Review "Walsh handles the seismic events of life―a child in intensive care, a pregnancy morphing the body―with a sort of alien bluntness and mania for category that forces her language into bizarre, thrilling new shapes. A mind-blowing must-read."―Left Bank Books, staff pick"VERTIGO is artful, intelligent...Walsh is a sublimely elegant writer."―New Statesman"From the publisher that unearthed the brilliant and now-lauded Nell Zink comes another slim work of fiction as strange as it is compelling. VERTIGO is a funny, absurd collection of stories."―The Huffington Post"Think Renata Adler's Speedboat with a faster engine...VERTIGO reads with the exhilarating speed and concentrated force of a poetry collection. Each word seems carefully weighed and prodded for sound, taste, touch...The stories are delicate, but they leave a strong impression, a lasting sense of detachment colliding with feeling, a heady destabilization."―Los Angeles Times"Her writing sways between the tense and the absurd, as if it's hovering between this world and another. This time last year, Dorothy brought us Nell Zink's THE WALLCREEPER. Walsh's VERTIGO may similarly redistribute the possibilities of contemporary fiction, especially if it meets with the wider audience her work demands."―Flavorwire, "33 Must Read Books for Fall 2015""Beautifully simple and unembellished, Walsh's writing―most captivating in its ability to unnerve―is cleverly revealing of her protagonist's unique and sensitive personality."―The Guardian"Reading VERTIGO has opened even wider my conceptions of what's possible in fiction―how a book can be like a series of photographs, like cinema. These stories appear as much as they engage with narrative, saturated with a calm yet rich color. I've not read anything like it and feel it is quietly subverting the hell out of the form."―Amina Cain"Stunning short, sharp shocks with insight that reminds me of the very personal work of Clarice Lispector...Packs a wallop into a very small space. I suspect this will get some year-end kudos."―Jeff Vendermeer"This collection of work from 3:AM fiction editor Joanna Walsh makes the familiar alien, breaking down and remaking quotidian situations, and in the process turning them into gripping literature."―Vol. 1 Brooklyn"Supple, floating stories that unfold like memories almost too painful to recall in an affectless voice that can be digressive or disarmingly direct but which is ultimately devastating."―The Believer Read more About the Author JOANNA WALSH is a British writer and illustrator. Her writing has appeared in Granta, Narrative, and Guernica and has been anthologized in Dalkey's Best European Fiction 2015, Best British Short Stories 2014, and elsewhere. A collection, Fractals, was published in the UK in 2013, and her nonfiction book Hotel was published internationally in 2015. She writes literary and cultural criticism for The Guardian, The New Statesman, and The National, is the fiction editor at 3:am Magazine, and created and runs the Twitter hashtag #readwomen, heralded by the New York Times as "a rallying cry for equal treatment for women writers." Read more
T**A
Not for me, at all.
The first story was excellent and I discovered she also published it in her first short story collection. I wanted to like the rest of this book but every character, all nameless shapeless l females, kind of ran into one another stylistically and their watery weak personalities made me feel like I had anxiety too. Another issue was there wasn't enough meat to the stories for me to develop even a quick relationship with any of the formless over thinking characters. I know it's possible but it wasn't a skill executed here. I felt anxious and at times annoyed with repetitive scenery or phrases throughout the small book. I will probably give this book away for a second opinion but as of right now I would not recommend this.
R**D
Worth reading
I found her writing style to be extraordinary. I don't think i can describe it properly.. she has this back and forth dance around way of thinking and describing her perceptions so that she illuminates them gradually, sort of like the shading in a line drawing filling in. I'm sure that's clear as mud. It might make sense to someone AFTER they read her work.
