Pieces for the Left Hand: 100 Anecdotes by J. Robert Lennon

Pieces for the Left Hand: 100 Anecdotes Reviews

• 
  ann

  Very short stories that read somewhere between reportage and urban legend. They are delivered so simply, they would be boring if it were not for the strange holes they seem to poke into the fabric of the very day life. I haven't read any of his other books, but it seems Lennon gets criticize often for not sustaining the reader's interest in his novels.
  
  This is not the case with this these short stories.
  Part of the trouble I have with reading fiction, and especially short stories is that they ask so much empathy and input from the reader in exchange for such a short or undeveloped plot. There are authors who spend so much energy building a meaningful character and not as much time thinking about what the arc and chain of events of the story means; the characters come off as heavy, pasty, and made up and you feel tired by the end of the book from having to follow the author rather than read him.
  
  Lennon doesn't build characters, as much as elegant sketches of situations, events, recollections, and happenings that quietly speak volumes about the nature of modern domesticity, success, community, and hope. The form of his stories are short, but precise and well thought out, because they are written like a third-page newspaper article, an email, a telephone conversation, they have a lightness and unique unsuspecting beauty.
  
  I do hope he writes more short stories.
• 
  Ted

  The little stories are, overall, interesting — I’m glad to have read the book. I had hoped that, in the assortment of anecdotes, I would find an array of nuggets, moods, insights, grins, etc.; but, the more I read, the more I saw an uncomfortable pattern or theme.
  
  There are a few (a very few) that were worth a smile or an “aha” and many fell into a category of “unremarkable” (just everyday slices of life). However, the majority were permeated with malaise and melancholy. The stories are predominately tragedies filled with misunderstanding, misrepresentations, lost opportunities, lost loves, lost minds, lost lives. Perhaps this is a result of the life circumstances the author describes in the introduction.
  
  So, an interesting read, but be warned.
• 
  Michelle Only Wants to Read

  This collection of short-stories is mesmerizing. I had a hard time putting it down because I wanted to keep reading it. My favorite sections were Parents and Children, Lies and Blame, and Artists and Professors. Some of the stories I enjoyed the most were Leaves, Switch, and Directions.
  
  In the prologue, the author states how some stories may or may not be real (even when embellished), and some others are just the product of his imagination. As I turned the pages I kept wondering which ones were based on real events. Having heard my own share of bizarre weird-but-true stories, it was easy to believe they all could potentially be real.
  
  
• 
  Leanne

  This is a keeper. Quirky short short stories that are all over the place in every way but geographical. It can be hard to remember that the book is basically fiction (but you should, to be fair to the author- I am sure, or at least fervently hope, that some of the less...savory... stories are made up).
  
  As a bonus, there are flip book pictures of a man walking on the bottom right of the pages so you can entertain yourself with a little movie sometimes. (the author started telling himself these stories on long walks)
• 
  Dusty

  I talk about this book in the new episode of the
  LitWit podcast series, so I'll keep this written review short. I've known about this book since about 2006, when I ran across selections from it in one of the Best American Short Stories anthologies I was rolling through at the time. It is comprised of anecdotes--some real, some made up, but you'll have a hard time telling which is which--relating to the author's life in upstate New York. What impressed me about the selection I read several years ago is the author's ability to not only convey, but also wring poignant human truths from, simple everyday experiences. Maybe my problem with the book is that it is one hundred anecdotes instead of just five or ten. After a while, they start running together and feeling rather more measured than spontaneous--and spontaneity is part of what I think characterizes the anecdote. Technically, the book is well-written, and I would be interested to read one of Lennon's novels.
• 
  Chris Shaffer

  Combining the poetic deftness of Kawabata's Palm of the Hand stories and Paul Auster's bizarre and coincidental true stories from the Red Notebook, Lennon's flash fictions are overwhelmingly satisfying little gems. Each story ranges from half a page to a page and a half and, like a well told joke, they all contain an element of surprise. After reading each story I wanted to find the closest person and recount what I had read. They are that good. This would be the perfect book to keep next to your bed before you go to sleep, or to keep in the bathroom...
  
  I picked this up to get a taste of Lennon's writing style and now I want to read everything he's ever written. There's something in this book for everyone--just flip it open, read a story, and you'll see what I mean.
  
  
• 
  Lee Klein

  The ideal high-lit bathroom book! Flash-fictionistas better be aware of this one as a model of the form's strongest suit. Fabulist-realist tragihumor, semi-Kafka, semi-Auster, semi-Brothers Grimm? Almost every one of the 100 anecdotes (none longer than 3 pages) ends with a percussive laugh (despite never being "jokey") as pressure created through the first few paragraphs is released at the end. Absolutely clear prose, good-natured, steady, mature. Loved it -- essentially -- merits fifth star for uniqueness, plus the perception-enhancing sense that life's long and tremendous. Didn't know that Mr. Lennon was such a badass. Definitely will read more of his stuff.
• 
  Janelle

  Lennon writes with a psychological humour that will horrify you. His neutral prose is wickedly funny yet incisive, cutting to the heart of what makes us human with the ease of a modern day Steinbeck. His words scan our eyes, spitting out tickets that are a measure of our selves and slide them under our bedroom doors while we sleep. These anecdotes, dark or light, are savoury, peppered with shared experiences, of neighbours or fathers or friends, that straddle the border of urban-strange so comfortably, the reality of each anecdote is unquestioned. A real tasty read.
• 
  Robert Wechsler

  Very short stories that very logically deal with illogical circumstances. Sometimes the writing is very much like
  Jeffrey Shaffer's, sometimes more like Italo Calvino’s in
  Invisible Cities. The combination of one voice and a wide variety of content was wonderful to behold.
• 
  Jim Coughenour

  A book of almost pure delight. I read it straight through, being one of those obnoxious readers in the corner of a cafe giggling helplessly to himself. It would be hard to pick a favorite of Lennon’s anecdotes, but I’d pick “Lucid Dreaming.” That one is almost worthy of Saki’s “Laura.”
  
