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Verge
A fiercely empathetic group portrait of the marginalized and outcast in moments of crisis, from one of the most galvanizing voices in American fiction.
Lidia Yuknavitch's characters are scarred by the unchecked hungers of others and themselves, yet determined to find salvation within lives that can feel beyond their control. In novels such as The Small Backs of Children and The Book of Joan, she has captivated readers with stories of visceral power. Now, in Verge, she offers a shard-sharp mosaic portrait of human resilience on the margins.
Lidia Yuknavitch's characters are scarred by the unchecked hungers of others and themselves, yet determined to find salvation within lives that can feel beyond their control. In novels such as The Small Backs of Children and The Book of Joan, she has captivated readers with stories of visceral power. Now, in Verge, she offers a shard-sharp mosaic portrait of human resilience on the margins.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published February 4, 2020
About the author
Lidia Yuknavitch
41 books2,237 followersLidia Yuknavitch is the author of the National Bestselling novels The Book of Joan and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Award's Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the Reader's Choice Award, and the novel Dora: A Headcase, Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader's Choice. Her nonfiction book based on her TED Talk, The Misfit's Manifesto, is forthcoming from TED Books.
She founded the workshop series Corporeal Writing in Portland Oregon, where she teaches both in person and online. She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon. She lives in Oregon with her husband Andy Mingo and their renaissance man son, Miles. She is a very good swimmer.
She founded the workshop series Corporeal Writing in Portland Oregon, where she teaches both in person and online. She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon. She lives in Oregon with her husband Andy Mingo and their renaissance man son, Miles. She is a very good swimmer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 359 reviews
January 31, 2021
I took a long time to read this book, because I could tell after reading the first few pages that this was going to be an excellent book, so I really relished the reading of it, and by doing that, I read it slowly. I savored it. I can be kind of brutal as a reviewer if I don't like a book, but I can also be kind, I've written positive reviews on books that had merit but weren't that good, but I also GUSH if I LOVE a book, and this is one of those times.
I have to say I LOVED Lidia Yuknavitch's book of short stories, "Verge." It is just so... its hard to find the right words. She is such an excellent writer. We all want to think, if we are writers, that our latest book is our best writing, but I think this is yet another example of Yuknavitch's absolute best writing. Mind you I have not read all her books, but I will one day, particularly the rare early one's. Those are the one's I really want to collect, but I'm getting ahead of myself, so I'll back up.
I loved "Dora: A Headcase," and "The Misfits Manifesto," and of course, the wonderful memoir "The Chronology of Water," which troubled and challenged me (and made me cry on more than one occasion). But this book of short stories is fucking BRILLIANT. What I love is how unexpected the stories are, that surprise, that wonder at BEING surprised was incredible and so enjoyable for me, as a reader. And I am a dedicated reader who reads nearly ALL the time. I can't even say which story I loved the most, they are ALL so damn perfect, but I'll include some titles and a few passages.
Due to my own proclivities, I LOVED "Street Walker!" It was so right up my alley. The surprise of it. The surprise of what happens, the originality of the scenes, the dialogue, the images, the action. It was incredible because I felt a strong sense of identification with the characters, particularly the prostitute who slashes the word CUNT into the coffee table and is ungrateful and angry. I have known women like her. Sometimes pity can be something marginalized people absolutely detest in those others who seem to have no problems, in other words money, a house, a life. "Street Walker" is just a wonderful story.
Then there was "The Garden of Earthly Delights," which I loved for the simple ballsy-ness of the explicit sexual content. It was great, a lovely story about lust and desire and how people encounter one another. "They wrestle-fuck on the floor." I loved that simple sentence.
"Second Language" was horrible and wonderful and made me incredibly sad. As I believe it was intended to do, for most readers aware of how sexual abuse and human trafficking impacts women and girls. The language is also abstract, experimental and inventive, like poetry.
The story "Cusp" was incredibly unique, original and inventive. I have never read anything like it, as with all these stories, they are all so absolutely unique. Have I known girls like the girl in the story? Yes, I have. And that desire for love, for connection, for validation far outweighs the other side of girls or women, who understand how deceitful men can be, in how they use women for their own desires and then cast them aside. The brother tells his sister, lamenting her exploitation in the prison, and his possible risk: "You don't get it, do you? You want to know that they call you around here? Do you? They call you Hole. Just Hole." Very interesting and unique story. Heart wrenching too because you feel so badly for the girl, who is just starving for love and affection.
One of my favorite stories was "A Woman Refusing." In this story, Yuknavitch writes from the perspective of a man and a cop, at that. It is brilliant! Only someone who has been through some shit would be able to tap into that level of cynicism and do it so absolutely perfectly. It is a brilliant story! The nameless cop says: "You know, strangers are full to the brim with advise until an actual fuckin' crisis hits, and then they stand there with their goddamn mouths open like bloated fish." Fucking BRILLIANT. I can see any number of cops saying this and have to wonder if a cop really DID say it. Later, the character says: "So, I'm going to sit here and I'm going to drink this coffee, and when I'm done, I'm going to walk out of here, and I'm never going to see her again. I'm still a young man. I've got a life, pal. You wanna save her? Knock yourself out." Perfect, absolutely PERFECT!
