You Should Pity Us Instead
Amy Gustine
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
"Amy Gustine's You Should Pity Us Instead is a devastating, funny, and astonishingly frank collection of stories. Gustine can be brutally honest about the murky calculations, secret dreams and suppressed malice to which most of us never admit, not even to ourselves."--Karen Russell
"You Should Pity Us Instead is an unbroken spell from first story to last, despite the enormous range of subjects and landscapes, sufferings and joys it explores."--Laura Kasischke
"Amy Gustine's stories cross impossible borders both physical and moral: a mother looking for her kidnapped son sneaks into Gaza, an Ellis Island inspector mourning his lost love plays God at the boundary between old world and new. Brave, essential, thrilling, each story in You Should Pity Us Instead takes us to those places we've never dared visit before."--Ben Stroud
You Should Pity Us Instead explores some of our toughest dilemmas: the cost of Middle East strife at its most intimate level, the likelihood of God considered in day-to-day terms, the moral stakes of family obligations, and the inescapable fact of mortality. Amy Gustine exhibits an extraordinary generosity toward her characters, instilling them with a thriving, vivid presence.
Amy Gustine's short fiction has appeared in the Kenyon Review, North American Review, Black Warrior Review, the Massachusetts Review, and many other places. She lives in Ohio.
Product Details
Price
$15.95
$14.83
Publisher
Sarabande Books
Publish Date
February 09, 2016
Pages
256
Dimensions
5.5 X 0.7 X 8.4 inches | 0.7 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781941411193
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Amy Gustine: Amy Gustine's short fiction has appeared in The Kenyon Review, North American Review, Black Warrior Review, The Massachusetts Review, and many others. She lives in Ohio.
Reviews
Best of 2016: 100 Recommended Books, San Francisco Chronicle
Writers to Watch Spring 2016: Anticipated Debut Fiction, Publishers Weekly
Most Anticipated Books of 2016, The Millions
One of The 27 Most Exciting Books Coming in 2016, Buzzfeed
One of 18 February Books to Light Up Your Winter, Bustle
Best Books of February 2016, Vagabomb "In this dazzling debut collection, Gustine shows tremendous range, empathy, and spark....Gustine's language is uniformly remarkable for its clarity and forthrightness."
--Publishers Weekly, boxed starred review "Gustine's debut collection examines the compelling lives and struggles of people we might think of as ordinary and the pain that can come from simply trying to make it through life.... Powerful.... Gustine's stories give the impression that in every life there is a story worth telling, of triumph and of pain, if only we take the time to look."
--Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Gustine packs her short stories tightly, pitches them high and far, and they detonate on target, literary grenades of resounding impact....Gustine's tales are bursting with startling insights, stabbing dialogue, ambushing metaphors, and stunning moments of dissonance. Her first collection aligns her with such short story stars as Joy Williams, Antonya Nelson, and Bonnie Jo Campbell."
--Booklist, starred review "Characters stretch their limits in Gustine's affecting and wide-ranging debut....Gustine knows we are as driven by doubt and fright as by love, and overt tragedy hobbles us less than the fear of losing everything. Her sentences are swift and wise, landing often like a gentle slap in the face.... For all the suffering and dislocation experienced by her characters, for all the frequent density of her plots, Gustine casts compassionate light on her protagonists' dark paths, delivering highly choreographed moments of humanity from the absurdly comic to the acutely moving."
--The New York Times Book Review "Amy Gustine's enormously enjoyable collection, You Should Pity Us Instead, focuses on families under siege. These 11 stories, each ambitious in scope, drop us into one nerve-racking situation after another....Gustine has a gift for inhabiting a wide range of voices."
--The San Francisco Chronicle "Incandescent....The entire collection...is a disconcerting marvel, rife with undertow and carried out in crystalline clear prose and exquisite construction."
--Library Journal "This carefully written collection of intense, sobering stories reminds us that the human condition is no piece of cake -- but once in a while there are some tasty crumbs.... The stories' settings and plots range impressively...Gustine is particularly skilled at immersing the reader in varied scenarios while communicating what is at stake, creating an atmosphere of tension in which disaster looms."
