Soft Maniacs (stories)

(Simon & Schuster, 1999)

I may be cheating a bit here, or "back-blogging"...but I thought it was important to talk about the first collection of "short literature" I ever fell in love with...or can remember falling in love with...

The year was 1999 and as a wayward student at a university, when someone says, "Hey do you want to go to a reading?"...you go. It doesn't matter whether or not you know the author/spoken word mistress. You just GO! So I did.

Maggie Estep read to us from her current (at the time) collection of stories--and I was hooked... Maybe it was the "style," maybe it was the "concept," maybe it was Maggie herself.

When I found my own copy (at a used bookstore less than a month later) I was quite excited. I brought the book back to my dorm room and the next thing I remember is my group of friends and I sitting in a circle reading from it...aloud.

(We also took turns reading each other's sexual astrology from a different book, but that's another story altogether)

There are nine semi-related stories in Soft Maniacs where we get to follow two different women (Katie and Jody) as seen by the men they love/ruin...it's actually narrated by them (the men).

It's a gritty, dirty romp--a very quick read. The story I remember the most (and tell people about when I talk about the book) is "The Patient:"

"The bullet traversed my prefrontal cortex and went out my right temple, but I'm fine. I've better than I ever was, actually. They tell me I've, in effect, lobotomized myself. And I understand perfectly that this should be disastrous. I should be upset. But I'm at peace.

...Because I know, better than most, girls are trouble."