The story "Shooting," about a relationship that is slowly dying and connected deeply with drug abuse is another moving story. Then there is the story "A Woman Apologizing" which is just too bizarre and wonderful to give away. I was troubled at the end, I wanted to know that happened but that is not given away. You don't learn what happens to her, as she lays there handcuffed to the bed.
But the story I was most moved by, was the story called "How to Lose an I." From the perspective of a gay man, who has lost his lover and an eye, as the result of a car crash, it has a reflective quality to it that is indicative of the grieving process. It is a moving and tender story, about a fragile and sad man trying to survive and come back from grief. And it has something of a positive light at the end, if you choose to see it that way. That story, I think was in some ways my most favorite, but I loved them all, too, so its really hard to choose which one...If I had to choose my favorite four, they would be, "Street Walker," "Cusp" "A Woman Refusing" and "How to Lose an I."
Then the last story, which is little more than 160 or so words, and called "Two Girls," actually reads like a poem. It is lovely...
This is a book that demonstrates a writer with incredible RANGE. And that is one of the most important parts of being a skilled and gifted writer. Do you have range as a writer? Well, this writer DOES. Lidia Yuknavitch is one hell of a writer, for so many reasons. No one can write stories the way she can.
I cannot recommend this book of short stories enough.
It is truly EXCELLENT.
I have to say I LOVED Lidia Yuknavitch's book of short stories, "Verge." It is just so... its hard to find the right words. She is such an excellent writer. We all want to think, if we are writers, that our latest book is our best writing, but I think this is yet another example of Yuknavitch's absolute best writing. Mind you I have not read all her books, but I will one day, particularly the rare early one's. Those are the one's I really want to collect, but I'm getting ahead of myself, so I'll back up.
I loved "Dora: A Headcase," and "The Misfits Manifesto," and of course, the wonderful memoir "The Chronology of Water," which troubled and challenged me (and made me cry on more than one occasion). But this book of short stories is fucking BRILLIANT. What I love is how unexpected the stories are, that surprise, that wonder at BEING surprised was incredible and so enjoyable for me, as a reader. And I am a dedicated reader who reads nearly ALL the time. I can't even say which story I loved the most, they are ALL so damn perfect, but I'll include some titles and a few passages.
Due to my own proclivities, I LOVED "Street Walker!" It was so right up my alley. The surprise of it. The surprise of what happens, the originality of the scenes, the dialogue, the images, the action. It was incredible because I felt a strong sense of identification with the characters, particularly the prostitute who slashes the word CUNT into the coffee table and is ungrateful and angry. I have known women like her. Sometimes pity can be something marginalized people absolutely detest in those others who seem to have no problems, in other words money, a house, a life. "Street Walker" is just a wonderful story.
Then there was "The Garden of Earthly Delights," which I loved for the simple ballsy-ness of the explicit sexual content. It was great, a lovely story about lust and desire and how people encounter one another. "They wrestle-fuck on the floor." I loved that simple sentence.
"Second Language" was horrible and wonderful and made me incredibly sad. As I believe it was intended to do, for most readers aware of how sexual abuse and human trafficking impacts women and girls. The language is also abstract, experimental and inventive, like poetry.
The story "Cusp" was incredibly unique, original and inventive. I have never read anything like it, as with all these stories, they are all so absolutely unique. Have I known girls like the girl in the story? Yes, I have. And that desire for love, for connection, for validation far outweighs the other side of girls or women, who understand how deceitful men can be, in how they use women for their own desires and then cast them aside. The brother tells his sister, lamenting her exploitation in the prison, and his possible risk: "You don't get it, do you? You want to know that they call you around here? Do you? They call you Hole. Just Hole." Very interesting and unique story. Heart wrenching too because you feel so badly for the girl, who is just starving for love and affection.
One of my favorite stories was "A Woman Refusing." In this story, Yuknavitch writes from the perspective of a man and a cop, at that. It is brilliant! Only someone who has been through some shit would be able to tap into that level of cynicism and do it so absolutely perfectly. It is a brilliant story! The nameless cop says: "You know, strangers are full to the brim with advise until an actual fuckin' crisis hits, and then they stand there with their goddamn mouths open like bloated fish." Fucking BRILLIANT. I can see any number of cops saying this and have to wonder if a cop really DID say it. Later, the character says: "So, I'm going to sit here and I'm going to drink this coffee, and when I'm done, I'm going to walk out of here, and I'm never going to see her again. I'm still a young man. I've got a life, pal. You wanna save her? Knock yourself out." Perfect, absolutely PERFECT!
The story "Shooting," about a relationship that is slowly dying and connected deeply with drug abuse is another moving story. Then there is the story "A Woman Apologizing" which is just too bizarre and wonderful to give away. I was troubled at the end, I wanted to know that happened but that is not given away. You don't learn what happens to her, as she lays there handcuffed to the bed.
