The first collection of short stories from the author of To Rise Again at a Decent Hour.
Eleven stories by Joshua Ferris, many of which were first published in The New Yorker, on topics such as the modern tribulations of marriage, ambition, and the fear of missing out.
The dinner party —
The valetudinarian —
The pilot —
A night out —
The breeze —
Ghost town choir —
More abandon (or whatever happened to Joe Pope?) —
Fragments —
The stepchild —
Life in the heart of the dead —
A fair price
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3.0 out of 5 stars Hard to Identify With These People
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 7, 2017
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Joshua Ferris has been voted one of the top twenty young writers under the age of forty. I’ve read THEN WE CAME TO THE END and TO RISE AGAIN AT A DECENT HOUR. Both were excellent. He was up for the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD and the MAN BOOKER PRIZE.
I can’t say the same for this anthology of short stories. About the best of the lot was the last one “A Fair Price”. It’s about a man who hires an independent mover to help him clean out his storage shed for twenty dollars an hour. Jack tries to make pleasant conversation with the man, but all he gets in return are grunts or total silence. Then it gets to be a contest about manhood. Mike, the mover, takes time out to talk on his phone but he won’t talk to Jack. Jack calls him on it. Eventually their animosity leads to fisticuffs, and Jack realizes he has to make a decision that will tell us as readers what kind of man he really is.
Another one, “More Abandon,” is about a man who can’t bear to go home after work, although his co-workers fight to get out of the place. He borrows field glasses and looks in the windows of the building across the street. He raids various offices of his fellow co-workers. He calls a married woman and tells her he loves her, five times. He has a chance to erase the messages, but he hits “send”. He spends the rest of the night trying to figure out how to erase the messages. Then he falls asleep in one of the offices, only to be found by a coworker who doesn’t seem all that shocked that he’s been sleeping in her office.
Most of the stories concern some kind of dinner or dinner party, hence the title. In his acknowledgments, Ferris thanks his agent and his wife for not confusing the author with “his awful, male characters who in turn embolden the author to make those characters more male and awful still.” I didn’t think they were awful. I’ve even met people like some of them, but I didn’t like any of them.
4.0 out of 5 stars Needed a dash of real horror
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 2, 2017
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I recently finished this book of stories and I did really enjoy it. The stories are very much in-line with classic tales of human desire and failures – fans of Dubus and Carver take note – and the darker side of the world and our place in it.
But what really bothered me about these stories was that they teased – with great aplomb – an underlying horror. Not a supernatural one, but definitely flirtation with elements of the horrific. The monstrous.
And that bothered me. A lot. And quite unfairly. What does Joshua Ferris owe me? Not horror, and not the supernatural. We have other writers for that.
So why am I annoyed? Why so frustrated? The best I can say is that it’s like watching someone talk about how badly they want to walk through a door, and the door is open and they are standing in front of it, describing what’s on the other side, describing the door frame itself… but not walking through.
I’m just like, it’s okay, man. Just walk through the door. Do it. You know you want to – you can smell it, you won’t shut up about it, you’re practically there already.
So just go.
Anyway, pretty good book. But would have been better with a little courageous horror thrown in.
Oshua Ferris is the Author of Then We Came to the End, The Unnamed and To Rise Again at a Decent Hour pdf as well as a story collection, The Dinner Party pdf book . He has been a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and the PEN/Hemingway Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize. He was named one of The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” writers in 2010. He lives in Hudson, New York with his wife and son.
You Can get A Copy Of The Dinner Party and Other Stories pdf Or Paperback By Joshua Ferris from these online stores below.
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