Fresh Complaint: Stories
Fresh Complaint: Stories
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Publisher's Hardcover ©2017--
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Farrar, Straus, Giroux
Annotation: A first collection of short stories by the Pulitzer Prize winner includes the tales of a failed poet-turned-embezzler, a young traveler seeking enlightenment, and a high schooler whose drastic decision upends a British physicist's life.
 
Reviews: 5
Catalog Number: #153312
Format: Publisher's Hardcover
Copyright Date: 2017
Edition Date: 2017 Release Date: 10/03/17
Pages: 285 pages
ISBN: 0-374-20306-7
ISBN 13: 978-0-374-20306-1
Dewey: Fic
LCCN: 2017007576
Dimensions: 22 cm.
Language: English
Reviews:
Starred Review ALA Booklist (Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)

Starred Review Pulitzer Prize winning Eugenides' first story collection, and his first book since The Marriage Plot (2011), is gifted with the strong voices and luminous prose his novels are known for. Readers will recognize familiar characters and themes: In "Air Mail," The Marriage Plot's Mitchell is in India, seeking a kind of nirvana by enduring the "stomach complaint" otherwise known as amoebic dysentery through willfulness alone, and in "The Oracular Vulva," Dr. Peter Luce can't believe he's doing fieldwork again at his age, but ever since a rival sexologist undermined his theories on human hermaphroditism, he's got something to prove. In the title story, a teenager's desperate attempt to evade an arranged marriage requires the involvement of a hopelessly unknowing professor. Stories probe aging and agency, sex and death, with Eugenides' trademark wit and deadpan grace. Cunning, comic, and clueless characters hatch plans to restore their unfairly sapped potential and deal with the results me successful, some unanticipated, some unsavory ile Eugenides captures the places they're in, both physical and metaphorical, with precision. Early on, old friends wonder, "What was it about complaining that felt so good?" Readers will enjoy lamenting that this complete and utterly human collection must, after all, end.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: New fiction from Eugenides has been thus far a once-per-decade event; readers will rejoice for both the shorter wait and the short form.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Middlesex, Eugenides here collects the stories he has been steadily producing through the years. The earliest story, -Capricious Gardens,- originates from Eugenides-s M.F.A. thesis. In it, two American backpackers spend the night at the home of a recently divorced Irishman. Its plot (the host desires one of the travelers, but her companion has other plans) is of less importance than the structural experimentation. In the humorous -The Oracular Vulva,- -the famous sexologist- Dr. Peter Luce (also featured in Middlesex) makes one last, uncomfortable attempt to salvage his theory of intersexuality and his prestige by journeying into a remote jungle village to do field work. -Airmail- is an epistolary account of a young man-s journey towards enlightenment-and gastric peace-in India. -Baster- is a tale of a woman taking her fertility into her own hands with a marvelous O. Henry ending. The title story is an adroit and moving exploration of an Indian-American teenager-s desperate attempts to avoid an arranged marriage. -The Great Experiment- is the collection-s highlight: working for a small press called Great Experiment-run by Jimmy Boyko, an elderly former pornographer turned free speech advocate-Kendall spends his days collecting quotes from de Tocqueville-s Democracy in America for a slim volume to be entitled The Pocket Democracy. When Jimmy-s accountant tells Kendall over drinks, -If you and I weren-t so honest we could make a lot of money- by embezzling from Jimmy-s publishing venture, Kendall must weigh the price of his integrity against taking his slice of the American Dream. The collection is uneven, but even the weakest story is never boring, and Eugenides-s prodigious abilities are showcased throughout. (Oct.)

