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Gutshot
A searing new collection from the inimitable Amelia Gray
A woman creeps through the ductwork of a quiet home. A medical procedure reveals an object of worship. A carnivorous reptile divides and cauterizes a town. Amelia Gray’s curio cabinet expands in Gutshot, where isolation and coupling are pushed to their dark and outrageous edges. These singular stories live and breathe on their own, pulsating with energy and humanness and a glorious sense of humor. Hers are stories that you will read and reread—raw gems that burrow into your brain, reminders of just how strange and beautiful our world is. These collected stories come to us like a vivisected body, the whole that is all the more elegant and breathtaking for exploring its most grotesque and intimate lightless viscera.
A woman creeps through the ductwork of a quiet home. A medical procedure reveals an object of worship. A carnivorous reptile divides and cauterizes a town. Amelia Gray’s curio cabinet expands in Gutshot, where isolation and coupling are pushed to their dark and outrageous edges. These singular stories live and breathe on their own, pulsating with energy and humanness and a glorious sense of humor. Hers are stories that you will read and reread—raw gems that burrow into your brain, reminders of just how strange and beautiful our world is. These collected stories come to us like a vivisected body, the whole that is all the more elegant and breathtaking for exploring its most grotesque and intimate lightless viscera.
209 pages, Paperback
First published March 3, 2015
95 people are currently reading
5189 people want to read
About the author
Amelia Gray
45 books737 followersAmelia Gray is a writer living in Los Angeles, CA. She is the author of five books, most recently ISADORA. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker and VICE.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 420 reviews
April 14, 2019
jeff vandermeer's drawing of this cover:
to answer the question “how does this book hold up to Threats or Museum of the Weird,” this is better than Museum of the Weird, but not nearly as good as Threats.
which is absolutely in keeping with my own particular reading preferences, as Threats is a novel and Museum of the Weird is an earlier story collection, and i’ll pretty much always choose a novel over a collection. i’ve grown as a reader - after prolonged resistance, i eventually came around to short story-appreciation, but these are short short stories. the book is just over 200 pages, and there are THIRTY-SEVEN dang stories in it. that’s too short! although i definitely liked many of the stories, and i appreciated the little callback to People of the Bay in Precious Katherine.
for the most part, these are more scenarios than stories - where some weird, gross, or uncomfortable situation is described and it starts to head somewhere, but then it cuts off before checking all the boxes that would qualify it as a story.
and just to be clear, i mean “weird, gross, and uncomfortable” in a positive way - those are all things that appeal to my sensibilities. this collection is full of abduction, cannibalism, murder, blood, vomit, genital modification, twins both conjoined and absorbed, ulysses s. grant, characters who say things like, “I wish I had a dog boner,” and that’s just the normal stuff; the stuff that your brain is familiar with, before you factor in all the talking pimples, exploding mosquitoes, and subcutaneous ants.
some of my favorites in the collection:
Monument
Fifty Ways to Eat Your Lover (particularly for the title and last line)
Labyrinth
The Swan as Metaphor for Love (greg was right!)
Date Night
Blood
Thank You
Legacy
and some of my favorite lines:
Device:
The young inventor created a device that could predict the future within one-tenth of a percent of accuracy….
"What will my eventual mate be like?” he asked, tweaking the machine’s color wheel.
“Skin, hair.” The device buzzed lightly. “Fingernails.”
Western Passage
"His attention is a penny placed on a monument. Give the monument your prayers, not the coin.”
Go for It and Raise Hell
This is the literal goddamn opposite of two middle-aged people going on their first date in a coffee shop.
House Proud
It’s harder to leave your burning home after you’ve spent so much time cleaning its floors.
etc etc.
there are some really great stories in here, enough to bop the collection up to a four star, but i’m even more excited that she’s just come out with another novel, Isadora, even though it’s still baffling to me that this author is writing historical fiction like she’s philippa gregory or something…
******************************************
review to come, but just for now, i wanted to share my favorite from the collection, because it is so short.
A Contest
The gods decided that, once a year, they would have a weeklong contest and allow the one person who felt the most grief over the loss of a loved one to have that loved one return. They made a contest of it for their own curiosity and amusement and to boost morale in the beyond. It was a hit on the planet: Piles of flowers obscured the names on every cemetery grave and highway shrines glowed elaborate with electric light. A wealthy man held a parade for his mother, which spanned eight city blocks and included great rolling floats representing her spinach casserole and childhood home. On a flat expanse of farmland, a woman used sweaters and slacks to spell out ALAN in the event the gods passed overhead in a helicopter, as they sometimes did. Three girls scrubbed the grime from the corners of their friend's locker and decorated it with streamers. Somebody's grandfather placed a single rose on the pillow beside him and wept until he died, thoroughly missing the point. A child's preserved room was filled with candy until the windows broke, spilling wrapped butterscotch and strawberry suckers into the street. Weeks later, on the third floor of an apartment building, a woman opened her door and saw that her little black cat had found his way home.
ADDENDUM
in an eerie/sad bitchslap by the universe (perhaps getting back at me for all the unkept promises and such), i posted this placeholder review, with my favorite story-declaration, just a couple of days before my maggie-cat died, and now i feel this story in a much more personal and gutting way. thanks, universe. you dick.
******************************************
the SECOND book in my third quarterly literary fiction box from pagehabit,
and my third amelia gray book overall. how will it hold up to Threats or Museum of the Weird?? i will tell you soon!
sidenote/confession:
i’ve actually had this book in my house for years - greg read it and lent me his copy, telling me to read The Swan as Metaphor for Love, because i would really like it, and i meant to - i meant to so many times, but i just never did because i am terrible, and then this box forced me into fulfilling at least ONE of my intentions, and i was able to give greg his copy back and a corner of the universe was set right.
come to my blog!
to answer the question “how does this book hold up to Threats or Museum of the Weird,” this is better than Museum of the Weird, but not nearly as good as Threats.
which is absolutely in keeping with my own particular reading preferences, as Threats is a novel and Museum of the Weird is an earlier story collection, and i’ll pretty much always choose a novel over a collection. i’ve grown as a reader - after prolonged resistance, i eventually came around to short story-appreciation, but these are short short stories. the book is just over 200 pages, and there are THIRTY-SEVEN dang stories in it. that’s too short! although i definitely liked many of the stories, and i appreciated the little callback to People of the Bay in Precious Katherine.
for the most part, these are more scenarios than stories - where some weird, gross, or uncomfortable situation is described and it starts to head somewhere, but then it cuts off before checking all the boxes that would qualify it as a story.
and just to be clear, i mean “weird, gross, and uncomfortable” in a positive way - those are all things that appeal to my sensibilities. this collection is full of abduction, cannibalism, murder, blood, vomit, genital modification, twins both conjoined and absorbed, ulysses s. grant, characters who say things like, “I wish I had a dog boner,” and that’s just the normal stuff; the stuff that your brain is familiar with, before you factor in all the talking pimples, exploding mosquitoes, and subcutaneous ants.
some of my favorites in the collection:
Monument
Fifty Ways to Eat Your Lover (particularly for the title and last line)
Labyrinth
The Swan as Metaphor for Love (greg was right!)
Date Night
Blood
Thank You
Legacy
and some of my favorite lines:
Device:
The young inventor created a device that could predict the future within one-tenth of a percent of accuracy….
"What will my eventual mate be like?” he asked, tweaking the machine’s color wheel.
“Skin, hair.” The device buzzed lightly. “Fingernails.”
Western Passage
"His attention is a penny placed on a monument. Give the monument your prayers, not the coin.”
Go for It and Raise Hell
This is the literal goddamn opposite of two middle-aged people going on their first date in a coffee shop.
House Proud
It’s harder to leave your burning home after you’ve spent so much time cleaning its floors.
etc etc.
there are some really great stories in here, enough to bop the collection up to a four star, but i’m even more excited that she’s just come out with another novel, Isadora, even though it’s still baffling to me that this author is writing historical fiction like she’s philippa gregory or something…
******************************************
review to come, but just for now, i wanted to share my favorite from the collection, because it is so short.
A Contest
The gods decided that, once a year, they would have a weeklong contest and allow the one person who felt the most grief over the loss of a loved one to have that loved one return. They made a contest of it for their own curiosity and amusement and to boost morale in the beyond. It was a hit on the planet: Piles of flowers obscured the names on every cemetery grave and highway shrines glowed elaborate with electric light. A wealthy man held a parade for his mother, which spanned eight city blocks and included great rolling floats representing her spinach casserole and childhood home. On a flat expanse of farmland, a woman used sweaters and slacks to spell out ALAN in the event the gods passed overhead in a helicopter, as they sometimes did. Three girls scrubbed the grime from the corners of their friend's locker and decorated it with streamers. Somebody's grandfather placed a single rose on the pillow beside him and wept until he died, thoroughly missing the point. A child's preserved room was filled with candy until the windows broke, spilling wrapped butterscotch and strawberry suckers into the street. Weeks later, on the third floor of an apartment building, a woman opened her door and saw that her little black cat had found his way home.
ADDENDUM
in an eerie/sad bitchslap by the universe (perhaps getting back at me for all the unkept promises and such), i posted this placeholder review, with my favorite story-declaration, just a couple of days before my maggie-cat died, and now i feel this story in a much more personal and gutting way. thanks, universe. you dick.
