- Hardcover: 328 pages
- Publisher: Anansi (May 5 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0887842151
- ISBN-13: 978-0887842153
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 13.7 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 499 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #332,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
“Malla’s technical skills are . . . reminiscent of Munro . . . His handling of society’s unfortunates is very Barbara Gowdy . . . Buy The Withdrawal Method.” --Vue Weekly
Torontoist.com
"[F]or my money one of the best young writers in Canada [is] Pasha Malla."
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable,
By
This review is from: Withdrawal Method (Paperback)
I enjoyed this collection, although I found it a bit uneven and I really think it's a stretch to compare it to Lorrie Moore (but I love Lorrie Moore in a sort of unnatural unlimited almost-creepy way, so...). A few of the stories seem unnaturally truncated, a sort of "if I end it right now it will seem daring and post-modern in a resisting-closure sort of way" which I just found frustrating. I love the Niagara Falls story -- actually as the collection went on the stories got better. There's a lot of quirky-funny-sad in the stories -- I look forward to seeing this author's voice progress and mature.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A quirky, diverse, and melancholy first collection,
By
This review is from: Withdrawal Method (Paperback)
Books of short stories are hard to review, because inevitably there are those packed within the covers that don't measure up compared to other stories. Unlike a novel, which stands by itself, each story in a collection stands in reference to each other. The good short story collections are ones where an author chooses stories that are similar enough in style to create a cohesive feel to the book, but different enough from each other so as to keep things interesting. Why read a book of short stories that are basically the same thing over and over again?
Malla's stories span all different kinds of topics, time periods, and styles. From the quirky postmodern "The Slough" to the historical "The Love Life of the Automaton Turk" to the creepy "Long Short Short Long". However, the themes of loss, failed relationships, and isolation (whether from society, or from specific people) thread their way through the collection to tie all these stories together. There are a few real gems in this collection, but there are also some that didn't measure up, and I could have lived without. I think of the story "Dizzy When You Look Down In", which never seemed to find its way, just sort of meandered and then ended. The stories left me mostly feeling sad, with a kind of stifling bitterness at times. Not towards the stories, but a feeling generated by the stories. There is a lot of pain in these pages, especially the kind of pain one gets from relationships that have turned sour, or were always sour to begin with. There were a few parts that hit a bit close to home for me, but I welcome those moments when reading, even if they dredge up some unhappy emotions. But there is also a lot of humour, so things never get too heavy. The kind of ironic, sarcastic, dry humour found within the pages of McSweeney's (which Malla has appeared in, not surprisingly). This is a collection worthy of reading, and I will definitely be reading Malla's novel when it is published.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
lovely story collection,
By Abeer Y. Hoque - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Withdrawal Method (Paperback)
I love Pasha Malla. I thought maybe his short story collection would be on the flippant side, and not just because of its (IMHO not very apt) title, but more because of his hilarious silly punts on McSweeneys.com. But no. The stories are mostly sad, a little bit funny, sometimes surreal, invested in the loss and manifest of what I call Americana but in this case should call Canadiana since most of the stories are set in Canadia, and this last quite unexpected quality: beautifully written.
None of the stories is like the others, and I was continually amazed at how inside everyone's heads Pasha gets. Middle aged blue collar white dude? Check. Estranged adolescent daughter? Check. Renaissance courtier? Check. And he has to be a basketball nut and have spent some time in or thinking about hospitals. My only critique was that a couple of the stories have abrupt transitions, like they were written in parts, or from different perspectives and then mushed together ("The Slough" and the Automaton Turk one are two where I felt this). My favourite story was "The Past Composed" and I don't know why exactly. There was something clean and compelling about it, despite nothing drastic happening (no amputation, no bull in a china store, no chimp swallowing snake, no coma inducing accident). Naturally I didn't love all the stories, but I loved the writing throughout. Every story had a few sentences or phrases that were flat out gorgeous, bits of description, setting, detail (I wish I had written some quotes down). (It was also the book that made me realise that short stories are great for subway rides.) This is Pasha's first book and I'm much looking forward to his next. |
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