in memoriam Nancy Donohue), I read and re-read these short stories and really wanted others to get it. so much yearning, loss, need that you are forced to despair and and I hope find others to reach out to... eventually I found Carver, others (let's through Nick Cave in there and some TC Boyle just because i want to) but this was one of the first that really showed me adult feeling and reactions and concepts and i have no idea, but I know no one else who heard of it, and well that is wrong. I had read other deep books, but chiefly from other eras.. (Holocaust books, Zola, Byron, other so-called classics of the human condition) but this one hit me. hard. once again, i give my guarantee. if you buy it and don't like it, I will reimburse your and sign you up for a heart transplant.
October 4, 2016
Jayne Anne Phillip’s collection of short stories Black Tickets were touted as “original” and “the best since Eudora Welty” and “early genius” upon first publication in 1979.
In 2008, I didn’t find them to be all that compelling or original, but that may be a sign of the times. I just don’t believe that if these were published today for the first time they’d inspire the same accolades. And isn't that the test of a classic, standing the test of time?
The use of shock and rawness as a literary device used in some of these stories was valid and useful when written but have lost their effectiveness.
Phillips characters fall either to the side of immorality and their victims: the drug dealers, sluts, loners, raped, abused, confused, or they are the sweeter narratives of relationships between parents, children and siblings. Where she was more successful at engaging me was with the straight forward story telling of familial relationships. These classic family dramas were worthy of the accolades Snow and Souvenir.
In 2008, I didn’t find them to be all that compelling or original, but that may be a sign of the times. I just don’t believe that if these were published today for the first time they’d inspire the same accolades. And isn't that the test of a classic, standing the test of time?
The use of shock and rawness as a literary device used in some of these stories was valid and useful when written but have lost their effectiveness.
Phillips characters fall either to the side of immorality and their victims: the drug dealers, sluts, loners, raped, abused, confused, or they are the sweeter narratives of relationships between parents, children and siblings. Where she was more successful at engaging me was with the straight forward story telling of familial relationships. These classic family dramas were worthy of the accolades Snow and Souvenir.
May 6, 2016
This is her first collection. With early stories, there's a sense of adventurousness--but there can also be pretense and self-indulgence. Some of the stories are so oblique and almost intentionally confusing that I found myself wishing a given story would end. The technique is hit and miss. Phillips often writes about sex--the dirtier and sleazier the better. There are no cotillions or country clubs in these stories; they're all set in the worst parts of the worst towns. I like that.
What I don't like is relying purely on style, atmosphere and setting. The details are good--poetic even--but most of these stories are just vignettes. It's useful to consider that approach as a writer, when revising or expanding scenes, for example. But when I have to re-read a section five times just to figure out what the hell is going on--I get frustrated.
Still, there's much to admire here and a few things to emulate.
What I don't like is relying purely on style, atmosphere and setting. The details are good--poetic even--but most of these stories are just vignettes. It's useful to consider that approach as a writer, when revising or expanding scenes, for example. But when I have to re-read a section five times just to figure out what the hell is going on--I get frustrated.
Still, there's much to admire here and a few things to emulate.
August 21, 2020
The writing was pretty but wow it made me feel dumb.
July 26, 2024
I picked this up a few weeks ago because of the Pulitzer victory. Knew of Jayne Anne Phillips but had never took the plunge….until Black Tickets. Wow. Faulkner’s stream of conscious brilliance, the grit of Harry Crews, the emblazoned zeal of Flannery O’Connor, the stark, spare realities of Raymond Carver, and something wholly and originally Jayne Anne Phillips. West Virginian. Brutal. Musical. Pure. Poetic parables and prophecies. Knockout scenes & vignettes, fiery stories, mini novels or slim, sylph-like novelettes? Either way…they stand like golden monuments. How did I miss this?
5 star bliss: Something to return to etermally. Just for the wonder. Essential.
5 star bliss: Something to return to etermally. Just for the wonder. Essential.
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June 15, 2020“The war ended too soon. She didn’t finish her training. She came home only to nurse her mother and to meet my father at a dance. She married him in two weeks. It took twenty years to divorce him.”
“I did all I could, she sighs. And I was glad to do it. I’m glad I don’t have to feel guilty.
No one has to feel guilty, I tell her.
And why not? says my mother. There’s nothing wrong with guilt. If you are guilty, you should feel guilty.
My mother has often told me that I will be sorry when she is gone.”
“Eating, she thought about sex and chewed pears as though they were conscious.”