But the story I was most moved by, was the story called "How to Lose an I." From the perspective of a gay man, who has lost his lover and an eye, as the result of a car crash, it has a reflective quality to it that is indicative of the grieving process. It is a moving and tender story, about a fragile and sad man trying to survive and come back from grief. And it has something of a positive light at the end, if you choose to see it that way. That story, I think was in some ways my most favorite, but I loved them all, too, so its really hard to choose which one...If I had to choose my favorite four, they would be, "Street Walker," "Cusp" "A Woman Refusing" and "How to Lose an I."
Then the last story, which is little more than 160 or so words, and called "Two Girls," actually reads like a poem. It is lovely...
This is a book that demonstrates a writer with incredible RANGE. And that is one of the most important parts of being a skilled and gifted writer. Do you have range as a writer? Well, this writer DOES. Lidia Yuknavitch is one hell of a writer, for so many reasons. No one can write stories the way she can.
I cannot recommend this book of short stories enough.
It is truly EXCELLENT.
February 28, 2020
Look friends, no hands!
Oh my. Oh my God! Oh my effing God!! Here I am, riding my pogo stick with no hands! These short stories are weird as hell, very dark, visceral, and off-the-charts imaginative. And the language, oh the language! It's pure jazz. I can barely sit still. Review to follow.
Oh my. Oh my God! Oh my effing God!! Here I am, riding my pogo stick with no hands! These short stories are weird as hell, very dark, visceral, and off-the-charts imaginative. And the language, oh the language! It's pure jazz. I can barely sit still. Review to follow.
Read
June 10, 2020I typically dig short stories, the more bizarre the better. For unknown reasons, I am not enjoying these at all. 92 pages into the book, I am returning it to the library for the next soul on the list. There is a brilliance that shines forth from the writing, but I cannot find my footing with it.
September 14, 2021
Eğer sert, sarsıcı öyküler seviyorsanız Lidia Yuknavitch mutlaka tanışmanız gereken bir yazar. Güncel ve çoğu insanın kıyısına yaklaşmaya korktuğu toplumsal sorunları edebiyat aracılığıyla dile getiriyor. Mülteci sorunları, organ kaçakçılığı, fuhuş, uyuşturucu ve şiddet konularına özellikle de kadınların bakış açısından, hiçbir şeyi yumuşatmadan, bir şeylerin arkasına saklamadan yazıyor. Tanıdık bir dünyada, gerçeküstü gibi görünen ama aslında bilinçaltımıza ittirdiğimiz dünya dertlerini olduğu gibi ortaya döken öyküler bunlar. Okurken hem devam etmekte zorlanıp bırakmak istiyorsunuz hem de büyüsünden çıkamıyorsunuz. Uçlarda gezinen -başka alan bırakılmamış- kadınları bu kadar gerçek karakterler olarak anlatmasından çok etkilendim, bu konunun bazı cevaplarının yazarın hayatında gizli olduğunu gördüm. Kendisine hayranlığım katlandı. Mutlaka okuyun diyemeyeceğim zira herkesin hoşlanacağı bir kitap olmadığını biliyorum. Ama dünyanın bazı çirkinlikleriyle sarsılmaya hazırsanız, bu kitap sizin için.
May 8, 2021
[3.75] Shock and awe is how these stories make me feel. They are brutal, everything is on the surface. I felt scared, or horrified or amused or moved. And sometimes I wondered what the f--- did I just read???! Yuknavitch is a strong, potent writer. Sometimes the effect is overwhelming.
June 27, 2020
Sadly disappointing. My expectations were mile-high: I love Yuknavitch's writing and had been anticipating her first short story collection in years (her earlier ones are our of print and I haven't manage to find a copy yet) but while her prose is sharp as ever, for some reasons many of these stories did not work for me. Part of that has to do with the inherent cynicism of her stories that was not tempered by the endless capacity for empathy that her other books of hers I read possessed. I left the collection feeling kind of sad.
June 4, 2020
**GoodReads Giveaway**
This is such a strong, tightly cohesive collection of stories. Yuknavitch uses such beautiful words. Her sentences are simple and poetic. Her metaphors cut through you without being florid.
Verge is a subversive text; each of its narrators are from a marginalized group. Recovered drug addicts. Sex workers. Victims of domestic abuse. Here they voice their anger, their rage, their regret.
Indeed, these are very dark stories about people living on the verge of chaos and despair. But you just can't take your eyes away and your heart will never be the same.
This is such a strong, tightly cohesive collection of stories. Yuknavitch uses such beautiful words. Her sentences are simple and poetic. Her metaphors cut through you without being florid.
Verge is a subversive text; each of its narrators are from a marginalized group. Recovered drug addicts. Sex workers. Victims of domestic abuse. Here they voice their anger, their rage, their regret.
Indeed, these are very dark stories about people living on the verge of chaos and despair. But you just can't take your eyes away and your heart will never be the same.
