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The Devil You Know
"Jenn Farrell's smart, observant stories about desire and escape take us to the places we're all afraid to admit we've been. Read The Devil You Know with greed and a hot, pleasurable hint of guilt---Sally Cooper author of Love Object and Tell Everything" "There are points in Jenn Farrell's amazing collection that I felt like I was listening in on the most intimate conversations of strangers---I was rapt with attention, but almost guilty for being privy to such intimacy. The Devil You Know treads familiar territory---small town ennui, adolescent love, grief and self-destruction---but does it with such emotional acuity that it doesn't feel familiar at all, it feels extraordinary---Catherine Hanrahan author of Lost Girls and Love Hotels" "Make no mistake; The Devil You Know belongs on the shelf alongside Nights Below Station Street. In this confident, insightful, often horrifyingly funny collection, Jenn Farrell distinguishes herself as one of Canada's finest contemporary writers of short fiction. Here are working class family dramas boiled down to the bone. Quick and mean as a Virginia Slim and bright and harsh as a Rexall at midnight, Farrell never fails to bring us down to earth to meet those beautiful, flawed, undeniably human devils we know so well. Refreshingly honest, impeccably written. A very, very good book---Elizabeth Bachinsky author of Home of Sudden Service" "The Devil You Know is the follow-up volume to Farrell's critically acclaimed debut collection, Sugar Bush & Other Stories." These stories deal with sex, love, work, birth, and death in alternately moving, shocking, funny, and at times devastating ways. Whether these characters are facing the death of a parent, bad love choices, the possibility of unwanted pregnancy, the rupture of friendships, teen violence, or the exploration of sado-masochistic sex, Farrell exposes their ticking cores and pulls the reader along every step of the way.
168 pages, Paperback
First published August 16, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 25, 2020
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there, that is my cranky DBR golden ager PSA - you have words, use 'em. got it??
good.
jenn farrell is pretty great. look, alan - they are stories, and i loved them!!
i also love this concoction i made with mint and lemon and ginger and white wine:
but we will focus our pleasantly sloshed minds on the matter at hand.
these stories kind of kick ass. i was concerned about them, pre-read, because i thought, for some god-only-knows reason, she was one of those authors that tried the shock value thing without having anything behind it to brace the story up. shock bores me, if that makes sense. not that i'm unshockable, but i'm just unimpressed by people who think they are shocking; who deliberately go about with their shock flamethrowers. spectacle is boring.
but these stories had a depth which surprised me.
grimsby girls is the best one - a collage of women's voices confessing their "first time" stories, good or bad. it should be required reading for young girlbuds before they make that decision (for those for whom it is in fact their decision): it isn't always going to be great, it's not that important, don't do it just to get it over with or to keep up with the jonses...but, yeah, it certainly can be great.spectacular, even. this is probably why i shouldn't have the children - my impulses are awful, but i think this take on sexuality would be a real eye-opener, considering the age-appropriate alternatives.in fact, a lot of these stories would be good reading for tough girlteens. they are certainly not the intended audience, but it can't hurt to expose them to something real and confident and brutal. can it?? again, that is my impulse. my daughters would be warriors.
i think the first story was one of the weakest, which was a nice surprise. from a story about grief and aimlessness to maternal failure to a pregnancy scare, each story builds upon the previous emotion and inflates the situation just one breath more until the final story overflows into apocalyptically questionable decision-making with a bang of consequence.
good good stuff.
my only gripe is with the endings of the devil you know and soft limits.
joo know?
i don't know what else to say, D or not...again, canada has come through for me.
another round, karen?? don't mind if i do...
come to my blog!
there, that is my cranky DBR golden ager PSA - you have words, use 'em. got it??
good.
jenn farrell is pretty great. look, alan - they are stories, and i loved them!!
i also love this concoction i made with mint and lemon and ginger and white wine:
but we will focus our pleasantly sloshed minds on the matter at hand.
these stories kind of kick ass. i was concerned about them, pre-read, because i thought, for some god-only-knows reason, she was one of those authors that tried the shock value thing without having anything behind it to brace the story up. shock bores me, if that makes sense. not that i'm unshockable, but i'm just unimpressed by people who think they are shocking; who deliberately go about with their shock flamethrowers. spectacle is boring.
but these stories had a depth which surprised me.
grimsby girls is the best one - a collage of women's voices confessing their "first time" stories, good or bad. it should be required reading for young girlbuds before they make that decision (for those for whom it is in fact their decision): it isn't always going to be great, it's not that important, don't do it just to get it over with or to keep up with the jonses...but, yeah, it certainly can be great.spectacular, even. this is probably why i shouldn't have the children - my impulses are awful, but i think this take on sexuality would be a real eye-opener, considering the age-appropriate alternatives.in fact, a lot of these stories would be good reading for tough girlteens. they are certainly not the intended audience, but it can't hurt to expose them to something real and confident and brutal. can it?? again, that is my impulse. my daughters would be warriors.
i think the first story was one of the weakest, which was a nice surprise. from a story about grief and aimlessness to maternal failure to a pregnancy scare, each story builds upon the previous emotion and inflates the situation just one breath more until the final story overflows into apocalyptically questionable decision-making with a bang of consequence.
good good stuff.
my only gripe is with the endings of the devil you know and soft limits.
joo know?
i don't know what else to say, D or not...again, canada has come through for me.
another round, karen?? don't mind if i do...
come to my blog!