******************************************
the SECOND book in my third quarterly literary fiction box from pagehabit,
and my third amelia gray book overall. how will it hold up to Threats or Museum of the Weird?? i will tell you soon!
sidenote/confession:
i’ve actually had this book in my house for years - greg read it and lent me his copy, telling me to read The Swan as Metaphor for Love, because i would really like it, and i meant to - i meant to so many times, but i just never did because i am terrible, and then this box forced me into fulfilling at least ONE of my intentions, and i was able to give greg his copy back and a corner of the universe was set right.
come to my blog!
June 16, 2017
Posted at Heradas Review
"Here, the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom, and that road is paved with handjobs."
I've found that these FSG Originals are at the very least, always something unique that you might not find published elsewhere. They have the feel of something published by a much smaller press like Tin House, Two Dollar Radio, or Coffee House Press. This means that they're usually going to be divisive as well. But, when their niche lines up with yours, it's like a curator personally picking books for you.
With the exception of Ted Chiang, story collections are always going to be a little hit and miss from story to story. At worst Amelia Gray's stories are uncomfortable and unsettling, with great prose. At best they're uncomfortable, unsettling, hilarious, disturbing, and moving, with great prose. Great prose is the common denominator.
There are 4-5 really great stories in here, and 1 fantastic one. There are about 30 or so that relied way too much on their gimmick to accomplish anything worthwhile as stories. Think Chuck Palahniuk trying to gross you out, and forgetting to you know, tell a story. But if you're like me, you've already been desensitized to that sort of thing, and you're un-gross-outable. So you're just left with no story.
'Go For It and Raise Hell' is a high point and you should go read it right now. It reads like a character introduction from The New and Improved Romie Futch, which had fantastic secondary characters. You should go read that book right away. I was also really surprised by '50 Ways to Eat Your Lover.' The way it hid the story in the least interesting part of each sentence was brilliant and really snuck up on me. It accomplished so much in 50 sentences. 'The Swan as Metaphor for Love,' was another one that really worked for me. It illustrated how from afar something can be much more appealing than the up-close reality.
The stories that are good, are really good. Gray does this thing with her writing, where there's just a hint of something else going on in each story and the reader has to sort of weed it out for themselves a bit; they have to meet the story halfway. When it works, it really works.
All-in-all this is an uneven collection, but the gems are hidden in here, and the stories are short enough that you can slam one out in a couple minutes flat. I'd say go for it. The good stories are worth digging through the rest.
"Here, the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom, and that road is paved with handjobs."
I've found that these FSG Originals are at the very least, always something unique that you might not find published elsewhere. They have the feel of something published by a much smaller press like Tin House, Two Dollar Radio, or Coffee House Press. This means that they're usually going to be divisive as well. But, when their niche lines up with yours, it's like a curator personally picking books for you.
With the exception of Ted Chiang, story collections are always going to be a little hit and miss from story to story. At worst Amelia Gray's stories are uncomfortable and unsettling, with great prose. At best they're uncomfortable, unsettling, hilarious, disturbing, and moving, with great prose. Great prose is the common denominator.
There are 4-5 really great stories in here, and 1 fantastic one. There are about 30 or so that relied way too much on their gimmick to accomplish anything worthwhile as stories. Think Chuck Palahniuk trying to gross you out, and forgetting to you know, tell a story. But if you're like me, you've already been desensitized to that sort of thing, and you're un-gross-outable. So you're just left with no story.
'Go For It and Raise Hell' is a high point and you should go read it right now. It reads like a character introduction from The New and Improved Romie Futch, which had fantastic secondary characters. You should go read that book right away. I was also really surprised by '50 Ways to Eat Your Lover.' The way it hid the story in the least interesting part of each sentence was brilliant and really snuck up on me. It accomplished so much in 50 sentences. 'The Swan as Metaphor for Love,' was another one that really worked for me. It illustrated how from afar something can be much more appealing than the up-close reality.
The stories that are good, are really good. Gray does this thing with her writing, where there's just a hint of something else going on in each story and the reader has to sort of weed it out for themselves a bit; they have to meet the story halfway. When it works, it really works.
All-in-all this is an uneven collection, but the gems are hidden in here, and the stories are short enough that you can slam one out in a couple minutes flat. I'd say go for it. The good stories are worth digging through the rest.
June 14, 2015
This book has the most beautiful cover I have seen in many a year.
But what’s inside? Contextless fragments of violent American lives, one after another, 37 of them, tiny bits and pieces. You can stumble over some great paragraphs here & there, like this one when a woman tells her boyfriend she’s pregnant and that her parents will be very happy:
“Here’s the thing, though,” he said. “Your folks are dead. And I have a warrant out for my arrest. And you’re forty years old. And I am addicted to getting tattoos. And our air conditioner’s broke. And you are drunk every day. And all I ever want to do is fight and go swimming. And I am addicted to keno. And you are just covered in hair. And I’ve never done a load of laundry in my life. And you are still technically married to my dealer. And I refuse to eat vegetables. And you can’t sleep unless you’re sleeping on the floor. And I am addicted to heroin. “
That’s really quite funny. But eventually the bittiness of this collection, the constant stop-start reboot (way more than other short story books) plus the gruelling lack of warmth (oh well, another body hits the deck) meant that Gutshot wore out its welcome. Nil desperandum, though - I will be looking out for Amelia Gray’s first novel which it says here she’s working on. She’s got the style and the flair, I just need a little leetle teeny bit of ye olde character’n’plot to go with it. Call me old fashioned.
I know two stars is way harsh but check out all the nicer reviews.
Catch you next time, AG.
But what’s inside? Contextless fragments of violent American lives, one after another, 37 of them, tiny bits and pieces. You can stumble over some great paragraphs here & there, like this one when a woman tells her boyfriend she’s pregnant and that her parents will be very happy:
“Here’s the thing, though,” he said. “Your folks are dead. And I have a warrant out for my arrest. And you’re forty years old. And I am addicted to getting tattoos. And our air conditioner’s broke. And you are drunk every day. And all I ever want to do is fight and go swimming. And I am addicted to keno. And you are just covered in hair. And I’ve never done a load of laundry in my life. And you are still technically married to my dealer. And I refuse to eat vegetables. And you can’t sleep unless you’re sleeping on the floor. And I am addicted to heroin. “
That’s really quite funny. But eventually the bittiness of this collection, the constant stop-start reboot (way more than other short story books) plus the gruelling lack of warmth (oh well, another body hits the deck) meant that Gutshot wore out its welcome. Nil desperandum, though - I will be looking out for Amelia Gray’s first novel which it says here she’s working on. She’s got the style and the flair, I just need a little leetle teeny bit of ye olde character’n’plot to go with it. Call me old fashioned.
I know two stars is way harsh but check out all the nicer reviews.
Catch you next time, AG.
May 18, 2015
Strange, intricate stories with absolutely gorgeous and controlled language. Had to read this twice and it was so much more nuanced and powerful on the second reading.
March 27, 2018
Gutshot. A bullet in the gut.
I've seen enough old Westerns to know that in earlier eras a gutshot was the harbinger of a grim, 2-3 day demise caked in blood and shit, a nugget of lead having tumbled through one's viscera, ripping, tearing, perforating but missing the organs that offer a mercifully quick death. Even today it's no trivial matter, and likely to leave it's recipient needing long-term serious medical care.
Considering that, this book is well named - Amelia Gray's Gutshot is by turns icky, gross, strange and aware of the muck of life.
It's a mixed bag though. Three stories into Gutshot I was ready to bail out. Six stories in I realised that what I was reading was actually pretty interesting.
Gutshot is unlike any short story collection I have read. Individually, many of the stories didn't really fly for me, but as a whole this collection is interesting. While I was reading the thread of themes running through these stories- bodies, blood, mucous, etc.- a focus on the grim realities of the corporeal self - began to get into my head. As a whole their tone and mood is quite effecting
To me, this collection reads less like a series of short stories, and more like a strange novel of many disjointed parts, and considering it in that light it is a work of some craftsmanship.
However... However. While I liked the tone, and the overall vibe of Gutshot as I said I didn't really like many of the stories. There were a few I enjoyed, and two that stuck in my memory (one where a woman ends up living in the air ducts of a couple's home, the other a very funny takedown of swans - yes, the bird.) but the others largely floated past me like so many grimy soap bubbles, none really sticking in my mind.
Overall I rarely experienced the delicious pause that I crave from short stories - the one where you stop reading, put the book down and muse on the wonder/fun/intricacy/fucked-up-ness of the story you've just read. Many of the stories in Gutshot just seemed pointless, and I was glad to finish them, even when they rarely went past five pages in length.
In the end, an interesting tone and a couple of strong stories aren't quite enough for me, and while I liked the feel of this collection in the end it left me a little cold. The greatest of those old Westerns with their six-guns and stomach-wound-deathbeds combined a grim, frontier tone with a compelling story, drawing viewers in and filling them with anticipation for showdowns, betrayals and sunset-rides. Gutshot gets it's tone right, but doesn't deliver on the storytelling front for me.
2.5 stars.