September 6, 2020
Reading this collection of short, savage stories is a lot like putting your hand into a dresser drawer and having a small fanged creature briefly latch on. Intense! Each some sharp edged moment in the life of a person at the margins of society arriving at a crossroads, they've hung onto my imagination long after I closed the book. The man making a city out of the detritus swept from the floor of an observatory's date-night lightshow. The feral woman dragged to her boyfriend's upscale art show. A sex trafficked girl from Eastern Europe telling stories to the other girls: "What else did she have? What currency but story? Like the continual expulsion of her insides to the outside, story came. And the popsicles would lean in, eyes wide, mouths and wrists open to the future, and listen."
July 15, 2022
Verge is a collection of short stories which build thematically and funnel into a singular search for that focused tensile point where reality cracks. It's a living autopsy of need, rage, and unquenchable drive.
Yuknavitch writes to the heart of what it feels like to live completely on the edge. Most of us are only marginally aware of what is going on around us, and, most especially, inside of us. We accept most sensory input without thinking much about it. But, Yuknavitch wants us to reel from the blood raging and bouncing off the cell walls of our veins, hear the massive roar of arterial blood flow, and barely hold back the rupture of the life force within.
Just as we, the over-domesticated tepid souls of privilege, ignore the fire within, we are equally immune to, and emotionally removed from, terror, war, and the horrors borne by most of earth's inhabitants. Oh how we love to discuss, to analyze, but those of us in our hermetically-sealed and sanitized bubbles never experience the jagged lives of others we see in bits and bytes on our TV screens.
Yuknavitch writes to the heart of what it feels like to live completely on the edge. Most of us are only marginally aware of what is going on around us, and, most especially, inside of us. We accept most sensory input without thinking much about it. But, Yuknavitch wants us to reel from the blood raging and bouncing off the cell walls of our veins, hear the massive roar of arterial blood flow, and barely hold back the rupture of the life force within.
Just as we, the over-domesticated tepid souls of privilege, ignore the fire within, we are equally immune to, and emotionally removed from, terror, war, and the horrors borne by most of earth's inhabitants. Oh how we love to discuss, to analyze, but those of us in our hermetically-sealed and sanitized bubbles never experience the jagged lives of others we see in bits and bytes on our TV screens.
February 28, 2020
2.5 rounded up
I adored The Chronology of Water so I'm upset I didn't enjoy this more. The writing was fantastic, but I found that the stories were thematically a bit too similar and loosely plotted for my personal taste.
I adored The Chronology of Water so I'm upset I didn't enjoy this more. The writing was fantastic, but I found that the stories were thematically a bit too similar and loosely plotted for my personal taste.
March 1, 2020
My biggest impression of these stories is how humane they are. Yuknavitch takes characters going through some real low points—either an insidious kind of marginalization, or else outright traumatizing and horrific circumstances—and gives them the time and space to exist as nuanced and complex people. And this is, I think, a real priority of this collection as a whole: it privileges those in the margins, those whose stories are overlooked or undermined or not recognized at all.
I loved all these stories, but the most standout ones to me were "Street Walker" and "The Garden of Earthly Delights."
I loved all these stories, but the most standout ones to me were "Street Walker" and "The Garden of Earthly Delights."
April 20, 2020
Thoughts soon.
September 12, 2019
2015, a bookstore, night shifts, everyone I work with is taking this book home. The Small Backs of Children, Lidia Yuknavitch. What’s the secret, what don’t I know? A bookstore, night shifts, it’s almost always Harry Potter or some other kid lit fantasy book making the rounds. I take a chance, because they’re all carrying it around like a goddamn trophy. It’s a revelation. I quickly inhale everything Yuknavitch has written.
2019 and I’ve just finished Verge, her upcoming 2020 collection of stories and it’s a gut punch of a book. Yuknavitch explores many familiar themes but breathes fresh life into them. Highlights are the stories The Organ Runner, Cusp, Two Girls, Beatings, and the perfect Second Language. Yuknavitch’s writing bristles with an anger and urgency. Second Language is a stunning example of her writing and Two Girls is an exquisite coda that made me want to scream with rage and joy and I love this book so much it hurts.
2019 and I’ve just finished Verge, her upcoming 2020 collection of stories and it’s a gut punch of a book. Yuknavitch explores many familiar themes but breathes fresh life into them. Highlights are the stories The Organ Runner, Cusp, Two Girls, Beatings, and the perfect Second Language. Yuknavitch’s writing bristles with an anger and urgency. Second Language is a stunning example of her writing and Two Girls is an exquisite coda that made me want to scream with rage and joy and I love this book so much it hurts.
February 9, 2024
“Books continued to house me in a way that the world did not...Every page of words was a chance for escape, a chance to suicide into a life where the brain was something more than a heavy bundle of gray worms, into a place where the body lost its origins and confines and mutated endlessly. Whole worlds cupped between my hands.”
🌈🩸🐺
Hypnotic and unflinching, Verge is a sharp mosaic of the disenfranchised and downtrodden during times of crises painted with intense empathy. In this collection of short stories, characters on the periphery of society struggle with intense desires, unfulfilled dreams, and an ever-hypocritical world that pushes them to the brink.