March 20, 2011
Barbed. That’s the first word to come to mind when attempting to describe Jenn Farrell’s second collection of short fiction, The Devil You Know. To break things down to the bare essentials, she’s got shit to say, and you’re damn well gonna listen—if you know what’s good for you.
Over the course of nine acerbic tales of lies, abuse, pregnancy, drugs and dark sexual exploration, Farrell lets us into the mind of an author who has clearly not kept her head in the sand when it comes to analyzing the human stain. Her characters are depicted as open sores—tender, damaged, and prone to causing wicked amounts of pain in return. At the same time, they’re very real, very down to earth, and deeply entrenched in the same personal, psychological and sociological issues we deal with, to varying degrees, every day of our lives. The characters might seem like extremes when looked at as a shopping-list microcosm of humanity, but digging deeper into their wounds reveals a great deal more than the surface strange would have you believe. It’s then that the tenuous connective tissue becomes something stronger and more resilient, when you realize that you know these people, or you have been one of these people—or you are one of these people.
That’s Farrell’s strength, and the strength of the collected stories in The Devil You Know: to hold up the mirror without having to first smack you across the face with it.
Over the course of nine acerbic tales of lies, abuse, pregnancy, drugs and dark sexual exploration, Farrell lets us into the mind of an author who has clearly not kept her head in the sand when it comes to analyzing the human stain. Her characters are depicted as open sores—tender, damaged, and prone to causing wicked amounts of pain in return. At the same time, they’re very real, very down to earth, and deeply entrenched in the same personal, psychological and sociological issues we deal with, to varying degrees, every day of our lives. The characters might seem like extremes when looked at as a shopping-list microcosm of humanity, but digging deeper into their wounds reveals a great deal more than the surface strange would have you believe. It’s then that the tenuous connective tissue becomes something stronger and more resilient, when you realize that you know these people, or you have been one of these people—or you are one of these people.
That’s Farrell’s strength, and the strength of the collected stories in The Devil You Know: to hold up the mirror without having to first smack you across the face with it.
September 23, 2013
I'm glad I picked up this little book after multiple sightings of its awesome cover in various libraries and local Vancouver bookstores. The Devil You Know is full of quiet pain, emotional punch, and layered characters that contrast tenderness with self-doubt.
Within these nine stories one can find the formation and demise of family, violence, sex, and friendship.. Jenn Farrell writes with cringing, beautiful realism. In a few pages, she can pack enough emotional wallop to leave you visibly affected. It's not hard to get through this book on one rainy evening, and the intoxicating scenarios she has created are a sort of drug themselves. The women she describes are unflinchingly raw, full of yearning. The stories I enjoyed the most were Grimsby Girls (featuring stories of how various women lost their virginities) and Communion (which depicts the type of friend-loathing that we've all experienced).
The way these stories are written, one gets a disturbing feeling that they could very well happen to the people you pass by on the street, or even the people you know. Most of these characters don't have outlets to express emotions, and their looking-glass personal reflections turn themselves onto the reader.
Being young and not used to such graphic description, the final story Soft Limits made me somewhat uncomfortable. However, the others certainly made up for it, packing in haunting depictions that will stay with me for a long time. I'm most definitely a fan.
Within these nine stories one can find the formation and demise of family, violence, sex, and friendship.. Jenn Farrell writes with cringing, beautiful realism. In a few pages, she can pack enough emotional wallop to leave you visibly affected. It's not hard to get through this book on one rainy evening, and the intoxicating scenarios she has created are a sort of drug themselves. The women she describes are unflinchingly raw, full of yearning. The stories I enjoyed the most were Grimsby Girls (featuring stories of how various women lost their virginities) and Communion (which depicts the type of friend-loathing that we've all experienced).
The way these stories are written, one gets a disturbing feeling that they could very well happen to the people you pass by on the street, or even the people you know. Most of these characters don't have outlets to express emotions, and their looking-glass personal reflections turn themselves onto the reader.
Being young and not used to such graphic description, the final story Soft Limits made me somewhat uncomfortable. However, the others certainly made up for it, packing in haunting depictions that will stay with me for a long time. I'm most definitely a fan.
January 13, 2013
Loved every moment of this read. Need to read it again and again.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews