No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories

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Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper's, and The New Yorker, and she is also the author of the novel All Fours . OK, fine, I love them, but I also wonder what we're not dealing with or what kind of shortcut this is or if we think only nutjobs speak-think magical prose. She tells her off-beat and romantic or oddly sinister stories, dramatizes quirks as real characters and situations, and enchants you with her squeaky little voice.

The strength of this collection is the narrative voice, which does have snap and a nice turn of phrase that might be unique. But I guess I wasn't weirded out so much as to turn me off the idea of reading her short story collection. One big, quirky story with varying characters, but essentially the exact same voice: the awkward, socially immature, lonely-as-hell voice.Or a long, laughing, rambling phone message in which every person this person has ever known is talking on a speakerphone and they are all saying,You have passed the test, it was all just a test, we were only kidding, real life is so much better than that. Saying this makes me feel conventional, but when I read, I want to feel *something* or be supremely aware of its absence. And the real joy of them is this: by expressing isolation with such refreshing and startling clarity you will never feel so isolated again.

I hate to say this, but I really did not enjoy the experience of reading past the first two stories or so.

It betrays her obsession with the couple, even as she rationalises why she would never be friends with the wife: “One reason Helena and I would never be close friends is that I am about half as tall as she. I admire her authority, but sometimes it comes across as vanity, and I get squirmy when I think an author relishes her own prose or ideas too much (takes one to know one). July's language stutters and chokes as each internal monologue unfolds its ugly revelations, almost as if recoiling in disgust. As a result, you can almost hear July speaking through her characters, a sort of series of monologues.

Whether writing about a middle-aged woman’s obsession with Prince William or an aging bachelor who has never been in love, the result is startling, tender and sexy by turns. Okay, I take that back, of course that’s appealing to people, have I never watched porn or "Charmed"?

Because if you read more than three stories in a row, you start to get this very odd sensation that you will be alone and unhappy for the rest of your life, and it is not pleasant.