The Dog of the Marriage: Stories by Amy Hempel

The Dog of the Marriage: Stories Reviews

• 
  Teresa

  I checked this out from the library because I was thinking of taking a master class with Hempel next month. Her focus will be on language and what she calls the "acoustics of a sentence," and I am very interested in that.
  
  As usual, I continue to struggle with and sometimes be frustrated by some aspects of spare short-short fiction, though there's been some I've absolutely loved, e.g.
  Black Tickets by
  Jayne Anne Phillips, the ones included in
  Where the Dog Star Never Glows by
  Tara L. Masih and just about everything by
  Grace Paley.
  
  I liked the longer of these short stories the most and while I could appreciate certain aspects of the other much shorter ones, many times I ended up feeling like the woman who asks "What Were the White Things?" in the story of the same name.
  
  And, yes, I am taking the master class. I signed up for it before I finished the book.
• 
  Lavinia

  (3.5*) I'm sure I'll go back to reading Hempel again, now that I have just discovered her, and I wonder why it took me so long to do so, seeing that she's probably the most acclaimed female short story writer in the US today.
  
  If it wasn't clear from the title (and many of the stories in the collection), wiki considers it very important to mention that Amy is a dog enthusiast. Advising all writers to mention their animal preferences in their bio!
• 
  Cynthia Paschen

  I guess if I had to use one word to describe Amy Hempel's stories, it would be spare. She does not over-describe emotions, setting, or characters. It is all laid out cleanly and precisely. She uses the bare minimum of words to get her story across; probably less.
  
  The story that spoke to me the most was "The Uninvited." A woman who volunteers at a rape-crisis hotline is attacked and worries that she might be pregnant. She is better at dealing with crisis in other victims than she is at dealing with her own headaches. Sounds familiar.
• 
  Marisol

  Se cierra este compilado de cuentos con El perro del matrimonio, en esta ocasión las historias son con el sentimiento a flor de piel, reflejan un profundo amor, e inclusive hay un cuento que tiene un toque sugerente y atrevido, otro aspecto destacado es el amor a los animales, en especial a los perros, como criaturas entrañables, a veces queridas y otras tantas maltratadas.
  
  Cierro este ciclo de lecturas de Amy Hempel con nostalgia pero con satisfacción por haber disfrutado la lectura y haber conocido a esta autora llena de formas de contar que importa tanto o más, que las cosas que cuenta.
• 
  Alan

  2006 notebook: really like the cryptic, short, packed stories. Sometimes I think they should be more cryptic, compact and less wiseguy-ey. But excellent, all, nonetheless. 'Beach Town', the opening story, about an eavesdropper, a woman viewing her licentious neighbour's behaviour, is very well put together.
• 
  Ed Scherrer

  Ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement), scrimshaw, watercolor painting, learning Swahili, taxidermy, learning to play the zither --- I'm suggesting hobbies for Amy Hempel's editor, given how much free time they clearly have.
  
  
  
• 
  wynter

  There's a lot that I could say about the stories in The Dog of the Marriage other than that I hated them. I could talk about deficiencies in plot that are not offset by gorgeousness of prose. I could speculate that the fact that every single story is written in the first person evidences laziness more than artistic decision-making. I could argue that Hempel's reputation was built by the prestige of her mentor rather than by the strength of her work. I could suggest that her reviewers are mistaking "haunting" for "confusing," "spare" for "boring," "minimalist" for "superficial." But everything I could say would just be different ways of saying the same thing: I hated these stories. 1 star
  
  Lines I liked
  It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it.
  
  "No one tells me better stories," he assured me. I was aware of the point at which a compliment becomes a trap, because you are expected to keep doing the thing you are praised for; resentment will follow when you stop.
• 
  Donna

  The Dog of the Marriage, Amy Hempel. New York: Scribner, 2005. Hardcover, $20.00 ISBN 0-7432-6451-7
  
  I finished Amy Hempel’s latest short story collection, “The Dog of the Marriage,” on a visit to the Georgia O’Keefe museum in Santa Fe. During this particular visit the museum hosted an exhibit, “Moments in Modernism: Georgia O’Keefe and Andy Warhol, Flowers of Distinction” and on the wall for this exhibit were quotes by both authors. One by O’Keefe made me think immediately of Hempel’s work and certainly of “The Dog of the Marriage.”
  
  “Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. It takes time—we haven’t time—and to see takes time, like having a friend takes time”.—O’Keefe
  
  Like O’Keefe, Hempel is a microscopic visionary highlighting what others don’t take the time to see. Not content to paint pretty reality to scale, they both expose the insides, everything that would remain hidden at first glance, pistil, stamen, fleshy petals, longing, instability, desperation, vulnerability, stasis, recovery.
  