Yuknavitch uses elegant and poignant analogies in her writing, encapsulating human nature's visceral dualities: cruelty and kindness, chastity and eroticism, hope and despair, feminity, masculinity, self-destruction and recovery. Verge is bold, subversive, and profoundly grotesque. Yet, for all the cruelty and contradiction that exists in each tale, there lingers hope, redemption, and transformation. The cast is drawn in vivid detail– prostitutes and vagabonds, addicts and drug peddlers- all driven by insatiable cravings and needs fueled by passion, power, and rage. Their burdens are foreign yet familiar, and they all yearn to understand the alienation that isolates them from their families, society, and their own bodies.
Lamentations from women, queer people, the underprivileged, and the addicted remind us of the sorrows and beauties of our shared humanity. Yuknavitch's characters may live on the outskirts of society, yet they are perpetually on the verge of something entirely new, unexplored, and undefined.
🌈🩸🐺
Hypnotic and unflinching, Verge is a sharp mosaic of the disenfranchised and downtrodden during times of crises painted with intense empathy. In this collection of short stories, characters on the periphery of society struggle with intense desires, unfulfilled dreams, and an ever-hypocritical world that pushes them to the brink.
Yuknavitch uses elegant and poignant analogies in her writing, encapsulating human nature's visceral dualities: cruelty and kindness, chastity and eroticism, hope and despair, feminity, masculinity, self-destruction and recovery. Verge is bold, subversive, and profoundly grotesque. Yet, for all the cruelty and contradiction that exists in each tale, there lingers hope, redemption, and transformation. The cast is drawn in vivid detail– prostitutes and vagabonds, addicts and drug peddlers- all driven by insatiable cravings and needs fueled by passion, power, and rage. Their burdens are foreign yet familiar, and they all yearn to understand the alienation that isolates them from their families, society, and their own bodies.
Lamentations from women, queer people, the underprivileged, and the addicted remind us of the sorrows and beauties of our shared humanity. Yuknavitch's characters may live on the outskirts of society, yet they are perpetually on the verge of something entirely new, unexplored, and undefined.
April 18, 2020
Lidia Yuknavitch can put words together that absolutely blow my mind! This book of stories made me uncomfortable in their darkness, and yet I couldn’t turn away. Many of these stories I liked, but quite a few felt like she spit out the ugly truth, left the story, and left me with heavy baggage.
Her book The Chronology of Water Is one of my all time favorites, but this one fell short for me. I still give it four start, because, we’ll just because...holy shit she can write!
Her book The Chronology of Water Is one of my all time favorites, but this one fell short for me. I still give it four start, because, we’ll just because...holy shit she can write!
October 5, 2019
4⭐️REVIEW
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.
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Verge by Lidia Yuknavitch was a must have for me when I found out it was released February of 2020 and a huge thank you to @riverheadbooks for the galley! .
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This was a collection of short stories about outcast, the depraved, addicts, lost souls, lowly children, despicable adults, and it was written with aplomb unmoored. These characters and stories were as unique and vibrant as the very cover hiding them within its grasps, Yuknavitch created a world that reminded me much of Denis Johnson’s masterpiece Jesus’ Son, and I will stick by that comparison and defend it to the death. I’ve always been a fan of her work and this was no exception, I think she gets too much backlash for the risk she takes and the minimum reward for such diverse intangible characters, and her no apologies way of writing them.
Mark this one down for pre-order February 4th.
Trust me!
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Stand out stories were- The organ runner, the garden of earthly delights, the eleventh commandment, Shooting, and how to lose an I. 20 total stories over only 200 pages ranging from 2-18 pages in length.
.
.
.
.
.
Verge by Lidia Yuknavitch was a must have for me when I found out it was released February of 2020 and a huge thank you to @riverheadbooks for the galley! .
.
This was a collection of short stories about outcast, the depraved, addicts, lost souls, lowly children, despicable adults, and it was written with aplomb unmoored. These characters and stories were as unique and vibrant as the very cover hiding them within its grasps, Yuknavitch created a world that reminded me much of Denis Johnson’s masterpiece Jesus’ Son, and I will stick by that comparison and defend it to the death. I’ve always been a fan of her work and this was no exception, I think she gets too much backlash for the risk she takes and the minimum reward for such diverse intangible characters, and her no apologies way of writing them.
Mark this one down for pre-order February 4th.
Trust me!
.
Stand out stories were- The organ runner, the garden of earthly delights, the eleventh commandment, Shooting, and how to lose an I. 20 total stories over only 200 pages ranging from 2-18 pages in length.
.
.
February 2, 2020
I wanted to embrace and cry not only with but for each character in Lidia Yuknavitch's "Verge". The lives of those that live in the margins that suffer and undulate with the rise and fall of modernity's tides are so beautifully illustrated in each story that Yuknovitch has illuminated. View this book, read it, and understand it. It's brutal and real, and it moves one with its relativity to reality.
February 17, 2020
This short story collection is not for the faint of heart. It is raw, visceral, challenging. Although beautifully written, I was underwhelmed due to the lack variety within the storytelling. With the exception of the first (THE PULL) and last story (TWO GIRLS), most had a repetitive theme.