I've seen enough old Westerns to know that in earlier eras a gutshot was the harbinger of a grim, 2-3 day demise caked in blood and shit, a nugget of lead having tumbled through one's viscera, ripping, tearing, perforating but missing the organs that offer a mercifully quick death. Even today it's no trivial matter, and likely to leave it's recipient needing long-term serious medical care.
Considering that, this book is well named - Amelia Gray's Gutshot is by turns icky, gross, strange and aware of the muck of life.
It's a mixed bag though. Three stories into Gutshot I was ready to bail out. Six stories in I realised that what I was reading was actually pretty interesting.
Gutshot is unlike any short story collection I have read. Individually, many of the stories didn't really fly for me, but as a whole this collection is interesting. While I was reading the thread of themes running through these stories- bodies, blood, mucous, etc.- a focus on the grim realities of the corporeal self - began to get into my head. As a whole their tone and mood is quite effecting
To me, this collection reads less like a series of short stories, and more like a strange novel of many disjointed parts, and considering it in that light it is a work of some craftsmanship.
However... However. While I liked the tone, and the overall vibe of Gutshot as I said I didn't really like many of the stories. There were a few I enjoyed, and two that stuck in my memory (one where a woman ends up living in the air ducts of a couple's home, the other a very funny takedown of swans - yes, the bird.) but the others largely floated past me like so many grimy soap bubbles, none really sticking in my mind.
Overall I rarely experienced the delicious pause that I crave from short stories - the one where you stop reading, put the book down and muse on the wonder/fun/intricacy/fucked-up-ness of the story you've just read. Many of the stories in Gutshot just seemed pointless, and I was glad to finish them, even when they rarely went past five pages in length.
In the end, an interesting tone and a couple of strong stories aren't quite enough for me, and while I liked the feel of this collection in the end it left me a little cold. The greatest of those old Westerns with their six-guns and stomach-wound-deathbeds combined a grim, frontier tone with a compelling story, drawing viewers in and filling them with anticipation for showdowns, betrayals and sunset-rides. Gutshot gets it's tone right, but doesn't deliver on the storytelling front for me.
2.5 stars.
May 31, 2015
i know i've fallen in love with a book when i want to punch the author in the face and then make out with them and their hot blood.
so, fuck you amelia gray. fuck you.
so much punching.
so much make out.
so, fuck you amelia gray. fuck you.
so much punching.
so much make out.
June 1, 2015
Only two things in this world scare me: cancer and Amelia Gray.
March 8, 2024
37 racconti raccapriccianti, surreali, un concentrato di violenza tutti con finali aperti (cosa che sopporto poco 😅).
Un viaggio nella parte più oscura dell'animo umano, la parte più marcia della psiche.
Una lettura fuori controllo, che scaturisce nel lettore le sensazioni più aberranti.
La Gray lascia libera interpretazione di queste micro-storie e io tanti non le ho mica capite 🤷🏻♀️.
Chiudiamo l'anno con questa lettura disgustosamente bizzarra.
Se siete deboli di stomaco lasciate stare, se invece cercate qualcosa di forte, grottesco e un po' di horror splatter è il libro che fa per voi.
Le tre stelle sono un non voto, non ho mica capito se mi è piaciuto o no.
Vi lascio uno dei racconti più brevi così potete farvi una minima idea.
Buona lettura e buon inizio anno a tutti!!!!
Sul modello di Esercizi di stile di Raymond Queneau
Questa pagina era una volta materiale vegetale, schiacciato e risciacquato e pressato attraverso una macchina in un magazzino, il processo supervisionato da un uomo colpito da un’infezione cutanea. L’uomo, dalle caviglie gonfie dopo la sesta ora nella sua mansione, si è slacciato i lacci umidi per un po’ di sollievo da fine giornata – la carne sporgeva sopra le sue calze atletiche ingiallite – e si è grattato il dorso brufoloso della mano, il polso e il braccio così generosamente che un flusso costante di pelle squamata si è depositato sulle pagine mentre saettavano attraverso la pressa meccanica. Naturalmente le pagine, che raccontavano la storia di un viaggio senza eventi di rilievo, sono state infettate dalla sua materia particolata. Le sue ferite lacrimavano di mattina, ma dopo un caldo pomeriggio al magazzino si erano quasi completamente aggrumate, trasportando il loro pianto in croste. Continuando il suo giro nella fabbrica, l’uomo ha trovato un tale sollievo perverso strofinandosi un punto sull’avambraccio, particolarmente interessato, che gli occhi gli si sono sollevati in alto inumidendosi e la sua bocca gli si è spalancata, lasciando che una riga di saliva si accumulasse sul suo labbro, scorresse giù per il suo mento e sopra la sua barbetta corta e cadesse sopra una pagina sfrecciante contenente il clou di un altro racconto immediatamente prima di entrare nel forno, cuocendo la prova genetica della sua futura malattia cardiaca proprio in questa pagina, che ora stai toccando con le tue mani e che finirà in un negozio di libri usati, forse dopo la tua morte per una malattia cardiaca, dove sarà toccata da persone affette da influenza, infezioni sinusali, quel genere di roba solida che esce fuori dal tuo corpo come un autobus che lascia uno stazionamento, con un sedile vuoto in attesa di un passeggero.
Un viaggio nella parte più oscura dell'animo umano, la parte più marcia della psiche.
Una lettura fuori controllo, che scaturisce nel lettore le sensazioni più aberranti.
La Gray lascia libera interpretazione di queste micro-storie e io tanti non le ho mica capite 🤷🏻♀️.
Chiudiamo l'anno con questa lettura disgustosamente bizzarra.
Se siete deboli di stomaco lasciate stare, se invece cercate qualcosa di forte, grottesco e un po' di horror splatter è il libro che fa per voi.
Le tre stelle sono un non voto, non ho mica capito se mi è piaciuto o no.
Vi lascio uno dei racconti più brevi così potete farvi una minima idea.
Buona lettura e buon inizio anno a tutti!!!!
Sul modello di Esercizi di stile di Raymond Queneau
Questa pagina era una volta materiale vegetale, schiacciato e risciacquato e pressato attraverso una macchina in un magazzino, il processo supervisionato da un uomo colpito da un’infezione cutanea. L’uomo, dalle caviglie gonfie dopo la sesta ora nella sua mansione, si è slacciato i lacci umidi per un po’ di sollievo da fine giornata – la carne sporgeva sopra le sue calze atletiche ingiallite – e si è grattato il dorso brufoloso della mano, il polso e il braccio così generosamente che un flusso costante di pelle squamata si è depositato sulle pagine mentre saettavano attraverso la pressa meccanica. Naturalmente le pagine, che raccontavano la storia di un viaggio senza eventi di rilievo, sono state infettate dalla sua materia particolata. Le sue ferite lacrimavano di mattina, ma dopo un caldo pomeriggio al magazzino si erano quasi completamente aggrumate, trasportando il loro pianto in croste. Continuando il suo giro nella fabbrica, l’uomo ha trovato un tale sollievo perverso strofinandosi un punto sull’avambraccio, particolarmente interessato, che gli occhi gli si sono sollevati in alto inumidendosi e la sua bocca gli si è spalancata, lasciando che una riga di saliva si accumulasse sul suo labbro, scorresse giù per il suo mento e sopra la sua barbetta corta e cadesse sopra una pagina sfrecciante contenente il clou di un altro racconto immediatamente prima di entrare nel forno, cuocendo la prova genetica della sua futura malattia cardiaca proprio in questa pagina, che ora stai toccando con le tue mani e che finirà in un negozio di libri usati, forse dopo la tua morte per una malattia cardiaca, dove sarà toccata da persone affette da influenza, infezioni sinusali, quel genere di roba solida che esce fuori dal tuo corpo come un autobus che lascia uno stazionamento, con un sedile vuoto in attesa di un passeggero.
July 31, 2017
I wish I had a dog boner...to better express my feelings.
There are too many stories in this collection of ‘flash fictions’ to be put under a common theme. For the most part, these characters are pushed away from their ordinary circumstances and cast into strange and closed off lives, of which they accept almost too readily.
---
After they lose their mom and wife, a family’s emotions cause a gigantic heart to plop itself in the middle of the TV room. They begin to chop it up into little pieces so they can move it out. The youngest child who knew the mom least just wants to participate so he can feel as part of the group. The oldest child is more invested but still able to break away for sleep. The husband struggles most with prying himself away.
My mind once was diseased with the strange and heady ambition that I might somehow improve the world by living in it. The reality of the world ruined this ideal; or rather, the fantasy of the ideal ruined the reality.
In one story, a couple squatting in an abandoned wing of a factory pays a prostitute to live in their air ducts. Some time later, after the fear subsides, the prostitute accepts her new home. In another story, townspeople make due with a giant poisonous snake that has crashed into their buildings and decided to live in the middle of their city. Both tales depict how willingly we concede and make due with our failing surroundings and maddening interruptions.
When he invites you on a walk, crush his elbow in a vise.
When he asks if you’ll take him back, tuck your fingers under his lowest rib and pull.
A poem, that I can only guess is a response to being wronged by a significant other, dictates retaliations over a several pages which leads me to believe this is a response to a wound done by something more all-encompassing than just a guy.
