When Watched
Stories
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
A National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree
Whiting Award Winner
PEN/Hemingway Award Finalist
Lambda Literary Award Finalist
Longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction & The Story Prize
“Core captures a precious slice of what it is to be human. . . . She reaches moments of extraordinary grace.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Pick up this book and prepare to face sublime recognition.” —Rookie
“Full of dazzling insight and empathy.” —Refinery 29
Refreshing, witty, and absolutely close to the heart, Core’s twenty stories, set in and around New York City, have an other-worldly quality along with a deep seriousness—even a moral seriousness. What we know of identity is smashed and in its place, true individuals emerge, each bristling with a unique sexuality, a belief-system all their own. Reminiscent of Jane Bowles, William Burroughs, and Colette, her writing glows with an authenticity that is intoxicating and rare.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In her inventive short-story collection, Leopoldine Core presents a series of curious, tender, and gripping vignettes about people falling in and out of love. Her eclectic characters’ stories are deliciously private and eerily familiar, whether they're flirting in the produce aisle or mourning the fate of their marriage. Full of vivid moments, When Watched invites us to eavesdrop on scenes of meet-cutes, first dates, and self-conscious downward spirals.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This debut short story collection reveals Core's wisdom and deep understanding of the limits of human connection. The most intimate scenes of these short yet powerful stories, most of which take place in New York City, occur in the small, claustrophobic spaces of apartments and, most tellingly, bedrooms. In "Hog for Sorrow," a budding friendship between two young prostitutes plays out movingly and convincingly as they struggle to find direction in early adulthood, a sharp and unspoken passion burning just below the surface. "Historic Tree Nurseries" follows a couple with a vast age difference on a road trip to adopt a puppy and reveals in a moving final scene the stakes involved in how we choose to see each other. Several stories hinge on the confusion produced in the aftermath of casual sex, such as "The Underside of Charm," in which two women meet at an AA meeting and one misreads the passion of the other, and also in "Like Baby," which begins as a story about being a woman spurned after a hookup but becomes, seamlessly, a story about a pair of twins reconciling their differences. Core's dialogue is by turns searching and revelatory in this accomplished and singular new voice.