January 22, 2022
Lidia does not disappoint with words that float poetry within stories that dig lovely. this water based goddess
Shelved as 'dnf'
February 8, 2020I won this via goodreads giveaways in exchange for an honest review. All my opinions are my own.
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Not bad, just couldn't connect with the author's writing style unfortunately *shrugs*
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Not bad, just couldn't connect with the author's writing style unfortunately *shrugs*
February 13, 2020
I so wanted to like this collection of stories. Yuknavitch's prose is provocative and interesting, but most of the stories fell flat for me. While her use of sex and the gritty realism of the precariat can be haunting and dramatic as in "The Organ Runner" and "Second Language," her over-reliance on the same themes makes her writing feel gimmicky and forced. I wonder if part of the problem is how the collection is structured, whereas reading one or two stories individually would prevent that.
Another issue is that Yuknavitch also feels like an edgier Dave Eggers, someone who creates imaginary narratives to reveal the margins in often problematic ways for a privileged group of readers. "Street Walker" addresses this exact problem in its plot (a female professor buying a prostitute's time so that the other woman can "rest"), and yet, in many ways, the lack of interesting commentary about the entire discourse of women's labor, empathy, or class "slumming," represented exactly what these stories were doing. In fact, many of the stories left me feeling uncomfortable, not because of their edgy content, but because I felt as if Yuknavitch was problematically imagining the life of the marginalized through its pat narrative voice.
The last issue was the Yuknavitch tries to dabble in both realism and modernist narrative techniques, but embraces neither. Just to write about sex is no longer edgy or radical, and I was left wishing Yuknavitch had done something more - a new modernism or more realist details or more direct political commentary.
Another issue is that Yuknavitch also feels like an edgier Dave Eggers, someone who creates imaginary narratives to reveal the margins in often problematic ways for a privileged group of readers. "Street Walker" addresses this exact problem in its plot (a female professor buying a prostitute's time so that the other woman can "rest"), and yet, in many ways, the lack of interesting commentary about the entire discourse of women's labor, empathy, or class "slumming," represented exactly what these stories were doing. In fact, many of the stories left me feeling uncomfortable, not because of their edgy content, but because I felt as if Yuknavitch was problematically imagining the life of the marginalized through its pat narrative voice.
The last issue was the Yuknavitch tries to dabble in both realism and modernist narrative techniques, but embraces neither. Just to write about sex is no longer edgy or radical, and I was left wishing Yuknavitch had done something more - a new modernism or more realist details or more direct political commentary.
August 6, 2020
She had a vague understanding that her insides were visible on the outside—and how unfamiliar that appeared—but what were exposed capillaries and dangling entrails compared to the wallets of businessmen jutting from the asses of their fine suits, or the violently painted lips of women whose hairstyles and manicures rivaled their mortgage payments? (78, "Second Language")I chose this quote from a story about a woman whose body was inside out because it conveys the reality of all of these amazing stories of misfits and outsiders, and, from her TED Talk on that subject, Lidia Yuknavitch herself.
Some of these stories and sketches and prose poems made me gasp, "Oh my god" or "Woah!" Some didn't but they still crept inside me, just less explosively. The writing is wonderful. The editing, impeccable, as much as an editor (me) can detect such a thing. The design, with main titles veering off the edge of the page, is perfectly in sync with the material. This is a beautifully executed compendium of people on the edges of culture. In her acknowledgments, Yuknavitch dedicates the book "to everyone anywhere who lives in the in-between of things: I get it." So do I. So I appreciate this book.
February 1, 2020
These are stories about people on the edge of something: relapse, connection, breakdown, epiphany in environments created by inequity, exploitation, & discrimination. I love how Yuknavitch describes characters’ emotional experiences, always very evocative w/ clear and direct prose. Not all of the stories stayed with me. But many did and my top favorites I’ll be rereading to better understand the layers & themes at work. I’m very happy I picked up this ARC and look forward to it’s release next month.
May 18, 2020
You know those toy ripcord cars where you put the ratcheted ripcord in the back of the car and yank it out really hard and then the car wheels spin super fast and you put it on the ground and it tears across the floor and crashes through a stack of wood blocks? Remember how exciting that was as a kid? Well, this book is that car and Lidia is the ripcord and your body is that stack of wood blocks.
March 18, 2022
Excuse my language - a mindfuck in the best way possible.
Favorites: Cusp, How to lose an I, Shooting, The pull, Street walker.
Favorites: Cusp, How to lose an I, Shooting, The pull, Street walker.
June 4, 2021
Bardzo podobał mi się ten zbiór opowiadań Lidii Yuknavitch. Po pierwsze, dlatego że autorka bardzo pomysłowo zaprzęga literaturę do opowiadania o aktualnych problemach społecznych. Z tematów, które znamy z gazet, magazynów (migracje i uchodźcy, handel narządami i narkotykami, przemoc w związkach, prostytucja) Yuknavitch tworzy krótkie zaskakujące opowiadania osadzone w znajomym nam świecie, ale jakby wywróconym na lewą stronę, dziwnym, surrealnym. A może powinienem powiedzieć „niesamowitym”? To słowo wydaje mi się kluczem. Zaraz o nim.