“I’m not sure anymore when the first accident happened. Or if it was an accident. Now when I tell you about my accidents you are sympathetic and some of you fall in love with me. Men whose childhoods were slow and smooth want my straightjacket stories. My sugar is a panic that melts on your tongue and leaves a tiny hole in what you taste.”
Written in 1975. JAP was born ‘52 in WV.
“I did all I could, she sighs. And I was glad to do it. I’m glad I don’t have to feel guilty.
No one has to feel guilty, I tell her.
And why not? says my mother. There’s nothing wrong with guilt. If you are guilty, you should feel guilty.
My mother has often told me that I will be sorry when she is gone.”
“Eating, she thought about sex and chewed pears as though they were conscious.”
“I’m not sure anymore when the first accident happened. Or if it was an accident. Now when I tell you about my accidents you are sympathetic and some of you fall in love with me. Men whose childhoods were slow and smooth want my straightjacket stories. My sugar is a panic that melts on your tongue and leaves a tiny hole in what you taste.”
Written in 1975. JAP was born ‘52 in WV.
June 25, 2020
Gloriously weird. Damn.
May 31, 2024
I just read the Pulitzer Prize winners and saw this author won for fiction2024. I had never heard of her but sounded interesting; didn’t like paying $26 for a hard copy, but the article I read about the author said she was the author of the “criticality acclaimed “ book of short stories: Black Tickets”. Ok, I’ll bite. Found a used copy for five bucks and when I open it upon arrival, I see it’s a SIGNED copy. What an amazing portent! Alas, I did not like this book. Her language is beautiful, kind of poetic; but don’t you hate reading a story and all you can think is: I don’t know what happened.
The majority of these stories are little vignettes that express an emotion or a sense without any indication of who these people are or what they are doing or why I should care.
Over half the stories were literally one page.
Anyways, now I don’t really have a desire to read the Pulitzer winner, until someone I know reads it and says it was ok.
Maybe the portent was:”why would someone sell an author signed book written by a Pulitzer Prize winner for five bucks (free shipping)”?
The majority of these stories are little vignettes that express an emotion or a sense without any indication of who these people are or what they are doing or why I should care.
Over half the stories were literally one page.
Anyways, now I don’t really have a desire to read the Pulitzer winner, until someone I know reads it and says it was ok.
Maybe the portent was:”why would someone sell an author signed book written by a Pulitzer Prize winner for five bucks (free shipping)”?
October 14, 2013
The first half of this was slow-going for me (aside from "Home"); and I struggled with what sort of rating to give this book.
With some of the stories ("Lechery," "Black Tickets," "El Paso," and many of the short-shorts) a lot of the action seemed buried under names and weirdness and poetry; I've seen this done in more recent collections as well, but somehow better?
However, things did improve later on, "Gemcrack" was written in the same style as the aforementioned stories but the elements came together better; "Slave" tells an entire story in two pages quite well; and "The Heavenly Animal," "Snow," and "Country" are my favourites in the book (I also enjoyed "1934.") So 4 stars seems fair, and I'm glad I got to experience the diversity of Phillips' writing style.
With some of the stories ("Lechery," "Black Tickets," "El Paso," and many of the short-shorts) a lot of the action seemed buried under names and weirdness and poetry; I've seen this done in more recent collections as well, but somehow better?
However, things did improve later on, "Gemcrack" was written in the same style as the aforementioned stories but the elements came together better; "Slave" tells an entire story in two pages quite well; and "The Heavenly Animal," "Snow," and "Country" are my favourites in the book (I also enjoyed "1934.") So 4 stars seems fair, and I'm glad I got to experience the diversity of Phillips' writing style.
November 20, 2019
There were a handful of stories that I thought were particularly good--usually the ones involving mothers and daughters. The best evoked Bonnie Jo Campbell's most recent collection of short stories, but unfortunately, I found much of the rest overly written, obscure, repetitive, and dull. I love great flash prose, and I think some of the ones included here were occasionally great. But many just left me wondering, "So what?" Many of the better ones seemed to be gesturing towards something interesting, but then the pieces just ended abruptly.
This is the second book I've read by Phillips, and I just don't think I'm a good reader for her work. Someone else will likely find much to love about this.
This is the second book I've read by Phillips, and I just don't think I'm a good reader for her work. Someone else will likely find much to love about this.
August 31, 2007
This collection walks a tightrope wire of dense, lyrically visceral prose. As such, it is a bit uneven. Certain stories sing with a meld of memory and present, others seem too unmoored. Many of the stories are so brief that they seem to be portraits: a quick, charcoal sketch, drawn in furious haste. I have mixed feelings on whether or not they are successful.
Still, I give this collection 4 stars because when it works, it really works, and I found myself provoked and challenged, even by the lesser stories.
