Raekwon, also known as "The Chef," is thought by many to be the most gifted storyteller of the clan.
I am going to say things about Deb Olin Unferth (b. 1960-1990?), starting now:
Here is a passage from her novel Vacation (McSweeney’s, 2008):
Back then they went to work, they came home. Sometimes they rode the train together, he carrying her bag. Sometimes they stayed in the city for a fish dinner, their favorite stools-and-counter spot. They made love, ironed. They discussed their belongings and the positions their belongings held, both in their esteem and in the apartment. And he hoped it would always be this way, marriage, adding more objects, subtracting a few, making love a little less but still frequently. Each day he came home elated, astounded by his luck. This graceful brilliant woman, this beautiful adorable creature loved him, of all people. He had not been a happy man before. He was determined not to mess this up.
When I was reading that for the first time I felt so excited or something by it that I typed up the passage and emailed it to someone. And we talked about how good it was. Looking back on it now, nearly a year later, it doesn’t seem as good, but maybe that’s because it’s by itself, not as part of a novel. I think the above passage is from fairly early in the book, and that later a lot of things happen, and while I liked them sometimes, for the most part I thought all of the things that were happening kind of took away from something. I think I like her short fiction better, when she focuses mainly on one character and one experience. Maybe I just like fiction in general that does that.
When it first came out, I got Minor Robberies (McSweeney’s, 2007) in the One Hundred and Forty Five Stories in a Small Box thing, along with books by Dave Eggers and Sarah Manguso. I remember liking Sarah Manguso’s stories the most, and then looking at her poetry somewhere and not liking it. I thought the Dave Eggers stories were okay; I can imagine myself going into them with a preconceived notion that they would be okay. I liked Unferth’s a lot, and read her stories in Noon and other places and liked them. I bought at least two issues of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art just because she had a story in them.
She has a story in this month’s Harper’s, or last month’s Harper’s, maybe, called “Wait Till You See Me Dance.” I like it. I think she is focusing a lot on one kind of character, perhaps autobiographically or something, lately: an aging, early-middle-aged single woman, who is inside her head a lot and stuff, and it’s funny. I think her story in the recent Columbia Journal, about a woman feeling guilty about what to do with her child’s pet turtle or something, had a similar protagonist.
I like that her characters are often sexually deviant, I think just in their thoughts usually, but at the same time kind of innocent, or at least harmless, in their behavior. Though not necessarily harmless in their behavior, I think. I think her stories are good because they are kind of scary, in that you really don’t know what people are capable of maybe. But they aren’t really intense. Intense things are kind of off-putting for me I think. I think her stories are really understated maybe. Okay.
Also I saw her read once and I liked the way she read, she seemed like she either put thought into it or was just naturally good / something at it. I think Tao tried to introduce me to her but she was busy or something.