Ale najpierw jeszcze o pomysłowości Yuknavitch, która kojarzy mi się z innym autorem i inną autorką książek znanych w Polsce. Najpierw – Keret. Nie raz czytając „Krawędź”, łapałem się na myśli, że czytam fabułę jak z opowiadań Etgara Kereta. Zaskakującą, podającą ograny już temat z oryginalnej perspektywy, wykorzystującą ironię, gorzki żart, ale przede wszystkim wprowadzającą do realistycznie zbudowanych światów wątki nierealne, jak ze snów, ale takich, jakie śni się w chorobie i wysokiej gorączce. Tylko że inaczej niż Keret Lidia Yuknavitch zdecydowanie większą uwagę poświęca językowi, jego udziałowi w budowaniu historii. I tu bliżej jej do polskiej autorki, Joanny Rudniańskiej, która w zbiorze „Ru Ru” trochę podobnie do Yuknavitch bierze na warsztat temat „gazetowy” i przeciąga go przez swój literacki filtr, tworząc w opowiadaniach uniwersalne metafory, a do ich budowania wykorzystując pracę w języku – taką, jaką przy pisaniu wierszy podejmują poeci. Niektórym tekstom Yuknavitch blisko jest do poezji. Niektóre rozdziały to właściwie proza poetycka, np. „Kobieta, która wychodzi”.
Najciekawsze jest jednak to, jak autorka tego zbioru opowiadań patrzy na temat i swoje bohaterki (bo krawędź to przede wszystkim opowieść o kobietach) oraz co z podejmowanych tematów wydobywa. Jak już napisałem, Yuknavitch zagląda na lewą stronę świata, patrzy na jego zmechaconą podszewkę. Interesuje ją to, co „niesamowite”. Ale nie po to, żeby się temu dziwić, ale żeby zbliżyć się do „niesamowitego” i spróbować bliżej poznać. Tę myśl autorka wyraża w opowiadaniu ”Jedenaste przykazanie” i wydaje mi się, że jest ona kluczowa dla całego zbioru opowiadań. Yuknavitch szuka niesamowitego na marginesach (społeczeństwa), przy granicach (prawa, norm społecznych), w pobliżu krawędzi (żyć swoich bohaterów). Pokazuje nam nas samych, nasze zepchnięte w podświadomość lęki i pragnienia, nie raz próbuje przybliżyć tych, których odepchnęliśmy od siebie i wyparliśmy ze świadomości. Prowokuje nas, tropi paradoksy naszych żyć. Przeciekawa to wyprawa, bo i pociągająca, i odpychająca.
Ale najpierw jeszcze o pomysłowości Yuknavitch, która kojarzy mi się z innym autorem i inną autorką książek znanych w Polsce. Najpierw – Keret. Nie raz czytając „Krawędź”, łapałem się na myśli, że czytam fabułę jak z opowiadań Etgara Kereta. Zaskakującą, podającą ograny już temat z oryginalnej perspektywy, wykorzystującą ironię, gorzki żart, ale przede wszystkim wprowadzającą do realistycznie zbudowanych światów wątki nierealne, jak ze snów, ale takich, jakie śni się w chorobie i wysokiej gorączce. Tylko że inaczej niż Keret Lidia Yuknavitch zdecydowanie większą uwagę poświęca językowi, jego udziałowi w budowaniu historii. I tu bliżej jej do polskiej autorki, Joanny Rudniańskiej, która w zbiorze „Ru Ru” trochę podobnie do Yuknavitch bierze na warsztat temat „gazetowy” i przeciąga go przez swój literacki filtr, tworząc w opowiadaniach uniwersalne metafory, a do ich budowania wykorzystując pracę w języku – taką, jaką przy pisaniu wierszy podejmują poeci. Niektórym tekstom Yuknavitch blisko jest do poezji. Niektóre rozdziały to właściwie proza poetycka, np. „Kobieta, która wychodzi”.
Najciekawsze jest jednak to, jak autorka tego zbioru opowiadań patrzy na temat i swoje bohaterki (bo krawędź to przede wszystkim opowieść o kobietach) oraz co z podejmowanych tematów wydobywa. Jak już napisałem, Yuknavitch zagląda na lewą stronę świata, patrzy na jego zmechaconą podszewkę. Interesuje ją to, co „niesamowite”. Ale nie po to, żeby się temu dziwić, ale żeby zbliżyć się do „niesamowitego” i spróbować bliżej poznać. Tę myśl autorka wyraża w opowiadaniu ”Jedenaste przykazanie” i wydaje mi się, że jest ona kluczowa dla całego zbioru opowiadań. Yuknavitch szuka niesamowitego na marginesach (społeczeństwa), przy granicach (prawa, norm społecznych), w pobliżu krawędzi (żyć swoich bohaterów). Pokazuje nam nas samych, nasze zepchnięte w podświadomość lęki i pragnienia, nie raz próbuje przybliżyć tych, których odepchnęliśmy od siebie i wyparliśmy ze świadomości. Prowokuje nas, tropi paradoksy naszych żyć. Przeciekawa to wyprawa, bo i pociągająca, i odpychająca.
