Who I Was Supposed to Be: Short Stories

by Susan Perabo

Book Overview

"Both sardonic and moving...Perabo clearly recalls how to hit home runs." --The New York Times Book Review "A stunning collection of short gems, revealing a world both foreign and familiar." --Chicago... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684862336
• ISBN13: 9780684862330
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.7" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

I am just thankful I was one of her students...

I read Susan Perabo's collection after being her student over Christmas. Wow. These stories amaze me. Well written, she does so well what she has taught her own students. The gears in my head turned, and I finally understood all those things she wrote on my stories or tried to explain in class. I love her characters. The data processing woman with the Diana dress. The pot smoking music teacher father. The woman whose baby just died. The actor whose marriage is ending so he invites a klepto father to stay with him. On and on they go, so confused, so much in pain, but she makes their lives and situations funny. It's a bittersweet pain, but Perabo has one of the most original ways of communicating pain I've seen since the writers she told us to read. I still can't get out of my mind the one called "Explaining Death to the dog". The pain the woman feels when showing the dog the book of Time photos or showing her the dead animal, wow. I read it three times in a row the first night I read it. I am still in awe of it. As she told my class so many times, "Show, don't tell."Perabo shows. I can't believe I was lucky enough to have classes with her. I just wish I read these sooner.

Great stories

Barring a very few exceptions, the stories presented here are top-notch. I finished this book in half a day, and wanted more when I ran out of stories. I would love to see more stories about the characters here!

Well Done Short Stories

I found this collection by accident and didn't know what to expect. Short stories can be so good, or so bad. These stories are very good, and consistently good. These are stories of people searching for something missing in their lives, well told stories with humor and heart. Enjoy this collection.

Startling and unusual - a wonderful read

This is an amazing book, almost unnerving in its ability to capture the way people really think and act in their weirdest, darkest, and most uncensored moments - but also in their best moments. Tolstoy said that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and Perabo's actually like a modern Tolstoy in her sketches of the details of family life (and friendship too), the way it shocks you and the way it doesn't surprise you at all.

Humor and depth, depth and humor

Reading Susan Perabo's short stories I was moved, uplifted to laughter, and stung by the recognition of deep emotional experiences. I was amazed to have old pleasures and guilts resurface through the thoughts and experiences of people whose lives are so utterly unlike mine. Each short story invites a long conversation to express the pleasure and pain and plentiful humor. For example, Perabo's characters in "Thick as Thieves" convey so much in one SHORT story about people, their regrets, and possibilities while still being so exceedingly funny. I will buy ten more copies of the book and send them to the people most likely to sit down and discuss them with me, ASAP.