Customer Reviews

Soft Maniacs: Stories

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Short fiction is hard to come by these days, But estep comes into the scene in full force. I am not sure how good her novels are, but her short works hold quite a few gems.

Ms. Estep has created an interesting, fast paced world here in her book Soft Maniacs. The books is well written, funny, sad, and at times a bit disturbing. I found it to be very similar to David Schickler's, "Kissing in Manhattan." The main difference is that the sexual deviance in this book seems to be a little more realistic and plausable.

The arc of stories follows a handful of characters and how their lives intertwine. For the most part the stories, while out there, were really good. My one problem with the book is that the characterization is a bit weak at times. The author is so driven by making these characters and plots meet at weird places and then bounce back into space that we're left with only a few real, three dimensional people. (The horse attendant with the bad back for example). At times the narrators seem to be capable of great introspection and insight, however the choices they have made in their lives contradict this intelligence.

I would say you should read this, its quick, fun, funny, and interesting. Not a great literary work, but not trash either.

(My actual "Rating" would be "No Star", but the option doesn't exist in Amazon's form)

It's evident from the numbers of happy camper-readers
that this book describes for the suburban mall crowd the desperately colorful life of urban bohemians and artist wannabes.

By now, it's a tired strategy, the so-called book of "interlocking stories." When you read this description, read
"couldn't make a novel out of it, and the publisher wanted to be able to make money off republishing the stories."

The lady sure works hard at her prose. It shows, as it is
exhausting to read after a while. The interlocking stories are repetitive in their use of pseudo-tough tropes--but the kids will like that and feel real tough reading them in their dorm rooms. The titillation is really on the high-school gross-out level, with a bit of the required lesbian-voyeur-topless-dancing-ex-amateur-hooker thrown in. But no more so than you get on MTV Real World or a Saturday Night Live/Comedy Central Sketch.

So, though here and there these stories mock the middle-brow, they perfectly embody it. This work is just the "bohemian" brand of fake literature that's been spewing out of publishing houses (like "The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing") lately.

But the kids are buying it.

Soft Maniacs was difficult to get into, however personally, it didn't take me too long to adjust; it was real without being real. It was honest on the most perverted of levels; arousing and saddening. I discovered Maggie via Alan Wilder's spoiled brainchild, Recoil, to which she collaborated on Unsound Methods, which didin't hook me entirely until I listened to Love is a Dog from Hell. Maggie is itchy and unique, and definitely for those who veer toward the freakier side of fiction. I don't recommend her to all people, only those willing to recognise that perverse weirdness in us all.

Maggie fans will not be let down by her latest book, "Soft Maniacs." It is a collection of short stories with characters that cross over from story to story. Most of the stories are about 20-30 somethings in New York City; however, Maggie does branch out into carnival workers. As with her previous book, "Diary of an Emotional Idiot," Maggie's recent work is full of unusual people described with Maggie's irrististable wit. Fans of Maggie's earlier work will likely notice a hint of maturity which only serves to strengthen her latest work.

The other reviewers liked this book so much, someone ought to present a contrasting view. This was given to me as a gift, and I frankly found it unreadable. Circus freaks, horses, nymphomaniacs...the whole thing reads like a writing project by a talented but "rebellious" 10th-grader. Far from being "brutally real" it is a sort of adolescent fantasy, which anyone out of college will dismiss (or so I thought before logging on to Amazon). And there is nothing "poetic" about Estep's style; the best that can be said about it is that it is spare and unassuming. I don't know much about Estep but she strikes me, in both her writing and her "spoken" albums, as primarily a self-promoter trafficking in tittilation.

Maggie Estep's narrative voice shines remarkably well in this series of meticulously interconnected short stories. She's got a way with words -- so much so that even in this collection, in which she's writing through the voices of various men who go through the lives of two women, we're still listening unmistakenably to Estep's voice. And we wouldn't have it any other way. The situations in this story are often hilarious, the characters are wonderfully drawn, and the unique ways the stories are interconnected are a joy to unravel. I read it a few weeks ago, and the characters are remaining with me like I read it yesterday. A highly recommended, very entertaining book to read... try it in one sitting. It flows so nicely, you won't even realize you've just been reading for hours. Estep keeps getting better and better with every book... I, for one, am really looking forward to her next release.

I'm a fast reader, and I've been known to devour books in less than a single day, but I think I set a new record when I read "Soft Maniacs." Faster isn't necessarily better, but I couldn't put the thing down. I met Maggie (Miss Estep) on a Friday night (on which she gave me a copy of her first book). By her book signing the next day, I had read through "Diary of an Emotional Idiot" once and was almost half-way through it a second time. I bought "Soft Maniacs" that Saturday, and have read it 4 times since then. It's a fantastic series of intertwined short-stories that you won't regret reading.

Few books can elicit outright belly-laughs as well as gather empathetic tears. Estep paints her characters so well and each has a distinctive and original voice, it's breathtaking in it's scope and fluidity. Essentially a "small world, isn't it?" collection following two women, this book really delves fiercely into the male psyche as all the stories are written from a male character's point of view - and it's spot on. These people live and breathe within these pages, in vivid reality, and Maggie Estep proves herself to be one of the essential artists of our times. And she'll also beat your Mom at Scrabble - she's good with words; she's a poet, remember?

I obtained a copy of this book from Maggie, and have not been able to stop reading (much to the annoyance of my teachers in class). The book is wonderfully well-written, is pulled together tightly but still has a natural grace and flow to it. The writing is superb, as is the realism of characters for which Maggie has such a gift.