The Bed Moved
Stories
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
The audacious, savagely funny debut of a writer of razor-sharp wit and surprising tenderness: a collection of stories that gives us a fresh take on adolescence, death, sex; on being Jewish-ish; and on finding one’s way as a young woman in the world.
A New Yorker, trying not to be jaded, accompanies a cash-strapped pot grower to a “clothing optional resort” in California. A nerdy high-schooler has her first sexual experience at Geology Camp. A college student, on the night of her father’s funeral, watches a video of her bat mitzvah, hypnotized by the image of the girl she used to be . . .
Frank and irreverent, Rebecca Schiff’s stories offer a singular view of growing up (or not) and finding love (or not) in today’s ever-uncertain landscape. In its bone-dry humor, its pithy observations, and its thrilling ability to unmask the most revealing moments of human interaction—no matter how fleeting—The Bed Moved announces a new talent to be reckoned with.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Young women mourn, date, and equivocate in Schiff's lively debut story collection. Her narrators are in their teens and 20s, underemployed, and thwarted in their search for intimacy: "she forgot all the sex she had as soon as she had it, she didn't really have it when she had it, and she hadn't for a long time." "Another Cake," along with several other stories, deals with a father's death, the narrator returning home to New Jersey to find her old books full of "promising girls... girls looking forward to the kind of loss that only hurts a little." "Welcome Lilah" and "It Doesn't Have to Be a Big Deal" take on a reluctance to commit to boyfriends who seem less than ideal. More experimental pieces include "Rate Me," in which body parts are sent off to be rated and improved. "Communication Arts" documents, via increasingly frantic emails, the trials of an adjunct professor whose students range from confused to confrontational; the narrator of "World Trade Date" keeps seeing men who had worked in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and had "escaped, and claimed to be humbled." Consistently and darkly funny, Schiff makes light of her characters' dilemmas, but never belittles their genuine distress, resulting in a fresh, varied collection that will resonate with readers.
Customer Reviews
Not what I hoped for
Reading the review of "The Bed Moved" in the New York Times, I laughed out loud at three different excerpts. Based on that, I was really looking forward to this book! Unfortunately I found the book was written in a coy, metafiction, sort of modernistic style. I like good old fashioned story-telling prose. I found the style irritating enough to make me lose interest in reading the book at all. I think younger, smarter folks will like her, those who enjoy in-joke wordplay that constantly draws attention to itself.