  Another reviewer pointed out the resemblance to Paul Auster’s
  The Red Notebook: True Stories. Auster’s small book of coincidences is more mysterious, and Auster is a marvelous writer. Lennon’s stories are closer to an adult version of the column “Life in these United States” that I used to read in my grandmother’s copies of Readers Digest. I mean that as high praise. These pieces are mordant merriment, perfect for that little shelf in the bathroom when you only have a few minutes to read. This is also high praise, but probably I should stop trying.
• 
  Frank

  What an incredible, unique story collection! I'd never heard of the author, but my short-story-writer son loaned this to me, thinking I'd enjoy it. I think I can actually say that I've never read a book quite like this before - the format and style is very different from other story collections. The author calls them "anecdotes," which is an apt phrase for the super-short pieces. I especially enjoyed the first few sections ("Town and Country" through "Work and Money") more than the latter ones, perhaps because as a reader, I became more accustomed to the style by the time I was halfway through, and not so amazed by its uniqueness. Also, I thought the first few sections had more dark humor, whereas the last few were largely just dark. But excellent tiny stories throughout, and the writing is imaginative and almost flawless. Many times I'd finish a piece and think "Holy crap! THAT IS CRAZY!" And a moment later, I'd realize, "Yep. That certainly could happen (and probably did)." The world truly is an odd and eerie place. Wow!
• 
  Neil Griffin

  This is a short, thoughtful, sometimes hilarious book that I definitely recommend. It reminds me of Charles Reznikoff's short prose poems in Testimony, where Reznikoff would repurpose ghastly articles in newspapers from early America into terse, bizarre, mostly violent narratives told over a page or so. These stories accumulate into something much bigger than the sum of their parts.
  
  For Lennon, his stories seem to emanate from his meandering imagination as he concocts tales while walking in upstate New York and are all focused around his small University town. Like Reznikoff, they are 1-2 pages, but where there is violence in Reznikoff there is alienation, humor, and nostalgia in Lennon's wonderful book.
  
  It's a pleasure to read on a sentence level and is a book I wish I had either read all in one sitting or had spread out over a few weeks with reading a few before going to bed. In any case, Reznikoff or no Reznikoff, this book slaps and you should probably read it right now.
• 
  Matt Sautman

  I picked up Pieces for the Left Hand throughout this past summer to satisfy my desire for quality Flash writing. Lennon' work is phenomenal. The pieces work both in isolation and in tandem to create a narrative comprised entirely out of anecdotes. While this quality alone makes the book charming, what I find most endearing is how each piece of Flash seems to reflect a poststructuralist view of the world. In this way, Pieces for the Left Hand is as philosophical as it is well-written. This is amongst my favorite books I have read this year.
• 
  Johan Kwok

  It's funny how the style is incredibly dry, so there are times where I really don't know if he's being ironic or not. The humor is definitely there, though.
  
  The theme of human hypocrisy or imperfection is strong, although some stories are not completely believable. Could people really act or react like that in real life? Also, makes me question if there have been instances where I acted similarly to the characters and didn't even notice, since he describes messed up shit like it's the most natural thing.
  
  The occasional non sequitur endings though.
• 
  Lunetune

  Very amusing and insightful, and not at all a bother to read. It only took me so long because I was distracted by other books, and because the stories were so bite-sized. My personal favorite was "Money Isn't Everything". I would highly recommend this book. I dare say that it's a new favorite of mine, at least in terms of anthologies. I thought about giving it four stars but decided that it was better than Courtney's War, to which I gave five stars. My rating (and review) should reflect that, no?
• 
  Sam

  Insgesamt zu unpersönlich und blutleer. J. Robert Lennon versteht sein Handwerk virtuos, es fehlt aber der letzte Schliff um die 100 Anekdoten für den Leser bedeutsam zu machen. Vielleicht liegt es auch einfach am Umfang, bissken Schwund is halt immer, ne. Bitte, (1) weniger, dafür längere Kurzgeschichten, mit (2) ausgereifteren namentlich bekannten Charakteren, dann würde ich dem Autor nochmal eine Chance geben.
• 
  Darryl Ponicsan

  Never a line of dialog, nor the name of anyone involved, consistently deadpan with an accumulative effect of wonder, insight, and even a twisted joy. The author teaches at Cornell, where I studied writing, and much of this is set around Ithaca, pleasantly familiar to me. Highly recommend. Unlike anything you've ever read.
• 
  "Greg Adkins"

  According to Goodreads, it took me five years to read this book. Even if I read the stories collected here at a rate of one a week, I still would have been done with it in two.
  
  The only explanation I can give is that while the stories themselves are extremely short, the space inbetween them somehow turned exceedingly long.
• 
  Allison

  One of the pull-quotes on the cover of this book calls its stories "literary canapes," which I think is apt. They are less stories, and more modern day parables. The ones I like most function as moral philosophy thought experiments.
• 
  Gurldoggie

  100 very short stories of life in a small American city. The pieces are koan-like, presenting mysteries of life, love, friendship and death in a few graceful paragraphs. A few of the stories lead nowhere, but overall these brief tales are beautifully written and surprisingly resonant.
• 
  Nancy

  Lots of lovely quiry tales of small town life, humourous and even astounding (students in water pipe).
• 
  Juliane

  I liked it, but that’s it. There were some good stories, a few boring stories, and maybe 1-2 great stories.
• 
  Madhusree

  Fascinating writing. Unusually short pieces like flash fiction (or maybe this is flash fiction) which still tell complete, memorable stories.