Someone found a swan once that was twenty-four years old…The swan wasn’t yet acquainted with life enough to silently hyperventilate in its bed.
Lessons about swans digress into our anxious fates as people. The simplicity and obliviousness of an animal is contrasted against the civility and anxiety produced by our three-pound brains.
in no place like home
Co-dependency is manifested into a woman who severs her man's member and sows it inside herself.
---
Worlds are born out of neglected wounds and filled with people who accept less than ideal circumstances. Time didn’t heal these characters as wiser, instead it terminated their hopes and wove absurdity into their normalcy.
There are too many stories in this collection of ‘flash fictions’ to be put under a common theme. For the most part, these characters are pushed away from their ordinary circumstances and cast into strange and closed off lives, of which they accept almost too readily.
---
After they lose their mom and wife, a family’s emotions cause a gigantic heart to plop itself in the middle of the TV room. They begin to chop it up into little pieces so they can move it out. The youngest child who knew the mom least just wants to participate so he can feel as part of the group. The oldest child is more invested but still able to break away for sleep. The husband struggles most with prying himself away.
My mind once was diseased with the strange and heady ambition that I might somehow improve the world by living in it. The reality of the world ruined this ideal; or rather, the fantasy of the ideal ruined the reality.
In one story, a couple squatting in an abandoned wing of a factory pays a prostitute to live in their air ducts. Some time later, after the fear subsides, the prostitute accepts her new home. In another story, townspeople make due with a giant poisonous snake that has crashed into their buildings and decided to live in the middle of their city. Both tales depict how willingly we concede and make due with our failing surroundings and maddening interruptions.
When he invites you on a walk, crush his elbow in a vise.
When he asks if you’ll take him back, tuck your fingers under his lowest rib and pull.
A poem, that I can only guess is a response to being wronged by a significant other, dictates retaliations over a several pages which leads me to believe this is a response to a wound done by something more all-encompassing than just a guy.
Someone found a swan once that was twenty-four years old…The swan wasn’t yet acquainted with life enough to silently hyperventilate in its bed.
Lessons about swans digress into our anxious fates as people. The simplicity and obliviousness of an animal is contrasted against the civility and anxiety produced by our three-pound brains.
in no place like home
Co-dependency is manifested into a woman who severs her man's member and sows it inside herself.
---
Worlds are born out of neglected wounds and filled with people who accept less than ideal circumstances. Time didn’t heal these characters as wiser, instead it terminated their hopes and wove absurdity into their normalcy.
January 30, 2019
I'm exhilarated by Amelia Gray's writing. I'm happy to be reading something so new and unexpected. I literally don't know how any of her sentences is going to end--her choices are unpredictable, disturbing, magnificent. These are unsafe stories, at times so absurdly violent that I'm never sure if I should laugh. But they do make me laugh.
Here is a passage from the middle of my favorite story in the collection, "Labyrinth:"
--Knowing what he put into it, I thought it was a shame to stand by and see everyone go. The sun was still low in the sky and it was lonely at home, where the TV had been broken for a week and the tap water had begun to taste oddly of blood. "I'll go first," I said. "I'll do it."--
This paragraph has a lot of dramatic tension. Clearly a decision has been made by the narrator. Clearly something is about to happen because of that decision. But what, exactly, is going on? What is this about water tasting like blood? Why is it lonely at home? Why is the TV broken? What does it all mean? You never really know. If you were to read from the beginning of the story you would still not know. You arrive at this passage in the middle of a story, and what has come before has already left you, sentence by sentence, with more questions than answers, and even so you feel completely in thrall of the storytelling, of where it will lead. In each of her stories, Gray drives forward relentlessly to a satisfying conclusion, but along the way she keeps adding tantalizing, striking, unexplained details, until every word feels significant to the whole, and also, every word no longer seems to mean exactly what you though it meant before you began reading the story. The effect is quite unlike any other writer I've read. Wonderful.
Here is a passage from the middle of my favorite story in the collection, "Labyrinth:"
--Knowing what he put into it, I thought it was a shame to stand by and see everyone go. The sun was still low in the sky and it was lonely at home, where the TV had been broken for a week and the tap water had begun to taste oddly of blood. "I'll go first," I said. "I'll do it."--
This paragraph has a lot of dramatic tension. Clearly a decision has been made by the narrator. Clearly something is about to happen because of that decision. But what, exactly, is going on? What is this about water tasting like blood? Why is it lonely at home? Why is the TV broken? What does it all mean? You never really know. If you were to read from the beginning of the story you would still not know. You arrive at this passage in the middle of a story, and what has come before has already left you, sentence by sentence, with more questions than answers, and even so you feel completely in thrall of the storytelling, of where it will lead. In each of her stories, Gray drives forward relentlessly to a satisfying conclusion, but along the way she keeps adding tantalizing, striking, unexplained details, until every word feels significant to the whole, and also, every word no longer seems to mean exactly what you though it meant before you began reading the story. The effect is quite unlike any other writer I've read. Wonderful.
January 24, 2020
Jeff VanderMeer ha raccontato di come una volta un libraio avesse cercato di convincerlo a non comprare Gutshot di Amelia Gray. Il povero libraio gli vide il libro in mano e gli disse “Guarda che questo libro è strano forte eh,” e la risposta di VanderMeer fu “ah lo so che è strano, è per questo che ne voglio cinque o sei o sette copie.” Viene da chiedersi come possa essere fatto un libro giudicato talmente strano da essere troppo strano anche per uno scrittore come Jeff VanderMeer, che della stranezza ha fatto un po’ la sua bandiera. Soprattutto se quel libro ha l’endorsement importante proprio di VanderMeer che ha definito Amelia Gray “the real deal—an absurdist by nature,” la cui narrativa è “una triangolazione tra assurdo, surreale e weird,” ma non solo: ha un forte elemento psicologico e una carica comica inusuale.
Del resto stiamo parlando di un’autrice che quando ricevette l’incarico di scrivere un pezzo a sfondo culinario per Lucky Peach Magazine, invece di mettersi a pontificare su cucine molecolari e sonicatori, se ne andò in uno strip-club nei sobborghi di Los Angeles, un posto dove si servono dei jalapeño ripieni la cui piccantezza ricorda un po’ le dolci vampate che danno “birra fredda e xanax” e dove i cocktail avevano nomi tipo “Adios Motherfucker” (a base di vodka, rum, tequila, blue curaçao, sweet and sour mix e tonica). Stiamo parlando di un’autrice che ha risposto con arguzia e spirito da troll a una critica ingiustificata di un lettore deluso dall’assenza di suspence (e la presenza di troppo surrealismo) sul suo primo romanzo THREATS, invitandolo a ritagliare la costola del libro dove troverà le indicazioni per Barnes and Nobles e comprarsi Time to Kill di John Grisham (e allegando un assegno di nove dollari per coprire le spese). Stiamo parlando di un’autrice che è stata paragonata a David Lynch, anche se forse un paragone più calzante sarebbe con Yorgos Lanthimos. Stiamo parlando di un’autrice che ha prestato la sua follia come staff Writer di Maniac e della quarta stagione di Mr. Robot. Insomma stiamo parlando di una delle più interessanti (e divertenti) giovani autrici americane in circolazione di cui Pidgin ha appena pubblicato la sua terza raccolta di racconti Gutshot (Viscere, trad. it. Stefano Pironti) proprio quella raccolta che un libraio ha sconsigliato a VanderMeer perché troppo strana e che VanderMeer ha comprato lo stesso.
Quelli di Viscere sono racconti molto brevi, scritti tra il 2010 e il 2015, due paginette in media, alcuni di appena una pagina, con un paio di eccezioni più corpose, e sono la naturale evoluzione delle flash-fiction del suo esordio Am/Pm (Featherproof, 2008) e dei racconti sperimentali seppur ancora un po’ acerbi di Museum of the Weird (F2C, 2010). Hanno perso quell’aria sbarazzina e un po’ ingenua da “hey guardate quanto sono adorabile” che avevano alcuni dei primi racconti, più attenti alla forma che ai contenuti, ma mantenuto la qualità aforistica delle prime flash-fiction, che anzi ha affinato in forme brevi che mostrano un lato fortemente favolistico. Una qualità che rimarrà pressoché intatta anche nei due romanzi, THREATS (FSG, 2012) e l’esofiction Isadora (Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 2017).
