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thebookclectic's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.0
sheldonleecompton's review
5.0
Not since reading Scott McClanahan’s Collected Stories have I enjoyed and felt more connected to a set of stories than while reading Troy James Weaver’s fantastic collection Witchita Stories.
Weaver combines a seemingly simple (though we should know it’s never never simple) style with candor and a huge amount of heart. Not to mention the fact that each one is flat out wildly entertaining.
Too often whether something is entertaining or not is overlooked when taking a work of literature into full account. I’m not among those who take this approach. My measuring stick, the measuring stick so exceeded while reading Weaver’s collection, is only this: Am I eager to get back to reading when made to step away from the book? In every instance the answer to this was a resounding yes.
I thought about the stories while driving, cooking dinner, working, watching television, even while reading other books. I wondered what shape the next story would take, how it would be told, what turn Weaver would make and at what wonderful speed. In this respect alone, Witchita Stories was more than a stellar example of fiction, it was a signpost moment, calling up only a handful of other books that had had this effect on me as a reader.
Throughout this collection, available now from Future Tense Books, even the several pieces included that are short, one-page lists, Weaver fixed my attention and held it with the grasp of a master storyteller. And even the lists, which were decidely weaker than the actual stories, more like an afterthought, the steady feeling was still present. That nostalgic, reflective mood available across the board for all of the collection.
In stories like “Clothing” Weaver shows us he knows the importance of a first sentence, sharing with us right at the beginning, “It’s hard to say exactly when my brother started wearing my sister’s clothes.” Or in the story “A Cat Dies” how crucial it can be to get an ending just right.
In the story the narrator explains how his brother once put a cat in the freezer because it irritated him. More flash fiction than anything else, Weaver knows exactly how to bring it to a close.
“No one really knows how long she was in there. Long enough to shit everywhere and freeze solid. Long enough for her soul to get out into the air, enter my father’s scrotum and mix with his seed. I was born a year later. Every time I think of my brother I find it difficult to breathe.”
As with those handful of writers I mentioned earlier, I’ll read whatever else Weaver writes, with little worry that I’ll be anything other than completely satisfied. I can’t recommend this particular collection highly enough. Witchia Stories are not only stories about lives in Witchita, they are accessible and deeply diving stories about all of us.
Weaver combines a seemingly simple (though we should know it’s never never simple) style with candor and a huge amount of heart. Not to mention the fact that each one is flat out wildly entertaining.
Too often whether something is entertaining or not is overlooked when taking a work of literature into full account. I’m not among those who take this approach. My measuring stick, the measuring stick so exceeded while reading Weaver’s collection, is only this: Am I eager to get back to reading when made to step away from the book? In every instance the answer to this was a resounding yes.
I thought about the stories while driving, cooking dinner, working, watching television, even while reading other books. I wondered what shape the next story would take, how it would be told, what turn Weaver would make and at what wonderful speed. In this respect alone, Witchita Stories was more than a stellar example of fiction, it was a signpost moment, calling up only a handful of other books that had had this effect on me as a reader.
Throughout this collection, available now from Future Tense Books, even the several pieces included that are short, one-page lists, Weaver fixed my attention and held it with the grasp of a master storyteller. And even the lists, which were decidely weaker than the actual stories, more like an afterthought, the steady feeling was still present. That nostalgic, reflective mood available across the board for all of the collection.
In stories like “Clothing” Weaver shows us he knows the importance of a first sentence, sharing with us right at the beginning, “It’s hard to say exactly when my brother started wearing my sister’s clothes.” Or in the story “A Cat Dies” how crucial it can be to get an ending just right.
In the story the narrator explains how his brother once put a cat in the freezer because it irritated him. More flash fiction than anything else, Weaver knows exactly how to bring it to a close.
“No one really knows how long she was in there. Long enough to shit everywhere and freeze solid. Long enough for her soul to get out into the air, enter my father’s scrotum and mix with his seed. I was born a year later. Every time I think of my brother I find it difficult to breathe.”
As with those handful of writers I mentioned earlier, I’ll read whatever else Weaver writes, with little worry that I’ll be anything other than completely satisfied. I can’t recommend this particular collection highly enough. Witchia Stories are not only stories about lives in Witchita, they are accessible and deeply diving stories about all of us.
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