Читать книгу Difficult Women - Roxane Gay - Страница 2
Оглавление“Writing that seems to cut to the bone … These stories of sisters and mothers and daughters and lovers are haunting, and their quiet voices linger … they draw you in.”
—Seattle Times
“[Gay’s] characters … aren’t superheroes, and they aren’t intimidating or ‘lethal.’ They are like us, whether they live in gated subdivisions, apartments or run-down houses with sagging ceilings. They … are haunted by painful memories of abuse and loss. Some are loved and some are lonely, although these categories are not mutually exclusive. They are horny. They are not nice. They are calloused and bruised and yet, somehow, they endure.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Gay’s prose is undeniably sharp and to the point. No words are wasted, and every story is nimbly brought to life with deft observations and a willingness to speak the truth … unforgettable.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“The stories, phenomenally powerful and beautifully written, demonstrate the threats so many women in reality face, but also how, whatever their situation, they have agency, resilience and identities away from stereotypes created and reinforced by men.”
—Guardian (UK)
“Powerful, sometimes infuriating, often sad and always gentle … A wonderful and varied collection of stories, with a terrific range of subjects and emotions giving it just the right balance.”
—Toronto Star (Canada)
“It is impossible to read Roxane Gay’s Difficult Women and not be chilled by its prescience … Gay is an engaging, beguiling storyteller who … captures the fragility of love and the awful mundaneness when relationships start to fail … One of the most important writers in contemporary English literature.”
—Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
“Like Joyce Carol Oates’ Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? or Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, this is fiction pressed through a sieve, leaving only the canniest truths behind … Addictive, moving and risk-taking.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“The women in Difficult Women are all deliciously complex, and their relationships are just as multifaceted.”
—Baltimore City Paper
“Gay brings the powerful voice that flows through her work as a novelist and cultural critic to [these] 21 short stories … Gay’s ‘difficult women’ are unforgettable.”
“Her pitch-perfect insights to these female archetypes are so Gay—candid, observant, concise, stirring.”
—Ms.
“Gay is at her best when merging vivid yet straightforward language with stories that contain an element of folklore … Refreshing yet intricate, in the vein of Clarence Major’s Chicago Heat and Other Stories.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Unequivocally excellent … roughly urgent and skillfully timeless … Gay’s voice is lyrical throughout, mesmeric and unflinching. This collection shocks, despairs and triumphs.”
—Bookreporter
“This collection begs for a slow, serious reading.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“In so many ways, Gay’s Difficult Women feel simultaneously fictitious and like they could (and probably do) live right down the street. Perhaps they even live inside of our coworkers, our friends, our sisters and ourselves … Gay’s writing is unparalleled.”
—Forbes
“The titular subjects in the literary star’s short-story collection are strippers and engineers, participating in fight clubs and elite suburban dramas. Each one is compelling, thanks to Gay’s illuminating prose.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Intimate and powerful … an unforgettable story of modern American womanhood. A compelling collection that will stick with you long after you finish the last page.”
“Women’s lives have been Gay’s most consistent subject … In these stories, she writes fearlessly and with insight about love and power between men and women, about the horror of sexual violence and its inescapable aftershocks, about the fierce and flawed tenderness of mothers for their children.”
—Tampa Bay Times
“A powerful collection of short stories about difficult, troubled, headstrong, and unconventional women … challenging, quirky, and memorable.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Incredible … These stories are so lovely the book is best parceled out into multiple readings, so the reader doesn’t miss the nuance and the dark beauty of each tale.”
—Charleston Gazette-Mail
“Haunting and powerful stories which run the gamut between real and surreal … Rendered with great specificity and empathy, Gay’s characters are unforgettable—and certainly, in their own ways, are difficult women, but also real human beings in whom we may all find ourselves reflected.”
—Buzzfeed
“Difficult Women … deftly and terrifyingly underscores the absurdity of a society tacitly ordered by skin color and the privileges accrued by those who have ended up at the winning end, circled and watched by those who have not … Gay peels it all back, exposing the raw, the enraged and the perversely beautiful.”
—New Republic
“Astonishing, arresting, and staggering.”
—Book Riot
“The collection is often dark and disturbing, but also deeply empathetic … In her deliberate and often exquisite attention to detail, she crafts stories that will haunt the reader long after the book has been put away.”
—Washington Independent Review of Books
“Gay tells intimate, deep, wry tales … Be they writer, scientist, or stripper, Gay’s women suffer grave abuses, mourn unfathomable losses, love hard, and work harder.”
—Booklist
“Roxane Gay is a force … These are stories about women, in all of the difficult, glorious, inexplicable forms that we take.”
—Rumpus
“Gay’s writing encompasses so much—simultaneously direct, funny, whipsmart, sometimes painful, and always thought-provoking.”
—Chicago Review of Books
“Unified in theme—the struggles of women claiming independence for themselves—but wide-ranging in conception and form … Gay is an admirable risk-taker in her exploration of women’s lives and new ways to tell their stories.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Gay’s work is as varied as women’s experiences. Each story feels fresh and new, a blanket of snow you both want and don’t want to muddy with a footprint. Difficult Women … solidifies Gay’s place as one of the voices of our age.”
—National Post (Canada)
“Gay is a master of memoir, personal essay, creative nonfiction and lyrical prose, which gives her writing a smart, modern edge that’s hard to look away from.”
—FUSE
“When Roxane Gay picks up a label, she’ll play with it, rip it apart a little, break it down, and finally embrace it … [These] stories celebrate the condition of being difficult in the face of a world that is determined to hurt you.”
“[Gay’s] goodness cuts to the quick of human experience. Her work returns again and again to issues of power, the body, desire, trauma, survival, truth.”
—Brooklyn Magazine
“The stories in Difficult Women … are both edgy and bold. But they are also witty, nuanced and extraordinarily affecting … Gay is an experience, each of her tales eye-opening—and memorable.”
—Buffalo News
“Realistic storylines and hard themes like the effects of abuse, body insecurities, and trauma are present, but there’s also an element of playfulness steeped in fairytales and magical realism … Gay revels in stereotypes and … shatters and rebuilds these tropes into new and more interesting forms.”
—Miami Rail
“Gay’s characters seem extraordinarily real … Enthralling and extraordinarily well-written … Difficult Women … leaves readers hopeful.”
—Fairfield Mirror
“While we’ll admit that we would read anything that Roxane Gay writes, from her groundbreaking essay collection Bad Feminist to a scribbled grocery list, her latest release is especially intoxicating … Our rec? Just let this whole book wash over you.”
—Refinery 29
“With beauty and realism, Difficult Women is an incisive look at the many different experiences of womanhood and the haunting, healing moments that define relationships between women of all ages and backgrounds.”
—City Weekend (China)
“Difficult Women is full of stories that are all too familiar … Her stories are heartbreaking and touching, and draw you in.”
—Brock Press