In un’intervista Amelia Gray ha detto che scrive storie perché vuole capire le idee, il che è un po’ il motore principale della mitopoiesi e di chi in generale cerca di tessere storie per dare uno strumento di comprensione della realtà. Curioso come la narrativa, o più in generale l’arte del racconto, abbia progressivamente perso il suo originario carattere mitologico e favolistico per diventare ....
continua su https://americanorum.wordpress.com/20... (less)
Del resto stiamo parlando di un’autrice che quando ricevette l’incarico di scrivere un pezzo a sfondo culinario per Lucky Peach Magazine, invece di mettersi a pontificare su cucine molecolari e sonicatori, se ne andò in uno strip-club nei sobborghi di Los Angeles, un posto dove si servono dei jalapeño ripieni la cui piccantezza ricorda un po’ le dolci vampate che danno “birra fredda e xanax” e dove i cocktail avevano nomi tipo “Adios Motherfucker” (a base di vodka, rum, tequila, blue curaçao, sweet and sour mix e tonica). Stiamo parlando di un’autrice che ha risposto con arguzia e spirito da troll a una critica ingiustificata di un lettore deluso dall’assenza di suspence (e la presenza di troppo surrealismo) sul suo primo romanzo THREATS, invitandolo a ritagliare la costola del libro dove troverà le indicazioni per Barnes and Nobles e comprarsi Time to Kill di John Grisham (e allegando un assegno di nove dollari per coprire le spese). Stiamo parlando di un’autrice che è stata paragonata a David Lynch, anche se forse un paragone più calzante sarebbe con Yorgos Lanthimos. Stiamo parlando di un’autrice che ha prestato la sua follia come staff Writer di Maniac e della quarta stagione di Mr. Robot. Insomma stiamo parlando di una delle più interessanti (e divertenti) giovani autrici americane in circolazione di cui Pidgin ha appena pubblicato la sua terza raccolta di racconti Gutshot (Viscere, trad. it. Stefano Pironti) proprio quella raccolta che un libraio ha sconsigliato a VanderMeer perché troppo strana e che VanderMeer ha comprato lo stesso.
Quelli di Viscere sono racconti molto brevi, scritti tra il 2010 e il 2015, due paginette in media, alcuni di appena una pagina, con un paio di eccezioni più corpose, e sono la naturale evoluzione delle flash-fiction del suo esordio Am/Pm (Featherproof, 2008) e dei racconti sperimentali seppur ancora un po’ acerbi di Museum of the Weird (F2C, 2010). Hanno perso quell’aria sbarazzina e un po’ ingenua da “hey guardate quanto sono adorabile” che avevano alcuni dei primi racconti, più attenti alla forma che ai contenuti, ma mantenuto la qualità aforistica delle prime flash-fiction, che anzi ha affinato in forme brevi che mostrano un lato fortemente favolistico. Una qualità che rimarrà pressoché intatta anche nei due romanzi, THREATS (FSG, 2012) e l’esofiction Isadora (Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 2017).
In un’intervista Amelia Gray ha detto che scrive storie perché vuole capire le idee, il che è un po’ il motore principale della mitopoiesi e di chi in generale cerca di tessere storie per dare uno strumento di comprensione della realtà. Curioso come la narrativa, o più in generale l’arte del racconto, abbia progressivamente perso il suo originario carattere mitologico e favolistico per diventare ....
continua su https://americanorum.wordpress.com/20... (less)
October 26, 2014
I received a copy of this from Edelweiss prior to its publication date.
The writing is strong in these stories but the subject matter makes me want to warn people away. Each story has a murder or a rape, and it seems to be more for the shock value. I wish I'd encountered Amelia Gray in an earlier volume, because from the reviews it sounds like the stories had violence in them but were not pure violence. But after this experience I am unlikely to pick up another.
So either this is "not my thing" and I shouldn't bother rating it, or this might serve as a warning. I'd love to hear a different opinion.
The writing is strong in these stories but the subject matter makes me want to warn people away. Each story has a murder or a rape, and it seems to be more for the shock value. I wish I'd encountered Amelia Gray in an earlier volume, because from the reviews it sounds like the stories had violence in them but were not pure violence. But after this experience I am unlikely to pick up another.
So either this is "not my thing" and I shouldn't bother rating it, or this might serve as a warning. I'd love to hear a different opinion.
June 25, 2015
Amelia makes me laugh, she makes me cry, she gets me to think, and worry, and speculate. She's a brilliant writer, and this collection challenges the reader in so many way. LOVED IT.
December 23, 2022
Rimembranze della carnalità
"Un tempo, la mia mente era infetta dalla strana e inebriante ambizione che avrei potuto in qualche modo migliorare il mondo vivendo un esso. La realtà del mondo rovinò questo ideale; o, piuttosto, la fantasia dell'ideale rovinò la sua realtà. Mi ci volle del tempo a riprendermi da questa verità."
"Per essere chiari, il labirinto è noto per essere magico. Alcuni dicono che una volta che trovi il centro, scopri la cosa che desideri di più al mondo. Altri affermano che Dio sieda dietro l'ultima svolta. Ciascuno deve scoprirlo da sé. Andata a dare un'occhiata alla gara di marmellata se non vi sentite all'altezza."
Labile il confine tra genialità e minchiata sesquipedale: Amelia Gray, attraverso un approccio profondamente sperimentale, decide di camminare sul filo del rasoio con una carrellata di flash fiction che nel definirla surreale ne si ridimensiona l'identità.
Le relazioni tossiche o insoddisfacenti, nonché la difficoltà del coltivare rapporti interpersonali e comprendere l'altro, sono alcune delle chiavi che decodificano i confini weird dettati dall'autrice; il tutto attraverso un'esplosione purulenta di secrezioni corporee e deformazioni fisiche che immortalano il disagio.
La Gray sgancia le zavorre della sua mongolfiera - politically correct, spiegoni tattici, costruzione meccanica dei rapporti umani - e, complice un umorismo ben calibrato, fa andare a segno alcuni racconti (originali e spiazzanti, anche se mai davvero così fulminanti da far preludio a talune epifanie provate altrove).
L'istintività narrativa - va ammesso - implica un più che nutrito nugolo di racconti irrisolti, o completamente irricevibili nel contenuto; e questo si configura come l'aspetto più limitante della raccolta.
Pur partita con i peggiori crismi, Viscere ti trascina sul suo terreno di battaglia e quasi impari a guerreggiare con le medesime armi. Quasi.
Meritori di menzione Queste sono le favole, Sparato alla pancia, Labirinto, L'anno del serpente, Il cuore, Le vite dei fantasmi, Viscere, La sera dell'appuntamento, Sulla tetta, Grazie.
"Un tempo, la mia mente era infetta dalla strana e inebriante ambizione che avrei potuto in qualche modo migliorare il mondo vivendo un esso. La realtà del mondo rovinò questo ideale; o, piuttosto, la fantasia dell'ideale rovinò la sua realtà. Mi ci volle del tempo a riprendermi da questa verità."
"Per essere chiari, il labirinto è noto per essere magico. Alcuni dicono che una volta che trovi il centro, scopri la cosa che desideri di più al mondo. Altri affermano che Dio sieda dietro l'ultima svolta. Ciascuno deve scoprirlo da sé. Andata a dare un'occhiata alla gara di marmellata se non vi sentite all'altezza."
Labile il confine tra genialità e minchiata sesquipedale: Amelia Gray, attraverso un approccio profondamente sperimentale, decide di camminare sul filo del rasoio con una carrellata di flash fiction che nel definirla surreale ne si ridimensiona l'identità.
Le relazioni tossiche o insoddisfacenti, nonché la difficoltà del coltivare rapporti interpersonali e comprendere l'altro, sono alcune delle chiavi che decodificano i confini weird dettati dall'autrice; il tutto attraverso un'esplosione purulenta di secrezioni corporee e deformazioni fisiche che immortalano il disagio.
La Gray sgancia le zavorre della sua mongolfiera - politically correct, spiegoni tattici, costruzione meccanica dei rapporti umani - e, complice un umorismo ben calibrato, fa andare a segno alcuni racconti (originali e spiazzanti, anche se mai davvero così fulminanti da far preludio a talune epifanie provate altrove).
L'istintività narrativa - va ammesso - implica un più che nutrito nugolo di racconti irrisolti, o completamente irricevibili nel contenuto; e questo si configura come l'aspetto più limitante della raccolta.
Pur partita con i peggiori crismi, Viscere ti trascina sul suo terreno di battaglia e quasi impari a guerreggiare con le medesime armi. Quasi.
Meritori di menzione Queste sono le favole, Sparato alla pancia, Labirinto, L'anno del serpente, Il cuore, Le vite dei fantasmi, Viscere, La sera dell'appuntamento, Sulla tetta, Grazie.
January 21, 2016
Reading this felt like sitting at the foot of an insane person expecting some moment of epiphany from their connection to the “other” only to realize they are just stuck in a broken and off-kilter loop that is otherwise unremarkable. My favorite type of short stories sketch out something instantly recognizable in a very few sentences. With a simple exchange of dialogue one instantly ascertains the current state of a relationship and can guess at some of the history or with a twist of visual observation a reader intuits the state of mind of a protagonist. These sketches felt like a strange and shocking painting meant to elicit a wide range of instant gut responses like Munch’s The Scream of Nature series but without the artist’s historical annotations or illuminating title. Everyone has a different, personal reaction (mine to Gutshot typically “ew, gross”) but context is not forthcoming so the reaction encompasses the entirety of the experience. Rather than ‘stories’ per se, each entry feels much more like the distillation of imagery from a dream fragment or drug hallucination. And sometimes a sentence is just plain stupid as with this opening winner:
I liked a whopping 5 of 37 stories and when I say “liked,” I don’t mean they were enjoyable, usually the opposite. No, what I mean is I could see something identifiable: a relationship, a behavior, a quick insightful commentary for instance
The first story I ‘liked’ was The Moment of Conception and is a perfect example of my reading experience where I thought “Hey, this is a normal story about two people who are struggling to get pregnant” all the while hating the niggling conviction that the author was soon going to screw with me: sure enough, Gray takes it to crazy town.
