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The Dog of the Marriage: Stories
Average Customer Rating:   
List Price:
$20.00
Asia Trips Trips Price:
$14.60
Your Savings: $ 5.40 ( 27% )
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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Scribner
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780743264518
ISBN: 0743264517
Label: Scribner
Manufacturer: Scribner
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 160
Publication Date: 2005-02-22
Publisher: Scribner
Studio: Scribner
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Editorial Reviews:
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Amy Hempel's compassion, intensity, and illuminating observations have made her one of the most distinctive and admired modern writers. In three stunning books of stories, she has established a voice as unique and recognizable as the photographs of Cindy Sherman or the brushstrokes of Robert Motherwell. The Dog of the Marriage, Hempel's fourth collection, is about sexual obsession, relationships gone awry, and the unsatisfied longings of everyday life. In "Offertory," a modern-day Scheherazade entertains and manipulates her lover with stories of her sexual encounters with a married couple as a very young woman. In "Reference # 388475848-5," a letter contesting a parking ticket becomes a beautiful and unnerving statement of faith. In "Jesus Is Waiting," a woman driving to New York sends a series of cryptically honest postcards to an old lover. And the title story is a heartbreaking tale about the objects and animals and unmired desires that are left behind after death or divorce. These nine stories teem with wisdom, emotion, and surprising wit. Hempel explores the intricate psychology of people falling in and out of love, trying to locate something or someone elusive or lost. Her sentences are as lean, original, and startling as any in contemporary fiction.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: The Dog of the Marriage
Comment: Not as good as I had hoped based on the reviews. But I'm an old guy. I'd guess it would be appreciated more by college age women. Or women period.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Intense and without equal
Comment: There are many people who try to imitate Hempel's style, but in the end no one can touch the true depth of the original. The density of her work, where almost every sentence (nay, maybe even every syllable) contains every level of storytelling thin and superficial readers like "Gracie" obviously missed, is phenomenal. Hempel may not be a quick read, but she is certainly worth the extra effort.
Also impressive about Hempel is how she is able to subtly shift her tones in her stories. There is a constant level of precision and tight editing to her words, even in humorous, sad and even terrifying moments. Her tight language persists whether describing the freedom of being on the open road or being the victim of an attempted rape. Yet the differing tones of these moments come across clearly. This is masterful writing.
The stories of this collection, much like a lot of Hempel's other work, plot themselves through the emotions of the characters involved. In "Reference #388475848-5," an appeal regarding a traffic ticket involves the entirety of the narrator's life, and stories like "The Afterlife" and "Offertory" examine the connections people forge that may not be lasting, but do offer some individual solace. "Jesus is Waiting" and "The Uninvited" explore emotional purging through outer activity (through obsessive driving or volunteering at a rape crisis center), but like the true stories of life, nothing ever resolves easily, and often can't.
Hempel does at times play the metaphor or intensity cards a little too hard with pieces like "What Were the White Things?" and "Memoir," but overall this is yet another strong collection of fiction from a writer with a scary level of talent--in a sentence, she has the ability to summate the emptiness and joys of a life...yet, she still has more to offer with the very next...
Customer Rating:
Summary: Peculiarly Bewitching
Comment: A collection of enamoring short stories. The clever precision of writing takes you in, anticipating artful climaxes. In the traditional sense they were somewhat anticlimactic, however, they did give the unexpected and the desire was fulfilled. Tradition easily set aside as the stories gave the reader a thickly gossamered glimpse into the author's personality which I found amusing, parchly humored, and peculiarly bewitching. I couldn't put it down till I finished, but soon found myself wanting more.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not appropriate
Comment: I purchased this book based on the highly positive reviews I read here. I intended to donate it to our high school's library in honor of the teacher who offers the women's lierature course.
Sadly, the first page precluded me from making the donation. I did not find much to applaud in the latter pages either.
Disappointed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not gripping enough for the flight to Los Angeles
Comment: Saved the book for my flight hoping for escape from seatbacks and crying babies. Alas, the introspective, detached narrative of some genuine losers didn't provide the hoped for transendance. That's not to say it's not beautifully, craftily written. Even poetic.
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