  Hempel’s narrative voice in “The Dog of the Marriage” is at once detached and achingly intimate. In the title story, Hempel’s narrator experiences the loss of a relationship and marriage, and is caught in a moment of reflection.
  
  “Did I invite this? Is it like sitting in prayers at school when the headmistress says, “Who dropped the lunch bags on the hockey field?” and although you went home for lunch, you think, I did, I did.”
  
  Hempel turns her microscopic lens on humanity with stripped to the bone sentences that lend power to her work. In a story reminiscent of Virginia Woolf’s “Three Guineas,” Hempel’s “Reference # 388475848-5” is the narrator’s written response to a parking citation. The tale twists through a long explanation of the events leading to the ticket ending in a plea for justice.
  
  In her finally story, “Offertory,” a narrator is coaxed by her lover to divulge details of a past romantic encounter with a couple, the result is a sexual Scheherazade. In addition to the narrator’s storytelling, there are moments of delicate and telling reflection.
  
  “It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it.”
  
  Dogs that appear throughout the narrative are harbingers of what’s missing for the narrators: stability, loyalty and love. They are created as characters, not simply symbols of what’s missing. The narrators also experience what they lack in their human connections in their relationships to canine companions.
  
  Works by both Hempel and O’Keefe invite us to pause, take an extra beat, then two, then three as we witness the everyday, a flower or a failed marriage, from the inside out. We are to enjoy every subtle color change, each dip and fold, the way they look when they fade and fall.
  
  
• 
  Colin Miller

  Two stars. Barely:
  
  Collected Stories review:
  
  Amy Hempel’s Collected Stories starts with my favorite short story collection ever, Reasons to Live, and then proceeds to highlight the author’s decline to mediocrity.
  
  Don’t get me wrong; ask me who the best short story writer is and I’ll still say Amy Hempel, but sometimes you have to be honest, even about the people you admire most. Like many who got into Hempel prior to the rabid Chuck Palahniuk endorsement, I was hooked by the widely anthologized “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried,” and it’s still in my top-five short stories along with “The Man in Bogota.” Both are from Reasons to Live, and if giving a top-ten list, there’s a good chance that a couple more stories from that collection would crowd it out. It’s one of the rare books that I’ve given five stars to for a reason (pun unintended).
  
  At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom is still excellent. A four-star run. The fact that it’s out of print—and harder to find than Reasons to Live--is another checkmark to picking up the nicely priced and complete Collected Stories, but alas the decline continues: Tumble Home is uneven, but still clocks in at a recommendable three-star level. It’s The Dog of the Marriage that puts the final decline point on the chart, barely crossing the two-star mark. That’s where I was left missing the Amy Hempel who used to make me not what to think after reading her stories—letting the feeling of what she put into me stay for just a little longer—and I wonder if she might have put all that she could into the first collection around and was simply mimicking the success.
  
  I still recommend Collected Stories, but I never know where to tell people to pull the bookmark. There are other writers out there—writers who are going up, not coming down—but for a while there, Amy Hempel was all I needed. The desert island choice. I know these expectations aren’t fair, but the feeling is there regardless. Three stars, but reaching higher.
  
• 
  Jason

  When Hempel is good, she's really good. The sentences of her stories are laced with humor and meaning and pathos with the minimum of words. Her writing is spare in that way that will be labeled minimalism, but her ideas and situations explode from their bare framework. As with other great minimalists--Carver, Denis Johnson, etc.--what's left off the page is just as important and can be inferred from what is there. I liked this collection a lot. In fact, some of the most poignant stories are the shortest, particularly "The Afterlife," a story about a female protagonist's father's failed love exploits. I couldn't help but turn the pages of all these stories. The one story that didn't grab my attention as well as I had hoped was the title story. I imagine if I went back and read it--which I'm sure I will one day--I'd change my mind and decide that in fact this collection needs a shiny five stars. But for now, I'll leave my thoughts as such. I now plan to read all of her stuff.
• 
  Eugene

  eroticism as flower arranging ...said with great great respect to flower arranging. or, i guess, metaphorically: flower arrangement as eroticism. some confluence of care and courage and winging-it, bold lechery and a gourmet's rarefied lust. from it: "Renoir told Matisse he would pick flowers in the fields and arrange them in a vase, and then he would paint the side he had not arranged." an awesomely patient artist, waiting for the detail, sifting through life for the sentence. a convincing poet. and spectacularly gutsy. i liked it much more than i expected it too... funny and clever--though i kinda expected that; deep and beautiful--and i expected that less.
  