The book is divided into five parts and each section progressively gains cohesiveness to the stories so I wish I had started in the middle or end because I may not have wanted to gouge out my eyeballs (or more in keeping with Grey - gouged out my lover’s eyes and fried them up because he loves me so) by the time I arrived at the first appreciable story. I would loosely classify Part One as a “Community” theme, Part Two - “Relationships,” Part Three - “Tall Tales,” Part Four - “Blood and Guts” and the final section as “Crazy Time” by which I mean both literal insanity and “society is crazy” satirical commentary. Despite feeling the overall quality improves progressively, I preferred the “Tall Tales” section the most. My favorite stories were Labryinth and Year of the Snake. Other shout-outs are Blood and Thank You which was actually pretty great and one of the few moments I laughed aloud.
The Bottom Line: If I hadn’t been prepared to justify my decision as a judge in the alt.TOB brackets, I would have put the book down at page 10, definitely by page 20, for sure after attempting two entire sections and wanting to kill someone. The writing itself I have no qualms with: the form is excellent and there is (usually) a beginning, middle and end to the stories. But the stories do not give back anything to the reader with the exception of those gut reactions. There is no illumination (quite the opposite) or context for greater meaning and the reactions get old quickly and lose their impact. Eventually one feels like the person next to the pair at a party who only make abstract insider references and jokes from their shared experience in their conversation. For some reason they believe they are actually conversing rather than just alluding to their past and they alienate everyone on the outside of the conversation. Literature should invoke a sense of recognition and empathy even when dealing with the most foreign topics and in my opinion Gutshot:Stories fails this primary task.
The sun beats the shit out of a dirty road called Raton Pass where the closest thing to a pair of matching earrings is a guy named Carl who punches you in the head with his fist.Trust me, there is no explaining why Carl is relatable in any way to a matched pair of earrings in the ensuing tale.
I liked a whopping 5 of 37 stories and when I say “liked,” I don’t mean they were enjoyable, usually the opposite. No, what I mean is I could see something identifiable: a relationship, a behavior, a quick insightful commentary for instance
"Attention is the most worthless of currency on the planet," I said. "When you treat it like it's precious, you're blinding yourself to the possibility that you might find it elsewhere. And it's everywhere, attention is.. After the first few stories I knew never to get comfortable with “oh, finally we’re going to have a story about something because Amelia Grey always takes it into WTF territory. I’m not just talking about the bizarre or the ludicrous: I’m talking pointless absurdity that appears purely for the purpose of eliciting a reaction. And perhaps that is what she is trying and succeeding at: make everything ludicrous, take something mundane and turn it ridiculous or grotesque as an “F-you” to anyone expecting normalcy. ‘Ha readers! You want a nice story? Well life is a bizarre mind trip and then you die so jokes on you!’ A very few actually hit a satirical note or elicited a “ha” as I read. But most did not appear to have a point to the grotesquerie; no context, no metaphor, no deep statements for the reader...and that is precisely what frustrated this reader. Indeed there is likely (hopefully) meaning behind the tales but it is obscured through a single writers’ vantage point and lifetime of unique context. We’re being told about the weird dream (or nightmare) the acquaintance at the party wants to tell everyone about without seeming to notice everyone could care less. The snapshot only means something if one knows that Aunt Carol symbolizes friendships and eating is equivalent to sensuality and the forbidden because of the stint of anorexia in college and a car means a man in the dreamer’s life so its super meaningful that she drove the car through her kitchen and then stabbed Aunt Carol 29 times when she exited then ate dear old auntie’s eyeballs while a familiar-but-can’t-place-it song was playing. I made that up… the version in Gutshot would have just jumped into the eating the eyeballs in the kitchen scene.
The first story I ‘liked’ was The Moment of Conception and is a perfect example of my reading experience where I thought “Hey, this is a normal story about two people who are struggling to get pregnant” all the while hating the niggling conviction that the author was soon going to screw with me: sure enough, Gray takes it to crazy town.
The book is divided into five parts and each section progressively gains cohesiveness to the stories so I wish I had started in the middle or end because I may not have wanted to gouge out my eyeballs (or more in keeping with Grey - gouged out my lover’s eyes and fried them up because he loves me so) by the time I arrived at the first appreciable story. I would loosely classify Part One as a “Community” theme, Part Two - “Relationships,” Part Three - “Tall Tales,” Part Four - “Blood and Guts” and the final section as “Crazy Time” by which I mean both literal insanity and “society is crazy” satirical commentary. Despite feeling the overall quality improves progressively, I preferred the “Tall Tales” section the most. My favorite stories were Labryinth and Year of the Snake. Other shout-outs are Blood and Thank You which was actually pretty great and one of the few moments I laughed aloud.
The Bottom Line: If I hadn’t been prepared to justify my decision as a judge in the alt.TOB brackets, I would have put the book down at page 10, definitely by page 20, for sure after attempting two entire sections and wanting to kill someone. The writing itself I have no qualms with: the form is excellent and there is (usually) a beginning, middle and end to the stories. But the stories do not give back anything to the reader with the exception of those gut reactions. There is no illumination (quite the opposite) or context for greater meaning and the reactions get old quickly and lose their impact. Eventually one feels like the person next to the pair at a party who only make abstract insider references and jokes from their shared experience in their conversation. For some reason they believe they are actually conversing rather than just alluding to their past and they alienate everyone on the outside of the conversation. Literature should invoke a sense of recognition and empathy even when dealing with the most foreign topics and in my opinion Gutshot:Stories fails this primary task.
December 2, 2016
I have opinions about swans. There were two of them ("Romeo" and "Juliet", ugh) at my college. They lived on a pond directly between the town and the dorms so that late at night, staggering home, one would be confronted with their yellow, spectrish figures, looming out of the darkness, lifting their wings and hissing and galumphing at one. They were murderous beasts, Swans of the Baskervilles, and I wished they would respect their namesakes enough to die.
Many fools think swans are pretty, so I've lived a lonely life. Imagine my relief when I encountered Amelia Gray's story "The Swan as Metaphor for Love," which says everything I've waited to hear another human say. "Anyone who claims that a swan is a majestic and noble creature has never seen a swan up close," Gray confirms. It's probably exactly like the first time a gay teenager reads James Baldwin. Misunderstood, I have been. Cast out. Excluded. Me and Amelia Gray - (pointing two fingers towards my eyes, two fingers towards hers, repeating for emphasis) - we understand each other.
Amelia Gray is brilliant and very weird. As my friend Poingu points out, one never has any idea how one of her sentences is going to end. One learns to predict sentences; one has read many of them. I didn't like "Labyrinth" as much as Poingu did, and some of these stories worked less well than others for me - but it is awfully nice to be surprised.
Many fools think swans are pretty, so I've lived a lonely life. Imagine my relief when I encountered Amelia Gray's story "The Swan as Metaphor for Love," which says everything I've waited to hear another human say. "Anyone who claims that a swan is a majestic and noble creature has never seen a swan up close," Gray confirms. It's probably exactly like the first time a gay teenager reads James Baldwin. Misunderstood, I have been. Cast out. Excluded. Me and Amelia Gray - (pointing two fingers towards my eyes, two fingers towards hers, repeating for emphasis) - we understand each other.
Amelia Gray is brilliant and very weird. As my friend Poingu points out, one never has any idea how one of her sentences is going to end. One learns to predict sentences; one has read many of them. I didn't like "Labyrinth" as much as Poingu did, and some of these stories worked less well than others for me - but it is awfully nice to be surprised.
February 13, 2017
Initially when I read this collection (in 2014 I think), I gave it 4 stars because I thought a couple of the stories fell a little short of gutshotting me. However, there are a few that have stayed in my mind with not much of a lessening of residual visceral impact, and when a collection of stories overall has that powerful of a lingering echo in your brain, it fully deserves 5 stars.
July 8, 2017
Small bursts of magic. Odd and multi-faceted interpretations of life.
February 8, 2016
I absolutely love how unique this book is, and, as far as I'm concerned, it lives up to all its hype.
May 1, 2021
Può non essere una raccolta per tutti. Ma se avvertite un'irresistibile attrazione per il new weird e dintorni, Amelia Gray è pazzesca ed è perfetta. Scrive di cose strane, lo stupore è sempre acceso, alcuni racconti sono folgoranti, altri ti chiedi Eh?, ad altri ancora continui a pensarci dopo giorni. Si possono trovare significati o possono semplicemente non esserci, o esserci quelli che vuoi vedere. A me piacciono queste visioni, mi pace la sua scrittura caustica, divertente. Il corpo è analizzato in ogni sua più disgustosa manifestazione, l'insieme è comunque intrigante e interessante.
September 6, 2024
Okay, so there's a story here of a date going atrociously: things don't sit right with the couple, they're fidgety, nervous, they try to fix their appearances but their bodies morph, slough off, and the entire restaurant is infected by this process until its patrons are tearing their bodies apart, but in joy, rather than distress. The story ends with the narrator screaming, with various words in all caps, 'because that's what LIFE is, you assholes!'
