Shit Cassandra Saw
Stories
(Sprache: Englisch)
Margaret Atwood meets Buffy in these funny, warm, and furious stories of women at their breaking points, from Hellenic times to today.
Cassandra may have seen the future, but it doesn't mean she's resigned to telling the Trojans everything she knows. In...
Cassandra may have seen the future, but it doesn't mean she's resigned to telling the Trojans everything she knows. In...
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Margaret Atwood meets Buffy in these funny, warm, and furious stories of women at their breaking points, from Hellenic times to today.Cassandra may have seen the future, but it doesn't mean she's resigned to telling the Trojans everything she knows. In this ebullient collection, virgins escape from being sacrificed, witches refuse to be burned, whores aren't ashamed, and every woman gets a chance to be a radioactive cockroach warrior who snaps back at catcallers. Gwen E. Kirby experiments with found structures-a Yelp review, a WikiHow article-which her fierce, irreverent narrators push against, showing how creativity within an enclosed space undermines and deconstructs the constraints themselves. When these women tell the stories of their triumphs as well as their pain, they emerge as funny, angry, loud, horny, lonely, strong protagonists who refuse be secondary characters a moment longer. From "The Best and Only Whore of Cym Hyfryd, 1886" to the "Midwestern Girl [who] is Tired of Appearing in Your Short Stories," Kirby is playing and laughing with the women who have come before her and they are telling her, we have always been this way. You just had to know where to look.we have always been this way. You just had toknow where to look.
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Shit Cassandra SawThat She Didn't Tell the Trojans Because at that Point Fuck Them Anyway
Lightbulbs.
Penguins.
Bud Light.
Velcro.
Claymation. The moon made out of cheese.
Tap dancing.
Yoga.
Twizzlers. Mountain Dew. Jell-O Colors she can eat with her eyes.
Methamphetamine.
T-shirts. Thin and soft, they pass from person to person, men to women, each owner slipping into different teams-Yankees, Warriors-and out again with no bloodshed, no thought to allegiance or tribe. And the words! Profusions of nonsense. The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Fine. Chemists Do It on the Table Periodically. Cut Class Not Frogs. Words everywhere and for everyone, for nothing but a joke, for the pleasure of them, a world so careless with its words. And not just on T-shirts. Posters. Water bottles. Newspapers. Junk mail. Bumper stickers. Lists. Top ten Halloween costumes for your dog as modeled by this corgi. Top ten times a monkey's facial expression perfectly summed up your thoughts on NAFTA. Top ten things your boyfriend wishes you would do in bed but is too afraid to say. Cassandra has not noticed a lack of men telling women what to do. Perhaps this will be a pleasure of the future, a male desire that goes unspoken. A desire that is only a desire, and not a command.
Then there are the small words, the private words, hidden within romance novels, mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy. Heaving bosoms, astronauts, and ape men. Pulp paperbacks that live brief but fiery lives, the next torrent of words so swift behind they must sell or be destroyed, only enough space on the shelf for the new.
And lives, of course. Cassandra would rather see only the fictions, the objects, the colored plastic oddities of the future, but she must see lives as well. Here are two little girls. They sit in the dirt and dig at a boulder. When it is finally unearthed, the possibilities! A
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passage to the underworld, a buried treasure, a colony of fairies-anything but dirt. It is essential that they will never succeed, never dig up the boulder, and of course they don't. Their plastic shovels move the dirt aside; new dirt, dusty and thin, blows across their eyes. One of the girls becomes an engineer. One is raped by her college boyfriend. This second girl will run a bakery on an island where she loves to hike. She will have three children, all boys, and she will die when she is quite old and quite unwilling to go. Her boys will have lives too. Everyone does. Lives on fast forward, on silent, even the best life, even her own, swiftly boring.
Cassandra is tired of running at wooden horses with nothing but the flame of the smallest match.
She is tired of speaking to listening ears. The listening ears of the men who think her mad drive her to madness. She wishes she could move far away to an island and own a bird. She will never do this because she knows she never does. It is said that Apollo gave Cassandra the gift of prophecy-this is true. It is said that, when she refused his advances, he spit in her mouth so that she would never again be believed. A virgin the same as a seduced woman the same as a violated woman the same as a willing woman, all women opening their mouths to watch snakes slither out and away.
Cassandra is done, full the fuck up, soul weary.
Still, as Troy is sacked, as she clings to the cold marble legs of the statue of Athena in the sacred temple, she cannot accept what she knows to be true. That soon, Ajax will arrive and rape her. He will smash the statue of the goddess she worships and curse his own life; and worse, her goddess will not help her, will turn her shattered face away. Cassandra will be carried across the sea, made another man's concubine, bear twin boys, and be killed by Clytemnestra. But before this comes to pass, there are visions Cassandra burns to share with the women of Troy.
The women of Troy might listen. They know tha
Cassandra is tired of running at wooden horses with nothing but the flame of the smallest match.
She is tired of speaking to listening ears. The listening ears of the men who think her mad drive her to madness. She wishes she could move far away to an island and own a bird. She will never do this because she knows she never does. It is said that Apollo gave Cassandra the gift of prophecy-this is true. It is said that, when she refused his advances, he spit in her mouth so that she would never again be believed. A virgin the same as a seduced woman the same as a violated woman the same as a willing woman, all women opening their mouths to watch snakes slither out and away.
Cassandra is done, full the fuck up, soul weary.