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Well-off, well-intentioned people find their just-so lives upended, often in curious ways, in this first collection of short stories by Eugenides (The Marriage Plot, 2011, etc.).Two of the stories here are close cousins to Eugenides' novels: "Air Mail" features Mitchell, the lovelorn spiritual seeker in The Marriage Plot, battling a case of dysentery in Thailand, while "The Oracular Vulva" concerns a researcher studying the same intersexual characteristics that stoked the plot of Middlesex (2002). But neither of those stories reads like a lesser dry run for a more serious work, and the collection throughout is marked by a rich wit, an eye for detail, and a sense of the absurd. The plots often involve relationships hitting the skids, as in "Early Music," in which a couple watches their artistic ambitions crash into the brick wall of fiscal responsibility, or "Find the Bad Guy," about a green-card marriage gone awry. (The contents of the narrator's pockets tell a pathetic tale in itself: "loose change, 5-Hour Energy bottle, and an Ashley Madison ad torn from some magazine.") Eugenides enjoys putting his characters into odd predicaments: "Baster" centers on a woman pursuing a pregnancy via the title's kitchen gadget, while the writer who narrates "Great Experiment" contemplates defrauding his wealthy but stingy employer, using de Tocqueville's writings as a rationalization. But Eugenides never holds up his characters for outright mockery, and the two fine new stories that bookend the collection gracefully navigate darker territory: "Complainers" is narrated by a woman confronting her longtime friend's dementia, and "Fresh Complaint" turns on a young Indian-American woman's provocative scheme to escape an arranged marriage. We humans are well-meaning folk, Eugenides means to say, but life tends to force us into bad behavior. Sprightly or serious, Eugenides consistently writes about complex lives with depth and compassion.

Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews

Well-off, well-intentioned people find their just-so lives upended, often in curious ways, in this first collection of short stories by Eugenides (The Marriage Plot, 2011, etc.).Two of the stories here are close cousins to Eugenides' novels: "Air Mail" features Mitchell, the lovelorn spiritual seeker in The Marriage Plot, battling a case of dysentery in Thailand, while "The Oracular Vulva" concerns a researcher studying the same intersexual characteristics that stoked the plot of Middlesex (2002). But neither of those stories reads like a lesser dry run for a more serious work, and the collection throughout is marked by a rich wit, an eye for detail, and a sense of the absurd. The plots often involve relationships hitting the skids, as in "Early Music," in which a couple watches their artistic ambitions crash into the brick wall of fiscal responsibility, or "Find the Bad Guy," about a green-card marriage gone awry. (The contents of the narrator's pockets tell a pathetic tale in itself: "loose change, 5-Hour Energy bottle, and an Ashley Madison ad torn from some magazine.") Eugenides enjoys putting his characters into odd predicaments: "Baster" centers on a woman pursuing a pregnancy via the title's kitchen gadget, while the writer who narrates "Great Experiment" contemplates defrauding his wealthy but stingy employer, using de Tocqueville's writings as a rationalization. But Eugenides never holds up his characters for outright mockery, and the two fine new stories that bookend the collection gracefully navigate darker territory: "Complainers" is narrated by a woman confronting her longtime friend's dementia, and "Fresh Complaint" turns on a young Indian-American woman's provocative scheme to escape an arranged marriage. We humans are well-meaning folk, Eugenides means to say, but life tends to force us into bad behavior. Sprightly or serious, Eugenides consistently writes about complex lives with depth and compassion.

Reviewing Agencies: - Find Other Reviewed Titles
Starred Review ALA Booklist (Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)
School Library Journal Starred Review
Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)
Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)
Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews
Reading Level: 9.0
Interest Level: 9+

The first collection of short fiction from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides Jeffrey Eugenides's bestselling novels have shown him to be an astute observer of the crises of adolescence, self-discovery, family love, and what it means to be American in our times. The stories in Fresh Complaint explore equally rich­­--and intriguing--territory. Ranging from the bitingly reproductive antics of "Baster" to the dreamy, moving account of a young traveler's search for enlightenment in "Air Mail" (selected by Annie Proulx for Best American Short Stories ), this collection presents characters in the midst of personal and national emergencies. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people's wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art founder under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood; and, in "Fresh Complaint," a high school student whose wish to escape the strictures of her immigrant family lead her to a drastic decision that upends the life of a middle-aged British physicist. Narratively compelling, beautifully written, and packed with a density of ideas despite their fluid grace, these stories chart the development and maturation of a major American writer.

Complainers
Air mail
Baster
Early music
Timeshare
Find the bad guy
The oracular vulva
Capricious gardens
Great experiment
Fresh complaint.

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