And I'm like, man, I could've finished that story, gone to the bathroom, looked at myself while pissing, and come to that conclusion myself. Why am I being treated like a fucking idiot?
There's this trend in horror right now that's fixated on messy bitches, and a lot of its authors conflate messy prose with messy subject matters. It's as if the messier you write the closer you come to some transcendental godhead of bitchdom.
I think this does a disservice to messy bitch literature.
Our Lady of the Flowers, Giovanni's Room, Pig Tales, and The Seas all centre on messy bitches, but they're precise, evocative, and impressionistic. Language is used sparingly. Every sentence is designed to cut us apart. More than depict mess, these texts make a mess of us, pulling us into hostile complexes of longing, terror, and ire. We are disarrayed. We become messy bitches ourselves.
About half of the stories in this collection approach this. They're dense, intricate labyrinths that spell out nothing, but suggest a multitude. These stories are eerie and unnerving. Machinic and abject.
The rest, like the one above, I could do without.
And I'm like, man, I could've finished that story, gone to the bathroom, looked at myself while pissing, and come to that conclusion myself. Why am I being treated like a fucking idiot?
There's this trend in horror right now that's fixated on messy bitches, and a lot of its authors conflate messy prose with messy subject matters. It's as if the messier you write the closer you come to some transcendental godhead of bitchdom.
I think this does a disservice to messy bitch literature.
Our Lady of the Flowers, Giovanni's Room, Pig Tales, and The Seas all centre on messy bitches, but they're precise, evocative, and impressionistic. Language is used sparingly. Every sentence is designed to cut us apart. More than depict mess, these texts make a mess of us, pulling us into hostile complexes of longing, terror, and ire. We are disarrayed. We become messy bitches ourselves.
About half of the stories in this collection approach this. They're dense, intricate labyrinths that spell out nothing, but suggest a multitude. These stories are eerie and unnerving. Machinic and abject.
The rest, like the one above, I could do without.
January 29, 2024
Una raccolta di racconti anticonvenzionale - per la precisione 37 - a metà tra la bizarro fiction e il new weird.
I contenuti, come presumevo, sono forti - al limite dello splatter - e di grottesco ce n'è a bizzeffe. Ogni novelette è come una ciliegia, una tira l'altra, e il libro letteralmente si divora.
Amelia Gray non ha mezzi termini e lancia a briglia sciolta la sua immaginazione contorta, tiene alta la bandiera dell'umorismo nero con pagine che toccano intensi picchi di disturbante.
Il mio giudizio tuttavia si mantiene nella media perché, nonostante abbia apprezzato questa antologia così provocatoria, alcune storie sono troppo brevi e di altre non ne ho capito bene il senso. Dal libro:
I contenuti, come presumevo, sono forti - al limite dello splatter - e di grottesco ce n'è a bizzeffe. Ogni novelette è come una ciliegia, una tira l'altra, e il libro letteralmente si divora.
Amelia Gray non ha mezzi termini e lancia a briglia sciolta la sua immaginazione contorta, tiene alta la bandiera dell'umorismo nero con pagine che toccano intensi picchi di disturbante.
Il mio giudizio tuttavia si mantiene nella media perché, nonostante abbia apprezzato questa antologia così provocatoria, alcune storie sono troppo brevi e di altre non ne ho capito bene il senso. Dal libro:
[...] Quando dice di amarti, taglia a brandelli i suoi polpastrelli e succhia il loro sangue [...] Quando ti dice addio, divoragli il cuore.
March 30, 2023
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
January 31, 2016
Blistering – the kind of blisters you want to pop for the sick satisfaction of an explosion of your bodies' illness. Bloody – like that nosebleed you had that you just watched drip down your face in the mirror, tasting the iron red of yourself. Joyous – because once you've let go of your boundaries, once the body becomes open and porous and wounded, you've got only yourself to explore. Words like "wild" and "horror" come to mind.
Amelia Gray's fiction took me when I started to read "The Swan as Metaphor for Love" (which you can find over at Electric Literature. It's a brilliant deadpan deconstruction with whip-smart lines, wryly punctured and cunningly inflated at once. Take the following,
Right there, that's a voice. I could listen all day, all night, always. For me, the best stories in Gutshot are those that maintain this painful off-handedness. "Fifty Ways to Eat Your Lover," for instance, is uncompromising in its premise (Gray reads it aloud over YouTube, and "Date Night" came at just the right time for me (you can find it over at BOMB Magazine. "Go for It and Raise Hell" is an absolute barnburner and worth the price of admission alone (but you can go ahead and read it over at Knee-Jerk Magazine, in case you need persuasion. "Thank You" reminds me of more friends than I care to think, and myself more than I'd like to imagine.
It's clear from the evidence presented in Gutshot that Gray has devastating power. The stories in which her voice catches, stories in which a narrative object emerges with such blistering, bloody, joyous clearness that you feel struck, are stories of rare comparison. I'm excited, maybe a little terrified, to see what she's got coming out next!
Amelia Gray's fiction took me when I started to read "The Swan as Metaphor for Love" (which you can find over at Electric Literature. It's a brilliant deadpan deconstruction with whip-smart lines, wryly punctured and cunningly inflated at once. Take the following,
Swans mate for life, which is maybe ten or fifteen years. Someone found a swan once that was twenty-four years old and probably it was mating for life, which everyone made a big deal out of even though the swan was not even old enough to rent a car. The swan wasn’t yet acquainted with life enough to silently hyperventilate in its bed. The swan didn’t have a bed. The swan was too stupid to have a bed and if it did it would fill the bed with swan shit.
That’s all for today about swans.
Right there, that's a voice. I could listen all day, all night, always. For me, the best stories in Gutshot are those that maintain this painful off-handedness. "Fifty Ways to Eat Your Lover," for instance, is uncompromising in its premise (Gray reads it aloud over YouTube, and "Date Night" came at just the right time for me (you can find it over at BOMB Magazine. "Go for It and Raise Hell" is an absolute barnburner and worth the price of admission alone (but you can go ahead and read it over at Knee-Jerk Magazine, in case you need persuasion. "Thank You" reminds me of more friends than I care to think, and myself more than I'd like to imagine.
It's clear from the evidence presented in Gutshot that Gray has devastating power. The stories in which her voice catches, stories in which a narrative object emerges with such blistering, bloody, joyous clearness that you feel struck, are stories of rare comparison. I'm excited, maybe a little terrified, to see what she's got coming out next!
June 11, 2015
This was my first run in with Amelia Gray, but I sort of knew what to expect from her: dark, strange, talented. No doubt, all those things are true.
Some of the stories in Gutshot really evoke the macabre of greats like Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allan Poe. There's just enough detail in these stories to make them creepy, yet universal and accessible. I got the sense that Gray really enjoys getting into her stories and characters.
Then there are those stories in this collection that are strange, yet beautiful. They had me scratching my head, uncertain and devoid of expectation, yet enjoying the process.
And then are all the others. These stories reminded me of a Mad Lib writer's exercise. They didn't evoke any sense of awe or understanding. These just existed. Mad Lib stories are a hoot, but it's the creation that makes it fun. Reading another person's final story is like watching someone's birthday party through a window.
So, let's have our own Mad Lib party. Hooray! Come up with a word for each of the following, paste them into the following story, and post your stories in the comments. Come on, it'll be fun. Who knows, maybe your story will lead to an idea that is published in a big shot journal. I've heard it happens. :)
Occupation _________________________
Noun Plural ____________________________
Gerund ___________________________
Ethnicity ___________________________
Name (feminine) ___________________________
Noun _____________________________
Body Part ____________________________
Verb _____________________________
Gerund ___________________________
Place _____________________________
Noun Plural ____________________________
Here's the story:
Bob is a(n) [occupation]. He's happy with his job, but he wants more from life. He lives in an apartment filled with [noun plural] and he's tired of [gerund]. On his way to the [ethnicity] restaurant, he meets a girl named [name, feminine] who has a [noun] in her [body part]. The girl likes to [verb], but doesn't know how to stop [gerund]. They talk about their problems. Bob thinks it would be best to move to [place], but because of the girl's deformity, they are forced to watch [noun plural] on the ocean. It is a moment that forever defines the rest of their lives.
Some of the stories in Gutshot really evoke the macabre of greats like Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allan Poe. There's just enough detail in these stories to make them creepy, yet universal and accessible. I got the sense that Gray really enjoys getting into her stories and characters.
Then there are those stories in this collection that are strange, yet beautiful. They had me scratching my head, uncertain and devoid of expectation, yet enjoying the process.
And then are all the others. These stories reminded me of a Mad Lib writer's exercise. They didn't evoke any sense of awe or understanding. These just existed. Mad Lib stories are a hoot, but it's the creation that makes it fun. Reading another person's final story is like watching someone's birthday party through a window.