Still, I give this collection 4 stars because when it works, it really works, and I found myself provoked and challenged, even by the lesser stories.
December 4, 2015
Books don't just consist of words on a page, every reader brings their own life stories, perceptions and context to every book they read. That may be why I did not enjoy "Black Tickets". I was reading these short stories in various doctors offices, E.R.s and hospital rooms. I don't recommend this as hospital reading. It's dark. Even I could see that the author does a good job with parent/grown child relationships, and certain stories were strong, but the rest felt like swimming in mud.
May 28, 2008
Great collection of short stories that exhibit impressive economy. Sparse punctuation, no quotes, plenty of fragments. Often stories lasted no more than a three paragraphs over two pages. A must-read for any one interested in the art of conveying more with less.
September 3, 2009
Hard, hard short stories written by a native West Virginian. They speak to the lives of our most disenfranchised and they are disturbing. I will probably re-read at some point because I could sense an arc to the stories that may merit further exploration.
May 8, 2016
Well it was a little bit hard for a non English reader
They were confusing thoroughly descriptive
Super strong very shattering
Super depressing and some stories you just wish they'd stop
It was like listening to nails scratching on a chalk board while bathing in shit rain and fire
They were confusing thoroughly descriptive
Super strong very shattering
Super depressing and some stories you just wish they'd stop
It was like listening to nails scratching on a chalk board while bathing in shit rain and fire
October 4, 2008
Unremittingly, almost ceaselessly grim. But you can almost hear the sentences crunch as she tries to sound "literary."
May 27, 2009
thought I'd added this but obvioulsy not. Great collection of hard hitting v. short stories. Read in the 80s alongside Carver, Ford et al..
September 3, 2021
Like a three-hundred page punch to the face and I savoured every blow. Jayne Anne Phillips is a dominatrix of the English language.
July 15, 2019
gritty unflinching poetic unsettling stories. been holding onto this for the right time for a long time; it was more intoxicating & harder work than i expected. deserves better than the guardian’s review: “a sort of female equivalent of our own ian mcewan” 🙄. not flawless, now - she’s strongest when working with voices & in dialogue - the stories i loved most were the ones with voice & immediacy. some of the others were flatter, both distant & somehow relentless. not for everyone, but what is?
by god when her writing does hit it’s clear like a singing bowl; it follows you.
her intro is class: ‘characters & voices in these stories began in what is real, but became, in fact, dreams. they bear no relation to living persons, except that love or loss lends a reality to what is imagined.’
the title story wasn’t my jam, but i loved “wedding picture” & “home” best (they read like a pair - a few seem to do that), & also “the powder of the angels, and i’m yours”, “the heavenly animal”, “happy”, & “accidents”. the fragmentary flash ones seemed to hold the themes more strangely & powerfully, tighter & better.
by god when her writing does hit it’s clear like a singing bowl; it follows you.
her intro is class: ‘characters & voices in these stories began in what is real, but became, in fact, dreams. they bear no relation to living persons, except that love or loss lends a reality to what is imagined.’
the title story wasn’t my jam, but i loved “wedding picture” & “home” best (they read like a pair - a few seem to do that), & also “the powder of the angels, and i’m yours”, “the heavenly animal”, “happy”, & “accidents”. the fragmentary flash ones seemed to hold the themes more strangely & powerfully, tighter & better.
August 21, 2018
This gets raves from others, but I couldn't stand it and quit reading after finishing about a third of it. For a book that's supposed to be a classic, I found it unreadable. I do appreciate writers who privilege voice--George Saunders, for example--but here, Phillips seems to me to privilege the stylized voices of downtrodden and/or nasty characters over making actual narrative sense. The result to me was, for the chunk I read, the intimation of unrelenting awfulness happening somewhere to someone inchoate--hard to grasp what the hell's even going on, much less to care.
September 25, 2023
if there was ever one book u saw on someone else's goodreads and decided to read, let this be the one........ new favorite book.... new favorite author.... bingeing everything she's ever written atm
Lechery is the best short story ive ever read, el paso pretty close too, stripper, gemcrack
"I remember there was always dog puke on the sidewalks in El Paso. All those strays get the sweats around noon and bring up the garbage they ate in the back alleys of beanerys at dawn. Think about Texas and there’s those skinny fanned ribs heaving."
Lechery is the best short story ive ever read, el paso pretty close too, stripper, gemcrack
"I remember there was always dog puke on the sidewalks in El Paso. All those strays get the sweats around noon and bring up the garbage they ate in the back alleys of beanerys at dawn. Think about Texas and there’s those skinny fanned ribs heaving."
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