Come Up and See Me Sometime
Stories
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
With Mae West as her ingenious guiding spirit, Erika Krouse introduces us to thirteen young, single, geographically and emotionally nomadic women looking for self-knowledge and trouble.
"I like to sleep with other women's husbands," says the narrator of "The Husbands" by way of introduction; unfortunately, one of those husbands is her own sister's. In "Drugs and You," a lonely woman hits a heroin addict with her car and falls blindly in love. In "No Universe," Stephanie deals with her own infertility while watching her friend (who calls children "yard apes") grapple with an abortion and then a guilt-induced pregnancy. These smart, quick-witted women strive for the unflappable sass and strength of Mae West, but often fall prey to their own fear and isolation.
Krouse's perfect comic timing acts as a tribute to her muse, Mae West, pop culture's original liberated woman, giving these stories their fresh, offbeat perspective. Potently witty, neurotic and nervy, the collection marks the arrival of an irresistible new voice in fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Cliff, our relationship has no punch line," says one of the protagonists of the 13 stories in this witty, astringent debut collection. "Yet," he replies. Like the sly jab of an elbow, Krouse's wit startles her readers into sympathizing with the characters geographically and emotionally nomadic women and the men they love and despise of her downbeat tales. Heroin addict Cliff meets his girlfriend, in "Drugs and You," when she hits him while driving in Santa Fe. The female protagonist of "Mercy," a battered wife who has escaped from her husband, finds herself sliding into a relationship with her New York landlord, the cook at an unconventional Chinese restaurant. In "Momentum," Irene's live-in boyfriend decides he wants to leave her or maybe not and Irene cries so much her eyes no longer swell up: "she could now cry often and gracefully." In "Impersonator," one of the most powerful stories and one of the few with a hopeful ending, two feisty women who have dated the same excuse for a man eventually come to the logical conclusion that they were meant for each other. In "Too Big to Float," a young woman uses her fear of flying as a way to avoid what could be a meaningful romance with a handsome pilot. Though it sometimes seems as if each character dispenses the same bitter humor, Krouse's dialogue is crisp, with many of the barrage of one-liners hitting their targets dead-on. Each tale is prefaced by a quote from Mae West, regarded by some as the original Liberated Woman, but these stories need no props. Krouse is in the same league as Mary Gaitskill and Lorrie Moore, her fiction wise to the bravado required of Liberated Women through the ages.