So, let's have our own Mad Lib party. Hooray! Come up with a word for each of the following, paste them into the following story, and post your stories in the comments. Come on, it'll be fun. Who knows, maybe your story will lead to an idea that is published in a big shot journal. I've heard it happens. :)
Occupation _________________________
Noun Plural ____________________________
Gerund ___________________________
Ethnicity ___________________________
Name (feminine) ___________________________
Noun _____________________________
Body Part ____________________________
Verb _____________________________
Gerund ___________________________
Place _____________________________
Noun Plural ____________________________
Here's the story:
Bob is a(n) [occupation]. He's happy with his job, but he wants more from life. He lives in an apartment filled with [noun plural] and he's tired of [gerund]. On his way to the [ethnicity] restaurant, he meets a girl named [name, feminine] who has a [noun] in her [body part]. The girl likes to [verb], but doesn't know how to stop [gerund]. They talk about their problems. Bob thinks it would be best to move to [place], but because of the girl's deformity, they are forced to watch [noun plural] on the ocean. It is a moment that forever defines the rest of their lives.
February 23, 2016
Had I reviewed this book within the first few stories, it would have gained a couple stars. Initially, I was impressed with the surreal, nightmare quality of the pieces. However, the more I read, the more I realized why I responded to it: Gray writes stories like I did (or at least thought I did and wanted to) when I was a teenager. Stories that are built up out of disparate, often violent or disturbing images, with jumps of dream-logic that take Kafka and crank up the absurdity, with black humor shot throughout. Stories that subvert the narrative engine and try their best to break the canonical modes of literature. Basically, snot-nosed, rebellious fare.
I certainly thought producing this stuff was great as a teen; unfortunately, it turns out that reading it as an adult is a distinctly less satisfying experience. The problem with subverting all expectations (or trying to) is that it becomes unbearably boring. If everything is possible, there's no surprise when the outlandish happens. The strength and value of subversion lies in the complicated relationship with the rules of the game: by turns embracing and rejecting literary and narrative tropes draws such tropes into relief, shows their weaknesses and strengths, and creates meaningful art. Banging together imagery salad that uses nightmare logic, lacunae of reasoning, nonstop nonsequiturs, and abrupt transitions and conclusions doesn't tell you anything enlightening about life, literature, etc. It just seems juvenile.
I really wanted to like this book, but it felt painfully like reading what my 17 year old self would have tendentiously claimed was needed to raze the literary canon to the ground. Turns out callow youth is often wrong, and certainly hyperbolic. That is not to say Gray isn't a capable writer; it's just that she's not for the me of today. Got here 20 years too late, alas.
I certainly thought producing this stuff was great as a teen; unfortunately, it turns out that reading it as an adult is a distinctly less satisfying experience. The problem with subverting all expectations (or trying to) is that it becomes unbearably boring. If everything is possible, there's no surprise when the outlandish happens. The strength and value of subversion lies in the complicated relationship with the rules of the game: by turns embracing and rejecting literary and narrative tropes draws such tropes into relief, shows their weaknesses and strengths, and creates meaningful art. Banging together imagery salad that uses nightmare logic, lacunae of reasoning, nonstop nonsequiturs, and abrupt transitions and conclusions doesn't tell you anything enlightening about life, literature, etc. It just seems juvenile.
I really wanted to like this book, but it felt painfully like reading what my 17 year old self would have tendentiously claimed was needed to raze the literary canon to the ground. Turns out callow youth is often wrong, and certainly hyperbolic. That is not to say Gray isn't a capable writer; it's just that she's not for the me of today. Got here 20 years too late, alas.
April 24, 2015
Damn. Solid. Equal turns violent/visceral and utter magic candy. Gunshot is a collection of short stories that plays with a feeling of ultimate nightmare as written in realistic hops skips and jumps, where you might be just on the verge of waking up but then are swept back into a terrible/lovely fog (depending on how tough you are).
Overall, a brilliant assembly of unpredictable chunks of storytelling that amazed in their wonder and amazed too in their horror, blood, puke, flayed skin, imprisonment.
I found the stand out section of the book to be right smack in the middle. Gray fell into a pace, following the initial 80 something pages of perfect gloom, dread and violence, where she was writing stories that were more directly fables, puffy clouds with moments of solace, marvelous in execution and addictive as fuck to breeze through.
I'm referring to the stories "These Were the Fables", "Labyrinth", "Year of the Snake" and "The Heart". Those stories were a turning point in the tone, that came as a relief ... early stories were heavier nightmare fuel, "House Heart", "Away From" and "The Lark"
By page 143, with the story "Viscera" (aptly named) we're right back in the mix of earlier unsettling stories. They're return and the shift in tone of the book, back tot he dark, was the shit.
The cover art, with a sketch of a woman with her vulnerable throat ripped out (and she doesn't even seem to be phased) summarizes this collection perfectly. Most narrators we get to hang out with in Gutshot don't live in this world, don't need flesh, don't need, skin, just keep on zooming along through intense nightmare dreamscapes, screaming out of a dirty Iroc GO FOR IT RAISE HELL!
Overall, a brilliant assembly of unpredictable chunks of storytelling that amazed in their wonder and amazed too in their horror, blood, puke, flayed skin, imprisonment.
I found the stand out section of the book to be right smack in the middle. Gray fell into a pace, following the initial 80 something pages of perfect gloom, dread and violence, where she was writing stories that were more directly fables, puffy clouds with moments of solace, marvelous in execution and addictive as fuck to breeze through.
I'm referring to the stories "These Were the Fables", "Labyrinth", "Year of the Snake" and "The Heart". Those stories were a turning point in the tone, that came as a relief ... early stories were heavier nightmare fuel, "House Heart", "Away From" and "The Lark"
By page 143, with the story "Viscera" (aptly named) we're right back in the mix of earlier unsettling stories. They're return and the shift in tone of the book, back tot he dark, was the shit.
The cover art, with a sketch of a woman with her vulnerable throat ripped out (and she doesn't even seem to be phased) summarizes this collection perfectly. Most narrators we get to hang out with in Gutshot don't live in this world, don't need flesh, don't need, skin, just keep on zooming along through intense nightmare dreamscapes, screaming out of a dirty Iroc GO FOR IT RAISE HELL!
March 7, 2016
Many of my favorite stories explore themes of otherness, shadow selves, and the darkness within. I believe making these explorations is integral to the human experience if we are to truly understand ourselves and those around us. Amelia Gray writes stories that on the surface look poised to excavate in this direction, but ultimately fail to reveal much. The writing feels like it's creating darkness for its own sake, which may work for others, but not for me. Generally I like my darkness served with a hint of pathos, and there are few stories here with even a trace of that quality. Instead there is a cold hollowness running through them, as if all the blood has been drained away. Not to say that they lack beauty, for Gray is a skilled writer and crafts some fine phrases. Her deadpan humor also hits the mark in places. But many of the stories fail to develop, often ending abruptly and leaving dissatisfaction in their wake. Some can barely be called stories at all, falling more accurately in the category of vignette. Perhaps their qualities are in fact reflective of our times, but that made them no less appealing.
May 12, 2016
Installment #3 of the tale of my April reading slump, in which I hit bottom.
Continuing my lethal slide into reading apathy, I struggled through this collection of short stories. Gutshot was the May 2015 selection of the Nervous Breakdown Book Club. I had listened to the Other People podcast with Amelia Gray some months ago and she sounded fairly normal. Reader, she is not!
I know there is a crossing-genres genre called The Weird and this collection would qualify. It is not Sci Fi but looks at a layer of society living probably right next to us but largely invisible. Messed up, weird people who do gross things and live outside what is thought of as mainstream.
Do I need to be aware of these things? Do such people need a voice or a place in literature? While reading these stories, I would go to the grocery store or RiteAid or 7-11 and wonder if some of the humans I saw there might be like the people in the book. Major creep factor.
Out of the 35 mostly very short stories, I only found 4 that were tolerable. "Western Passage," "Gutshot," "Year of the Snake," and "Legacy." I am sorry Amelia Gray. I know you have admirers so I guess you can do without me.
Continuing my lethal slide into reading apathy, I struggled through this collection of short stories. Gutshot was the May 2015 selection of the Nervous Breakdown Book Club. I had listened to the Other People podcast with Amelia Gray some months ago and she sounded fairly normal. Reader, she is not!
I know there is a crossing-genres genre called The Weird and this collection would qualify. It is not Sci Fi but looks at a layer of society living probably right next to us but largely invisible. Messed up, weird people who do gross things and live outside what is thought of as mainstream.
Do I need to be aware of these things? Do such people need a voice or a place in literature? While reading these stories, I would go to the grocery store or RiteAid or 7-11 and wonder if some of the humans I saw there might be like the people in the book. Major creep factor.
Out of the 35 mostly very short stories, I only found 4 that were tolerable. "Western Passage," "Gutshot," "Year of the Snake," and "Legacy." I am sorry Amelia Gray. I know you have admirers so I guess you can do without me.
Read
August 4, 2015This book is an overwhelming one. The effect of the writing in this short story collection catches you completely off guard in its intensity. The clarity and simplicity of the writing nearly masks the great depth of the messages here. It is impossible to forget the piece about a woman who is oiled and then locked into the ductwork of a house. She pulls herself along as the couple who owns the house keep track of their prisoner. It is eerie.The text has such ease. I walked away from reading this one with a different understanding of how we define “dark” and “bizarre” than when I started. –Jessi Lewis
from The Best Books of 2015 So Far: http://bookriot.com/2015/07/08/the-be...
from The Best Books of 2015 So Far: http://bookriot.com/2015/07/08/the-be...
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