June 20, 2016
This debut short story collection reveals Core’s wisdom and deep understanding of the limits of human connection. The most intimate scenes of these short yet powerful stories, most of which take place in New York City, occur in the small, claustrophobic spaces of apartments and, most tellingly, bedrooms. In “Hog for Sorrow,” a budding friendship between two young prostitutes plays out movingly and convincingly as they struggle to find direction in early adulthood, a sharp and unspoken passion burning just below the surface. “Historic Tree Nurseries” follows a couple with a vast age difference on a road trip to adopt a puppy and reveals—in a moving final scene—the stakes involved in how we choose to see each other. Several stories hinge on the confusion produced in the aftermath of casual sex, such as “The Underside of Charm,” in which two women meet at an AA meeting and one misreads the passion of the other, and also in “Like Baby,” which begins as a story about being a woman spurned after a hookup but becomes, seamlessly, a story about a pair of twins reconciling their differences. Core’s dialogue is by turns searching and revelatory in this accomplished and singular new voice.
Starred review from June 1, 2016
New York-based author Core (Veronica Beach, 2015) has put together a striking debut collection of 19 short stories revolving around sexuality and city life.Core's book opens with "Hog for Sorrow," the tale of two women who moonlight as prostitutes for extra cash while systematically avoiding the feelings they have for each other. The characters are sassy, eccentric, and never afraid to speak their minds: "It was like he wanted me to be dead. Like I was interfering with my potential hotness by living....I hate this neighborhood....I hate every single person," one of them says. Scenarios like these set the tone for the rest of the collection, which includes--but is not limited to--a recovering alcoholic craving companionship, a married couple on the brink of collapse, two women navigating through their age gap, and George Harrison featured in the most unusual way. Core is a master raconteur and organizes all of her tales around objects and places (most take place in a bedroom or in transit); she captures a quintessential New York cynicism--one punctuated with hopeless romanticism, stress, and hyperstimulation. But the cynicism also produces pure moments of bliss: "This is what it means...to be the keepers of something beautiful....They thought about what they had been when they stood next to each other. Freaks, strutting their base interests. But now, next to the dog, they lost their queerness, if only for a moment." While the stories naturally give life to different characters, the text is successfully self-reflexive enough to harness a uniform voice that jumps from scene to scene, and the reader never lets go and never opts out of the ride. Entrancing, subtle, and tragically poetic, this collection is an important contribution to queer literature.
COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
June 1, 2016
These are unusual and powerful stories, sparely but elegantly written, some quite sexy and funny. They are all set in today's New York City, but, interestingly, a city presented here without any distinguishing physical characteristicsbuildings, landmarks, attractions, and so on, usually what New York is noted for. Yet Core, a Whiting Award winner who has spent her young life in the East Village, knows her people very well indeed. The lengthy opening story, A Hog for Sorrow, vividly and nonjudgmentally tells us about two sex workers; Smiling shows us two lovers in bed and is short, witty, and real; Orphans has a transgender character, integral to the story but treated as purely an individual, as are other characters who might be called out in other collections for being unusual. Core's preoccupation with suicide and other forms of death is disturbing but affecting. Comparisons to Burroughs and Jane Bowles, made by the publisher, are evocative, but, really, these stories are like no others.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)