--The Miami Herald "These stories elicit something on the border between pity and empathy - pity without the condescension, empathy with the knowledge that it can never be absolute - for lonely and anxious people. Amy Gustine writes with clarity as if simply describing what passes in front of her. That
seeming artlessness, fiction stripped of fiction's aura, shows true mastery."
--The Globe and Mail "Despite the extraordinary breadth of landscapes and topics in You Should Pity Us Instead, every character comes alive with the emotional depth and empathy of Gustine's writing."
--Buzzfeed, "The 27 Most Exciting Books Coming in 2016" "Every so often, a book comes along that truly has the power to make you both laugh and cry -- sometimes within a single page. Amy Gustine's talent for unearthing the heartbreaking beauty within the seemingly mundane comes to life in this gorgeous collection. Each story unravels complexity that lives right below the surface -- and compels us, in our own existences, to consider looking a little deeper."
--Refinery29 "If you're a short story connoisseur, you'll love this collection. Gustine is a master at character relationships, showcasing captivating three dimensions to every character she writes."
--Bustle ""In this collection of eleven short stories, Amy Gustine shows off her ability to play with POV and the idea of narratives driven by certain conceits. Each story is cleverly set up to a what-if scenario that traverses time, race, class, religion... Many of the stories are bold and often successful experiments in POV shifts....Gustine delivers wonderfully....exquisite."
--Michigan Quarterly Review "Amy Gustine's first collection of stories demonstrates a remarkable range, not only in situation and character, but also in the vast landscapes of human emotion and reaction.... She is willing to explore our most uncomfortable emotions--humiliation, revulsion, anger--yet realistically balances them with the most admirable ones--love, empathy, understanding, and even forgiveness."
--Heavy Feather Review "Gustine's moving short stories explore the complexity of transient and familial relationships and the difficult feelings that result from love and morality."
--For Books' Sake, "2016 Fiction Highlights" "Gustine's stories are special in the way that they force you to cross all kinds of boundaries, both physical and emotional.... It is interesting to see how delicately Gustine handles and delves into the complicated ideas of familial obligations and morality."
--Vagabomb "Best Books of February 2016" "Amy Gustine displays a remarkable command of prose and narrative in her debut collection You Should Pity Us Instead.... A startling range of characters appears in Gustine's collection: peculiar, spooky voices not often found in published fiction.... Yet as disparate as these characters and storylines might first appear, they work in bewitching concert throughout the collection, giving rise to a larger current of meaning."
--The Southeast Review
Best of 2016: 100 Recommended Books, San Francisco Chronicle
Writers to Watch Spring 2016: Anticipated Debut Fiction, Publishers Weekly
Most Anticipated Books of 2016, The Millions
One of The 27 Most Exciting Books Coming in 2016, Buzzfeed
One of 18 February Books to Light Up Your Winter, Bustle
Best Books of February 2016, Vagabomb "In this dazzling debut collection, Gustine shows tremendous range, empathy, and spark....Gustine's language is uniformly remarkable for its clarity and forthrightness."
--Publishers Weekly, boxed starred review "Gustine's debut collection examines the compelling lives and struggles of people we might think of as ordinary and the pain that can come from simply trying to make it through life.... Powerful.... Gustine's stories give the impression that in every life there is a story worth telling, of triumph and of pain, if only we take the time to look."
--Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Gustine packs her short stories tightly, pitches them high and far, and they detonate on target, literary grenades of resounding impact....Gustine's tales are bursting with startling insights, stabbing dialogue, ambushing metaphors, and stunning moments of dissonance. Her first collection aligns her with such short story stars as Joy Williams, Antonya Nelson, and Bonnie Jo Campbell."
--Booklist, starred review "Characters stretch their limits in Gustine's affecting and wide-ranging debut....Gustine knows we are as driven by doubt and fright as by love, and overt tragedy hobbles us less than the fear of losing everything. Her sentences are swift and wise, landing often like a gentle slap in the face.... For all the suffering and dislocation experienced by her characters, for all the frequent density of her plots, Gustine casts compassionate light on her protagonists' dark paths, delivering highly choreographed moments of humanity from the absurdly comic to the acutely moving."
--The New York Times Book Review "Amy Gustine's enormously enjoyable collection, You Should Pity Us Instead, focuses on families under siege. These 11 stories, each ambitious in scope, drop us into one nerve-racking situation after another....Gustine has a gift for inhabiting a wide range of voices."