January 12, 2020
Lidia’s collection of stories illuminates the fullness of human mammal behavior from the edges we all know and those we need to learn. Her ability to live in the bodies of almost anyone (absolutely everyone?) allows her to reveal some shocking and painful truths and to stun us with beautiful wonder and generous heart.
I read the book with slowness and care and will return to quickly reread it again in a few months. I’ve learned Lidia’s stories circulate in my subconscious and make everyday familiar things seem new and different and full of potential for change. Everything mattered in this book and for me in this first reading The Pull, Beatings, Street Walker, 11th Commandment, Organ Runner, and Second Language mattered the most.
What a great feeling to finish a book and to anticipate returning to it again.
I read the book with slowness and care and will return to quickly reread it again in a few months. I’ve learned Lidia’s stories circulate in my subconscious and make everyday familiar things seem new and different and full of potential for change. Everything mattered in this book and for me in this first reading The Pull, Beatings, Street Walker, 11th Commandment, Organ Runner, and Second Language mattered the most.
What a great feeling to finish a book and to anticipate returning to it again.
May 25, 2020
40% — Enough. This is disgusting and depressing. No. I don’t need this.
May 18, 2021
"Krawędź" to opowieści o ludziach naznaczonych przez życie, balansujących na różnych metaforycznych krawędziach, o jednostkach marginalizowanych, reprezentantach mniejszości, ludziach, którzy w życiu się gubią, których krawędzie się rozmywają, którzy są blisko krawędzi swojego życia, a nawet - bardziej dosłownie - stają na krawędzi dachu budynku.
Yuknavitch oddaje im głos w dwudziestu opowiadaniach, ale robi to po omacku, bazując na stereotypach, kliszowych obrazach, własnych interpretacjach. Chce opowiedzieć o każdym po trochu, dotknąć traum, pożądania, cielesności, mroków przeszłości, niepokojów targających ludzką psychiką, uzależnień, wykluczeń. Niestety, nie do końca jej się to udaje. Wyczuwa się polot, wybijającą się koncepcję, chwytliwość pewnych motywów i tematów. Przez ten prosty ton narracyjny i powtarzalność schematów opowiadania gubią przekaz, intensywność. Stają się wymuszone, a mała przestrzeń, jaką zajmują, obnaża brak autentyczności i niewyszukany, czasem pretensjonalny język ("(...) poczuła, jak brak seksu odkłada się na jej ciele niczym stosy biszkoptów."). Umówmy się - pisanie o seksie i pożądaniu nie jest obecnie już tematem wielkim, odkrywczym i prowokacyjnym. Erotyka, niepokój, niezręczność - te emocje towarzyszące lekturze nie bronią w mojej ocenie tych krótkich opowieści, z których większość ulatuje nieprawdopodobnie szybko z pamięci czytelniczki i czytelnika.
Być może w izolacji te opowiadania robią większe wrażenie. Może ich prowokacyjny i depresyjny charakter silniej oddziałuje na odbiorcę, gdy podany zostaje w mniejszej dawce. Życzyłabym sobie natrafić na jedno z nich w jakimś magazynie, ale w formie zbiorczej - mnie osobiście bardzo rozczarowały.
Yuknavitch oddaje im głos w dwudziestu opowiadaniach, ale robi to po omacku, bazując na stereotypach, kliszowych obrazach, własnych interpretacjach. Chce opowiedzieć o każdym po trochu, dotknąć traum, pożądania, cielesności, mroków przeszłości, niepokojów targających ludzką psychiką, uzależnień, wykluczeń. Niestety, nie do końca jej się to udaje. Wyczuwa się polot, wybijającą się koncepcję, chwytliwość pewnych motywów i tematów. Przez ten prosty ton narracyjny i powtarzalność schematów opowiadania gubią przekaz, intensywność. Stają się wymuszone, a mała przestrzeń, jaką zajmują, obnaża brak autentyczności i niewyszukany, czasem pretensjonalny język ("(...) poczuła, jak brak seksu odkłada się na jej ciele niczym stosy biszkoptów."). Umówmy się - pisanie o seksie i pożądaniu nie jest obecnie już tematem wielkim, odkrywczym i prowokacyjnym. Erotyka, niepokój, niezręczność - te emocje towarzyszące lekturze nie bronią w mojej ocenie tych krótkich opowieści, z których większość ulatuje nieprawdopodobnie szybko z pamięci czytelniczki i czytelnika.
Być może w izolacji te opowiadania robią większe wrażenie. Może ich prowokacyjny i depresyjny charakter silniej oddziałuje na odbiorcę, gdy podany zostaje w mniejszej dawce. Życzyłabym sobie natrafić na jedno z nich w jakimś magazynie, ale w formie zbiorczej - mnie osobiście bardzo rozczarowały.
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