Still, as Troy is sacked, as she clings to the cold marble legs of the statue of Athena in the sacred temple, she cannot accept what she knows to be true. That soon, Ajax will arrive and rape her. He will smash the statue of the goddess she worships and curse his own life; and worse, her goddess will not help her, will turn her shattered face away. Cassandra will be carried across the sea, made another man's concubine, bear twin boys, and be killed by Clytemnestra. But before this comes to pass, there are visions Cassandra burns to share with the women of Troy.
The women of Troy might listen. They know tha
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Autoren-Porträt von Gwen E. Kirby
Gwen E. Kirby
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Gwen E. Kirby
- 2022, 288 Seiten, Maße: 19,3 x 12,5 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: PENGUIN BOOKS
- ISBN-10: 0143136623
- ISBN-13: 9780143136620
- Erscheinungsdatum: 13.01.2022
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
"Kirby has mastered the art of short fiction...A stunning collection from a writer whose talent and creativity seem boundless."NPR
When I reached the end of every single one of Gwen E. Kirby's wildly unique stories, I felt like she had altered the universe a little, created a new element, opened up some fault lines in the earth. Kirby writes with boundless humor, a confidence and ease with strange premises, and yet there is always that flash of a fang or a blade or a Sharpie, reminding you to pay closer attention.
Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here
Gwen E. Kirby's debut collection of short stories dares to ask: what if we just let women be their messiest selves? Through this lens, she imagines scenarios women (and men!) may have encountered since the Hellenic times, up until today, playing with different structures including a "How To" essay and a scathing Yelp review that has a lot more bubbling under the surface. These hilarious stories use satire to examine real struggles and criticisms of the world and patriarchal standards. If you want to laugh and think, pick this one up. --Buzzfeed
"Excellent...The prose is sharp and calibrated to suit each of Kirby's temporally and geographically diverse settings...[with] risk-taking and assured, well-developed craft. This is remarkable."
Publishers Weekly *Starred Review*
"With zany plots, unconventional forms, and playful, poetic language, these stories delight at every turn."
Kirkus Reviews *Starred Review*
In dazzling story after story Kirby meditates on the fears, joys and pains of being a woman throughout the centuries. Every story feels unique, yet they re tied together by Kirby s mind-bendingly confident writing and her clear fascination with strong yet vulnerable women Shit Cassandra Saw is pure pleasure.
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Bookpage *Starred Review*
"Remarkable...Wielding humor and shock, Kirby audaciously unmasks gender disparity with delightful, disturbing aplomb."
--Shelf Awareness
[An] explosive, original, fearless, funny, on-the-money feminist story collection that delivers.
Publishers Weekly, Open Book
As fun as it is furious, Shit Cassandra Saw rewrites womanhood with a cast of complex, contradictory, brave and bonkers heroines as likely to skewer you with a cutlass as they are to poorly re-tile your bathroom. I want to be friends with all of the women in this collection who refuse to be anything other than exactly who they are. A barnburner of a book that will set you ablaze with its clear-eyed brilliance.
Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch
Shit Cassandra Saw is a readable and unflinching book about womanhood in the modern world. The stories in this collection are fierce yet playful, like the characters themselves, and I read along in a fugue state of gleeful panic. Gwen E. Kirby takes readers into a funhouse of the mundane, revealing the excitement, possibility, and pure fun that lives just behind the predictable man's world we already know.
Liv Stratman, author of Cheat Day
Radiant truths are arrived at raucously in Shit Cassandra Saw, Gwen E. Kirby s spirited debut story collection. Kirby writes with deadpan humor about louts and witches and cross-dressing pirates, gods and ghosts and whores in wildly entertaining stories that swerve into wisdom and deeply satisfy.
Christine Schutt, author of Pure Hollywood
The stories in Shit Cassandra Saw strike fast and leave you humming in their mysteries. Gwen E. Kirby has written a book that boldly defies categorization, much like the women at its center. Here is a writer who is too good to tell a story just one way. I ll follow Kirby s mind anywhere.
Simon Han, author of Nights When Nothing Happened
"Remarkable...Wielding humor and shock, Kirby audaciously unmasks gender disparity with delightful, disturbing aplomb."
--Shelf Awareness
[An] explosive, original, fearless, funny, on-the-money feminist story collection that delivers.
Publishers Weekly, Open Book
As fun as it is furious, Shit Cassandra Saw rewrites womanhood with a cast of complex, contradictory, brave and bonkers heroines as likely to skewer you with a cutlass as they are to poorly re-tile your bathroom. I want to be friends with all of the women in this collection who refuse to be anything other than exactly who they are. A barnburner of a book that will set you ablaze with its clear-eyed brilliance.
Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch
Shit Cassandra Saw is a readable and unflinching book about womanhood in the modern world. The stories in this collection are fierce yet playful, like the characters themselves, and I read along in a fugue state of gleeful panic. Gwen E. Kirby takes readers into a funhouse of the mundane, revealing the excitement, possibility, and pure fun that lives just behind the predictable man's world we already know.
Liv Stratman, author of Cheat Day
Radiant truths are arrived at raucously in Shit Cassandra Saw, Gwen E. Kirby s spirited debut story collection. Kirby writes with deadpan humor about louts and witches and cross-dressing pirates, gods and ghosts and whores in wildly entertaining stories that swerve into wisdom and deeply satisfy.
Christine Schutt, author of Pure Hollywood
The stories in Shit Cassandra Saw strike fast and leave you humming in their mysteries. Gwen E. Kirby has written a book that boldly defies categorization, much like the women at its center. Here is a writer who is too good to tell a story just one way. I ll follow Kirby s mind anywhere.
Simon Han, author of Nights When Nothing Happened
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