You Are Not a Stranger Here : Stories

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Summary: No stranger to strange fiction
Review: Adam Haslett's "You Are Not A Stranger Here" is the best collection of short stories I have read in a very long time. These are wonderfully engaging stories, rich with a menagerie of misfit and off-beat (but next-door-neighbour type) characters, each moving through depressive and manic events and circumstances, narrated by an exquisitely-familiar voice. Most of the mini-masterpieces deal with suppressed homosexuality, mental illness taking various shapes and forms, love unrequited, and the curses of extra-sensory perceptions. If only this brilliant wordsmith Haslett had more than one book.

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Summary: Wonderful! Highly recommended!
Review: Adam Haslett's collection of short stories held my attention from the first word until the end; when is his next book coming out? I was well into the book before it dawned on me that each story contains a character with different forms of mental illness. Mr. Haslett really seems to understand different forms of these illnesses. Several stories are told from the point of view of the mentally ill person, and this reader found them likeable, in their own way.At the same time, he also conveys the (sometime) frustration of family and friends who do their best to coexist with them. I finished reading this book with greater appreciation and understanding of humanity in all it's "capacities". (Who doesn't have a few crazies in their family?) One might expect a book of short stories of "eccentrics" to be a bit depressing, but that is not the case. Adam Haslett writes with clarity, humor, sadness, and love. Best wishes to his writing career!

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing and Beautiful
Review: Adam Haslett's short story collection represents all that is complicated, sad, and beautiful in this complex world of ours. Topics ranging from AIDS to depression to coming of age, one would be hard pressed not to be moved, if not changed, by reading Haslett's prose. Those looking for a light read need not apply. Mental illness and suicide are themes that ooze through the stories like a morning fog; however, if this keeps you from reading You Are Not a Stranger Here, you will miss out on some of the most original and thought-provoking short fiction that has been published in recent years.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing and Beautiful
Review: Adam Haslett's short story collection represents all that is complicated, sad, and beautiful in this complex world of ours. Topics ranging from AIDS to depression to coming of age, one would be hard pressed not to be moved, if not changed, by reading Haslett's prose. Those looking for a light read need not apply. Mental illness and suicide are themes that ooze through the stories like a morning fog; however, if this keeps you from reading You Are Not a Stranger Here, you will miss out on some of the most original and thought-provoking short fiction that has been published in recent years.

Rating:
Summary: Read it.
Review: Beautiful prose...stories overflowing with empathetic imagination (but, thank god, devoid of trite sentimentality)...an altogether stunning collection. I couldn't put it down. Some may say that his stories are "underdeveloped"-and I've heard that-but I wholeheartedly disagree. He does not fully flesh out his characters, but gives you enough information so that you can flesh them out yourselves at the end of the story, when you are left (as you inevitably will be) thinking about the story. It's so rare to find an author who is able to craft prose poetically while at the same time displaying a knack for storytelling. READ IT. You won't regret it...

Rating:
Summary: You Are Not a Stranger Here
Review: Excellent! Couldn't put the book down. Each story left you wanting to read the next.

Rating:
Summary: interesting, but...
Review: I don't understand the rave reviews for this book. "The herald of a phenomenal career"? Some of the stories were moving and worked well, but I don't think he's god. And often they read like short fiction versions of Diane Arbus photos -- if you simply take a picture of something that is guaranteed to move your audience on its own, it might be worth viewing, but is it talent? I just felt like the stories relied too much on easy visceral reactions (skin diseases, fingers chopped off, manic behavior) for their impact. Often there's little else there to flesh out a story -- interesting but undeveloped concepts, though once or twice he makes a solid hit. Read the first few; pass on the rest.

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Summary: glossy and empty. fashionable, though.
Review: I once read a review that used the description "beige-colored realism." That term came to mind immediately after I finished this collection. Haslett's prose is lifeless and flat, his characters self-absorbed and trite. You Are Not a Stranger Here is a perfect example of overly slick hyper-reality. All too often I finished a story and wondered what the point was. Certainly, the language is clean and technically sound, but conveyed no greater substance. Similarly, I consistantly found myself irritated by brick-like moments of artificial poignancy and banal epiphanies ("At last, she feels the warmth of her son's tears in the palms of her hands" and "For a moment, here, in the calm he knows is only the eye of the storm, in the center of a turbulance that, despite everything anyone has ever written or said, might not mean a thing, he can only stare into his friend's gentle face, and listen, with gratitude, to the sounds of the world around him."). Haslett's work exhibits the studied attention to style of a classic creative writing workshop student, but forgets somewhere along the way that the themes of grief and despair are broad and old, and must be handled with care (i.e. freshness and depth), and not treated like dead horses.

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Summary: .
Review: i was attracted to this book at first by it's title. so i bought it on a whim and read it the same day. this book is very good. it is very real and at times disturbing. but it is a great book.

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Summary: Haslett is no stranger in revealing hope and despair
Review: In these set of brilliant debut stories, Adam Haslett intimately brings his characters in the glow of love, hope, hate and despair. They are alive with their idiosyncracies, creative passion and animals urge to survive in the city light of Santa Monica Boulevard or in the prairies of Arizona. On the backdrop of story telling, low fire of sadness burns the twine of fragile human relationship. But they never miss their focus of love and hope. Bravo! I will remember the determination of a Mother in Mrs. buckholdt for a very long time when the current of our crazy time is trying to take our dear ones away.