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The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
by Amy Hempel

The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel Cover

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Powells.com Staff Pick

I read The Collected Stories in order, over the course of a single week. My long overdue introduction to Amy Hempel — it was a very good week, indeed. By the time I finished I'd penciled five names onto the back of the last page: friends who'll soon be getting a copy in the mail.

It would not be unfair to call Hempel a writer's writer, but it might be misleading — she's a reader's writer, too. Some of her stories contain only a few lines; few run longer than ten or twelve pages. None rely on high-concept mechanics or lofty language. She demands very little of her readership, and then delivers in spades. Hempel has been called a miniaturist — fair enough — but if her stories tend to be small in scale, they drill as deep as fiction goes. Emotionally charged, fantastically precise, an Amy Hempel story is a miracle of articulation.
Recommended by Dave, Powells.com (See all of our Staff Top 5s of 2006)

Review-a-Day   (What is Review-a-Day?)

"Few fiction writers are as intensely admired by their peers as is Hempel, though she's never published a novel. Her reputation rests solely on the four landmark collections of short fiction gathered here....Although leavened by a wry rue, Hempel's is a hard-boiled sensibility, and each of her stories — many only a few pages long, and one of which consists of a single sentence — will leave the reader shaken..." Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic Monthly review)

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel gathers together the complete work of a writer whose voice is as singular and astonishing as any in American fiction. Hempel, fiercely admired by writers and reviewers, has a sterling reputation that is based on four very short collections of stories, roughly fifteen thousand stunning sentences, written over a period of nearly three decades. These are stories about people who make choices that seem inevitable, whose longings and misgivings evoke eternal human experience. With compassion, wit, and the acutest eye, Hempel observes the marriages, minor disasters, and moments of revelation in an uneasy America.

When Reasons to Live, Hempel's first collection, was published in 1985, readers encountered a pitch-perfect voice in fiction and an unsettling assessment of the culture. That collection includes "San Francisco," which Alan Cheuse in the Chicago Tribune called arguably the finest short story composed by any living writer. In "At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom," her second collection, frequently compared to the work of Raymond Carver, Hempel refined and developed her unique grace and style and her unerring instinct for the moment that defines a character. Also included here, in their entirety, are the collections Tumble Home and The Dog of the Marriage. As Rick Moody says of the title novella in Tumble Home, the leap in mastery, in seriousness, and sheer literary purpose was inspiring to behold.... And yet, he continues, The Dog of the Marriage, the fourth collection, is even better than the other three...a triumph, in fact.

The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel is the perfect opportunity for readers of contemporary Americanfiction to catch up to one of its masters. Moody's passionate and illuminating introduction celebrates both the appeal and the importance of Hempel's work.

Review:

"Hempel writes with an effortless wit... showing us the larger shapes of our lives by capturing their most fleeting and fragmentary moments." Elizabeth Gleick, The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"Each story is so tight, so boiled to bare facts, that all you can do is lie on the floor, face down, and praise it." Chuck Palahniuk

Review:

"There are writers who pull you along in deep, satisfying drafts of narrative and human color; then there are writers who, sentence by sentence, cause you to stop breathing. Hempel leads the latter group." O, The Oprah Magazine

Synopsis:

With her trademark compassion and wit, Hempel takes readers into the marriages, minor disasters, and moments of revelation in an uneasy America.

Synopsis:

Amy Hempel is a master of the short story. This celebrated volume gathers together her complete work — four short collections of stunning stories about marriages, minor disasters, and moments of revelation.

With her inimitable compassion and wit, Hempel introduces characters who make choices that seem inevitable, and whose longings and misgivings evoke eternal human experience.

For readers who have known Hempel's work for decades and for those who are just discovering her, this indispensable volume contains all the stories in Reasons to Live, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, Tumble Home, and The Dog of the Marriage. No reader of great writing should be without it.

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About the Author

Amy Hempel is the author of Tumble Home, Reasons to Live, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, The Dog of the Marriage, and the coeditor of Unleashed. Her stories have appeared in Elle, GQ, Harper's, Playboy, The Quarterly, and Vanity Fair. She teaches in the Graduate Writing Program at Bennington College and lives in New York City.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
venusinfauxfurz, May 1, 2007 (view all comments by venusinfauxfurz)
This book is worth every penny. There are more perfect sentences in this book than anything else that's been published lately.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780743289467
Author:
Hempel, Amy
Publisher:
Scribner Book Company
Introduction:
Moody, Rick
Illustrator:
Moody, Rick
Author:
Moody, Rick
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Social life and customs
Subject:
United states
Subject:
Short Stories (single author)
Subject:
Stories (single author)
Copyright:
2006
Publication Date:
May 2006
Binding:
Hardcover
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
YES
Pages:
409
Dimensions:
9.24x6.36x1.25 in. 1.45 lbs.
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