The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel

Hempel's elliptical, pared-down sentences read to some as cold distance rather than intimacy: one reader flatly says “there's a chill in her writing,” and another reports “simply could not connect with her characters.” The fragmented, aphoristic pieces strike a cluster of low-star readers as unfinished workshop exercises missing plot and connective tissue, and more than one admits to feeling shut out, saying “I feel pretty dumb for not getting 'it'.” Underdeveloped characters draw specific complaint, description without weight behind it, and the longer piece Tumble Home gets flagged as her weakest extended work even by readers who love her short pieces. One reviewer who tried and failed to warm to the book says simply, “I tried to like her stories.”