• 
  Jim

  Despite the high rating and laudatory blurbs, I really didn't like this collection that much. The writing was okay, but it was like looking at an abstract painting or listening to free verse, both of which I am not too keen on. Yes, occasionally you will get something beautiful anyway, and enjoy it, but overall I want my stories to be more story. I don't want to feel that the writer (or artist) was slumming, conning the readers that they had produced something great. I liked the title story and "The Afterlife." Some parts touched me and I thought, "Exactly." But overall, it really wasn't my bag.
• 
  Chris - Quarter Press Editor

  With the exception of Junot Diaz, there is no other author I hate as much as Amy Hempel. She is too good for the rest of us, and it makes it hard for any blossoming writer to think they will ever do half as good as her. Where many other authors take pages to evoke an emotional response, Hempel does so with mere words. She is an author to envy and to learn from. I can't sing my hate-praise loud enough for her.
• 
  Jyotirmoy Gupta

  There was too much happening in the stories, also I couldn't follow the abrupt scene changes. There was one short story which had one line; is this supposed to be some experimental literature, if it is I don't get it. It had some good stories, I liked the stories 'Jesus is waiting', 'Afterlife' and 'Offertory'.
• 
  Stacy

  Devastated, reborn, relit all over again, skimming back to the first page to read again and again. Every story, whether a sentence or 20 pages, is a whole realized world, every bit of it as concrete and elusive as our own. There is the time before you read Hempel and then everything else.
• 
  Jennifer

  Amy Hempel's stories are extraordinary for what they leave out. Her incredible economy makes me want to reread and reread.
• 
  Heather

  Referred as the best short story writer of all time, well, yes, in many regards, i would have to agree,,,,.
• 
  Ioanna

  I love Amy Hempel's prose. My favorite story from this book is Jesus is Waiting--there's a video of a reading of it by Julianna Margulies at
  http://www.flypmedia.com/content/spre...
  
  
• 
  Linda

  "Lesbian fights are the worst, Carolee said - nobody ever walks out and slams the door because they're both women and want to talk about their feelings."
• 
  Eggp

  Mostly annoying
  one whining voice, walking dogs
  I'd divorce them all.
• 
  Derek

  Very humorous. Very insightful with genius coursing through every line. A glorious work of fiction. Clever put-downs, thoughtful quips and heart, reading this collection is like mainlining the most truest truths within us. The narrators are oft neurotic, oddly witty and self-aware in such a way that's almost too good to be true. Amy is such a skilled writer. How she achieves what she achieves without the slightest hint of 'fat' on any of these (punch)lines, should be the envy of all stand-up comedians. A masterpiece.
  
  My favourite stories are OFFERTORY; THE AFTERLIFE; THE DOG OF THE MARRIAGE; THE UNINVITED; TUMBLE HOME; THE REST OF GOD; TOM-ROCK THROUGH THE EELS; UNDER NO MOON; AT THE GATES OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM; THE DAY I HAD EVERYTHING; MURDER; THE MOST GIRL PART OF YOU; THE HARVEST; THREE POPES WALK INTO A BAR; IN THE CEMETERY WHERE AL JOHNSON IS BURIED; NASHVILLE GONE TO ASHES; BEG, SL TOG, INC, CONT, REP; & TONIGHT IS A FAVOR TO HOLLY.
• 
  Margaret Galbraith

  With the majority of stars given below by others I feel I may have ‘missed’ something? I’m not a fan of short stories as they tend to just tickle the ivories and really not go anywhere. I was waiting for something to grasp me as according to the blurb “these are astonishing stories, hilarious and surprising and insightful” by The Guardian no doubt. Well I truly must have nodded off in sheer boredom or just did not get what the point was here. What a damn boring book for me. Sadly I could not wait to finish it but then thought why did I even bother. Her other ones might be better but I’m loathe to even try again.
• 
  Daniel

  I found this collection on Powell's
  2014 Short List. I enjoyed "Reference #388475848-5", "The Dog of the Marriage", "The Afterlife" and "The Uninvited." I found several of the remaining stories to be be flat and "Offertory" didn't appeal to me at all.
• 
  Sue

  My absolute favorite in this volume of short stories is “Memoir” but the others were just okay. That’s just my opinion and on another day and in the right mood, I can see why others like this group of stories.
• 
  Amy

  Slightly conflicted on this one - some beautiful writing and there are lots of folded over corners in my copy now... but all the same, didn’t feel hugely keen to read it every day and not a lot really happened in quite a few of the stories. 3.25?
• 
  David

  It's always a pleasure to get to read Hempel. I only wish there was more in the collection. Wonderfully chosen stories though, each so strong. Loved reading each.