--The San Francisco Chronicle "Incandescent....The entire collection...is a disconcerting marvel, rife with undertow and carried out in crystalline clear prose and exquisite construction."
--Library Journal "This carefully written collection of intense, sobering stories reminds us that the human condition is no piece of cake -- but once in a while there are some tasty crumbs.... The stories' settings and plots range impressively...Gustine is particularly skilled at immersing the reader in varied scenarios while communicating what is at stake, creating an atmosphere of tension in which disaster looms."
--The Miami Herald "These stories elicit something on the border between pity and empathy - pity without the condescension, empathy with the knowledge that it can never be absolute - for lonely and anxious people. Amy Gustine writes with clarity as if simply describing what passes in front of her. That
seeming artlessness, fiction stripped of fiction's aura, shows true mastery."
--The Globe and Mail "Despite the extraordinary breadth of landscapes and topics in You Should Pity Us Instead, every character comes alive with the emotional depth and empathy of Gustine's writing."
--Buzzfeed, "The 27 Most Exciting Books Coming in 2016" "Every so often, a book comes along that truly has the power to make you both laugh and cry -- sometimes within a single page. Amy Gustine's talent for unearthing the heartbreaking beauty within the seemingly mundane comes to life in this gorgeous collection. Each story unravels complexity that lives right below the surface -- and compels us, in our own existences, to consider looking a little deeper."
--Refinery29 "If you're a short story connoisseur, you'll love this collection. Gustine is a master at character relationships, showcasing captivating three dimensions to every character she writes."
--Bustle ""In this collection of eleven short stories, Amy Gustine shows off her ability to play with POV and the idea of narratives driven by certain conceits. Each story is cleverly set up to a what-if scenario that traverses time, race, class, religion... Many of the stories are bold and often successful experiments in POV shifts....Gustine delivers wonderfully....exquisite."
--Michigan Quarterly Review "Amy Gustine's first collection of stories demonstrates a remarkable range, not only in situation and character, but also in the vast landscapes of human emotion and reaction.... She is willing to explore our most uncomfortable emotions--humiliation, revulsion, anger--yet realistically balances them with the most admirable ones--love, empathy, understanding, and even forgiveness."
--Heavy Feather Review "Gustine's moving short stories explore the complexity of transient and familial relationships and the difficult feelings that result from love and morality."
--For Books' Sake, "2016 Fiction Highlights" "Gustine's stories are special in the way that they force you to cross all kinds of boundaries, both physical and emotional.... It is interesting to see how delicately Gustine handles and delves into the complicated ideas of familial obligations and morality."
--Vagabomb "Best Books of February 2016" "Amy Gustine displays a remarkable command of prose and narrative in her debut collection You Should Pity Us Instead.... A startling range of characters appears in Gustine's collection: peculiar, spooky voices not often found in published fiction.... Yet as disparate as these characters and storylines might first appear, they work in bewitching concert throughout the collection, giving rise to a larger current of meaning."
--The Southeast Review
Writers to Watch Spring 2016: Anticipated Debut Fiction, Publishers Weekly
Most Anticipated Books of 2016, The Millions
One of The 27 Most Exciting Books Coming in 2016, Buzzfeed
One of 18 February Books to Light Up Your Winter, Bustle
Best Books of February 2016, Vagabomb "In this dazzling debut collection, Gustine shows tremendous range, empathy, and spark....Gustine's language is uniformly remarkable for its clarity and forthrightness."
--Publishers Weekly, boxed starred review "Gustine's debut collection examines the compelling lives and struggles of people we might think of as ordinary and the pain that can come from simply trying to make it through life.... Powerful.... Gustine's stories give the impression that in every life there is a story worth telling, of triumph and of pain, if only we take the time to look."
--Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Gustine packs her short stories tightly, pitches them high and far, and they detonate on target, literary grenades of resounding impact....Gustine's tales are bursting with startling insights, stabbing dialogue, ambushing metaphors, and stunning moments of dissonance. Her first collection aligns her with such short story stars as Joy Williams, Antonya Nelson, and Bonnie Jo Campbell."
