Eating Naked: Stories

by Stephen Dobyns

Book Overview

In his first collection of stories, Stephen Dobyns, one of our most accomplished writers, examines the lives of men and women challenged by their own uncontrollable, illogical natures: poets with free... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805060227
• ISBN13: 9780805060225
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Some of the best short fiction I've ever read

I'm not usually a fan of short stories, but if more writers took Dobyns's lead, short stories would be a lot more popular. Too often, short stories are a cheap way to skim on true character development, or w way to pull flashy tricks and twists, and collections are usually uneven, with only a few stand-outs among the filler. Dobyns has written a collection of stories that breaks the bar for short story collections. The challenge of reviewing this collection lies in summarizing his delightfully bizarre creations without cheapening them. Dobyns creates a small world with each tale and unravels the lives of his characters as they achieve a major turning point. Each story covers an entire person's life, their entire backstory, but the present action focuses on one turning point or strange occurrence. The collection opens with the tale of the unfortunate death of the poet Jason W. Plover, who was killed by a movie-star pig which fell out of the sky during a shoot and crushed Plover in Harvard Square. Unfortunately, the late Plover once composed a poem entitled "The Pig and I," and his bizarre death catapults him into frenzied superstardom, must to this discomfort of his widow Harriet. How can Dobyns follow this story? With the title story about two disaffected persons brought together by a roadkill deer for an unforgettable night, and with my personal favorite, the life of mobile home owner Lilly Hendricks and her uncomfortable reunion with the five children she had given up for adoption over her lifetime. Other stories focus on the strained marital relations of a Chaucer professor, or on the intense friendship between two construction workers (and the dollhouse one builds as a tribute to the other), or a man dating a married woman and becoming obsessed with meeting her cuckolded husband and exposing the wife's indiscretions. In the chilling story Dead Men Don't Need Safe Sex, an abandoned ex-husband maneuvers a way to interview his former wife about the reasons she left him. This is an unforgettable collection of well-crafted stories. Don't miss it!

Soul searching, mesmerizing, and never ceasing to surprise

Stephen Dobyns has a wonderful talent for making light-hearted, almost comic narratives work in conveying a deeper message to his readers. Eating Naked is a wonderful collection of short stories that will never stop amazing you with thier simply written, yet highly intriguing, not to mention- very original- plots. It is not simply a book of stories, but a book on some very interesting modern day/pop culture philosphies. You won't regret reading it, it can really inspire. And it's good reading material for those long but not too long bus rides.

What a wonderful book.

I'd never heard of Stephen Dobyns, but the opening lines of the first story, A Happy Vacancy, convinced me I'd struck gold: "There are perils in life so disturbing that we need to hold ourselves in a state of readiness, ever alert to exercise our outrage and disbelief ... Jason W. Plover, a poet with six books, was killed when a pig tumbled out of the sky and crushed him as he was crossing Massachusetts Avenue against the light at Harvard Square." This unusual opener is more than just a ploy to get our attention, it leads us to the real point of the story: "Jason Plover was someone always in a hurry. Had he been a tad less serious, a tad more casual, he might be with us still today." Hooray! It's a cautionary tale about not taking yourself too seriously.

Eating Naked, by Stephen Dobyns

This is the first Stephen Dobyns book I've read, but it won't be the last. These stories, about ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations, sing to me. They're funny, enlightening, well-written and accessible. His writing reminds me of that of Steven Millhauser, another little-known author who deserves a wider audience. Thank you Stephen Dobyns for such magic....

Masterful

Dobyns' dark genius spreads its wings through sixteen different airs of presumption and normality. You want to be as smart and funny as this guy, you really do