Review
Alone With you, Marisa Silver's new collection of short stories is a jewel. Actually a cache of many gems, each one complete and powerful in both the feelings that they evoke and the eloquent way in which they unfold.
A good short story must pack a wallop in order to leave us with an emotional response that lingers in our thoughts after we've finished it. It needs to have characters we care about, not necessarily like, but have a vested interest in. Often times, this is achieved by placing unconventional protagonists in situations that are so extreme, so above and beyond what most of us deal with in our day-to-day lives, that while we marvel at their foibles, their shortcomings or their eccentricities, we sit safely in a position of removed voyeur.
Marisa Silver's stories do not allow us such luxury. For this...
Beyond the Book
Are you an eeker or a gusher? Do you have to go back and enlarge what you have first written or do you delete and tighten things up?
I love that distinction – eeker vs. gusher! I am definitely an eeker. I work slowly and I attempt to work steadily. I try to write a certain number of pages every single day. But I rarely sit down and have any idea of what I'm going to do next. I feel like I'm always in a dark tunnel pawing my way forward, tripping, bashing my head…it ain't pretty!