--Booklist, starred review "Characters stretch their limits in Gustine's affecting and wide-ranging debut....Gustine knows we are as driven by doubt and fright as by love, and overt tragedy hobbles us less than the fear of losing everything. Her sentences are swift and wise, landing often like a gentle slap in the face.... For all the suffering and dislocation experienced by her characters, for all the frequent density of her plots, Gustine casts compassionate light on her protagonists' dark paths, delivering highly choreographed moments of humanity from the absurdly comic to the acutely moving."
--The New York Times Book Review "Amy Gustine's enormously enjoyable collection, You Should Pity Us Instead, focuses on families under siege. These 11 stories, each ambitious in scope, drop us into one nerve-racking situation after another....Gustine has a gift for inhabiting a wide range of voices."
--The San Francisco Chronicle "Incandescent....The entire collection...is a disconcerting marvel, rife with undertow and carried out in crystalline clear prose and exquisite construction."
--Library Journal "This carefully written collection of intense, sobering stories reminds us that the human condition is no piece of cake -- but once in a while there are some tasty crumbs.... The stories' settings and plots range impressively...Gustine is particularly skilled at immersing the reader in varied scenarios while communicating what is at stake, creating an atmosphere of tension in which disaster looms."
--The Miami Herald "These stories elicit something on the border between pity and empathy - pity without the condescension, empathy with the knowledge that it can never be absolute - for lonely and anxious people. Amy Gustine writes with clarity as if simply describing what passes in front of her. That
seeming artlessness, fiction stripped of fiction's aura, shows true mastery."
--The Globe and Mail "Despite the extraordinary breadth of landscapes and topics in You Should Pity Us Instead, every character comes alive with the emotional depth and empathy of Gustine's writing."
--Buzzfeed, "The 27 Most Exciting Books Coming in 2016" "Every so often, a book comes along that truly has the power to make you both laugh and cry -- sometimes within a single page. Amy Gustine's talent for unearthing the heartbreaking beauty within the seemingly mundane comes to life in this gorgeous collection. Each story unravels complexity that lives right below the surface -- and compels us, in our own existences, to consider looking a little deeper."
--Refinery29 "If you're a short story connoisseur, you'll love this collection. Gustine is a master at character relationships, showcasing captivating three dimensions to every character she writes."
--Bustle ""In this collection of eleven short stories, Amy Gustine shows off her ability to play with POV and the idea of narratives driven by certain conceits. Each story is cleverly set up to a what-if scenario that traverses time, race, class, religion... Many of the stories are bold and often successful experiments in POV shifts....Gustine delivers wonderfully....exquisite."
--Michigan Quarterly Review "Amy Gustine's first collection of stories demonstrates a remarkable range, not only in situation and character, but also in the vast landscapes of human emotion and reaction.... She is willing to explore our most uncomfortable emotions--humiliation, revulsion, anger--yet realistically balances them with the most admirable ones--love, empathy, understanding, and even forgiveness."
--Heavy Feather Review "Gustine's moving short stories explore the complexity of transient and familial relationships and the difficult feelings that result from love and morality."
--For Books' Sake, "2016 Fiction Highlights" "Gustine's stories are special in the way that they force you to cross all kinds of boundaries, both physical and emotional.... It is interesting to see how delicately Gustine handles and delves into the complicated ideas of familial obligations and morality."
--Vagabomb "Best Books of February 2016" "Amy Gustine displays a remarkable command of prose and narrative in her debut collection You Should Pity Us Instead.... A startling range of characters appears in Gustine's collection: peculiar, spooky voices not often found in published fiction.... Yet as disparate as these characters and storylines might first appear, they work in bewitching concert throughout the collection, giving rise to a larger current of meaning."
--The Southeast Review
Best of 2016: 100 Recommended Books, San Francisco Chronicle
Writers to Watch Spring 2016: Anticipated Debut Fiction, Publishers Weekly
Most Anticipated Books of 2016, The Millions
One of The 27 Most Exciting Books Coming in 2016, Buzzfeed
One of 18 February Books to Light Up Your Winter, Bustle
Best Books of February 2016, Vagabomb "In this dazzling debut collection, Gustine shows tremendous range, empathy, and spark....Gustine's language is uniformly remarkable for its clarity and forthrightness."
