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The Bed Moved by Rebecca Schiff (view source)
Revision as of 13:40, 8 April 2016
, 13:40, 8 April 2016no edit summary
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Rebecca Schiff's collection of short stories was a revelation. It has everything I want from a collection: humour, (often of the black variety), heartbreaking sadness, and moments of shocking clarity. These stories feel like the revealing of the inner workings of a young American woman's psyche. In fact, in the last short piece, entitled ''Write What You Know'', it feels that the narrator/author is telling us the experiences which have led to this collection. ''I only know about parent death and sluttiness'', she tells us. She goes on to talk about her knowledge of Jewish people who are assimilated, liberal and sexual guilt, and I think it is no exaggeration to say that these are the underlying themes to practically all of the stories here.
The recurring theme of death of a father, and the surrounding guilt and emotional aspects of the days of sickness leading up to the death, recur in stories such as the originally entitled: 'http://www.msjiz/boxx374/mpeg', and 'Another Cake', which details a lapsed Jewish father's funeral, with supporting cast members of aunts bringing food. There are elements of discomfort in some of the stories, for example 'Lucky Lady', which explores the phenomena of blogs and crowd-funding to support cancer treatments, with a male cancer patient constantly taking 'selfies' to upload in return for support from his band of 'followers', as well as 'World Trade Date', which features a young Brooklynite dating men who worked in the Twin Towers at the time of 9/11. Schiff proves herself to be a brave young writer, never shying away from shocking or difficult topics and ideas.