--Publishers Weekly, boxed starred review "Gustine's debut collection examines the compelling lives and struggles of people we might think of as ordinary and the pain that can come from simply trying to make it through life.... Powerful.... Gustine's stories give the impression that in every life there is a story worth telling, of triumph and of pain, if only we take the time to look."
--Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Gustine packs her short stories tightly, pitches them high and far, and they detonate on target, literary grenades of resounding impact....Gustine's tales are bursting with startling insights, stabbing dialogue, ambushing metaphors, and stunning moments of dissonance. Her first collection aligns her with such short story stars as Joy Williams, Antonya Nelson, and Bonnie Jo Campbell."
--Booklist, starred review "Characters stretch their limits in Gustine's affecting and wide-ranging debut....Gustine knows we are as driven by doubt and fright as by love, and overt tragedy hobbles us less than the fear of losing everything. Her sentences are swift and wise, landing often like a gentle slap in the face.... For all the suffering and dislocation experienced by her characters, for all the frequent density of her plots, Gustine casts compassionate light on her protagonists' dark paths, delivering highly choreographed moments of humanity from the absurdly comic to the acutely moving."
--The New York Times Book Review "Amy Gustine's enormously enjoyable collection, You Should Pity Us Instead, focuses on families under siege. These 11 stories, each ambitious in scope, drop us into one nerve-racking situation after another....Gustine has a gift for inhabiting a wide range of voices."
--The San Francisco Chronicle "Incandescent....The entire collection...is a disconcerting marvel, rife with undertow and carried out in crystalline clear prose and exquisite construction."
--Library Journal "This carefully written collection of intense, sobering stories reminds us that the human condition is no piece of cake -- but once in a while there are some tasty crumbs.... The stories' settings and plots range impressively...Gustine is particularly skilled at immersing the reader in varied scenarios while communicating what is at stake, creating an atmosphere of tension in which disaster looms."
--The Miami Herald "These stories elicit something on the border between pity and empathy - pity without the condescension, empathy with the knowledge that it can never be absolute - for lonely and anxious people. Amy Gustine writes with clarity as if simply describing what passes in front of her. That
seeming artlessness, fiction stripped of fiction's aura, shows true mastery."
--The Globe and Mail "Despite the extraordinary breadth of landscapes and topics in You Should Pity Us Instead, every character comes alive with the emotional depth and empathy of Gustine's writing."
--Buzzfeed, "The 27 Most Exciting Books Coming in 2016" "Every so often, a book comes along that truly has the power to make you both laugh and cry -- sometimes within a single page. Amy Gustine's talent for unearthing the heartbreaking beauty within the seemingly mundane comes to life in this gorgeous collection. Each story unravels complexity that lives right below the surface -- and compels us, in our own existences, to consider looking a little deeper."
--Refinery29 "If you're a short story connoisseur, you'll love this collection. Gustine is a master at character relationships, showcasing captivating three dimensions to every character she writes."
--Bustle ""In this collection of eleven short stories, Amy Gustine shows off her ability to play with POV and the idea of narratives driven by certain conceits. Each story is cleverly set up to a what-if scenario that traverses time, race, class, religion... Many of the stories are bold and often successful experiments in POV shifts....Gustine delivers wonderfully....exquisite."
--Michigan Quarterly Review "Amy Gustine's first collection of stories demonstrates a remarkable range, not only in situation and character, but also in the vast landscapes of human emotion and reaction.... She is willing to explore our most uncomfortable emotions--humiliation, revulsion, anger--yet realistically balances them with the most admirable ones--love, empathy, understanding, and even forgiveness."
--Heavy Feather Review "Gustine's moving short stories explore the complexity of transient and familial relationships and the difficult feelings that result from love and morality."
--For Books' Sake, "2016 Fiction Highlights" "Gustine's stories are special in the way that they force you to cross all kinds of boundaries, both physical and emotional.... It is interesting to see how delicately Gustine handles and delves into the complicated ideas of familial obligations and morality."
--Vagabomb "Best Books of February 2016" "Amy Gustine displays a remarkable command of prose and narrative in her debut collection You Should Pity Us Instead.... A startling range of characters appears in Gustine's collection: peculiar, spooky voices not often found in published fiction.... Yet as disparate as these characters and storylines might first appear, they work in bewitching concert throughout the collection, giving rise to a larger current of meaning."
--The Southeast Review
