Life and Other Shortcomings

by Corie Adjmi

Overview

Life and Other Shortcomings is a collection of linked short stories that takes the reader from New Orleans to New York City to Madrid, and from 1970 to the present day. The women in these twelve stories make a number of different choices: some work, others don’t; some stay married, some get divorced; others never marry at all. Through each character’s intimate journey, specific truths are revealed about what it means to be a woman—in relationship with another person, in a particular culture and era—and how these conditions ultimately affect her relationship with herself. The stories as a whole depict patriarchy, showing what still might be, but certainly what was, for some women in this country before the #MeToo movement. Both a cautionary tale and a captivating window into women’s lives, Life and Other Shortcomings is required reading for anyone interested in an honest, incisive, and compelling portrayal of the female experience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631527135
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	08/04/2020
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Corie Adjmi grew up in New Orleans. She started writing in her late thirties, and her award-winning fiction and personal essays have since appeared in over two dozen publications, including North American Review, Indiana Review, South Dakota Review, and, more recently, HuffPost and Man Repeller. In 2019, Life and Other Shortcomings was a finalist for the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for short fiction from BkMk Press. When she is not writing, Corie does volunteer work, cooks, draws, bikes, and hikes. She and her husband have five children and a number of grandchildren, with more on the way. She lives and works in New York City.

Table of Contents

Dinner Conversation 1

Sunny Side Up 19

The Joker 31

Blind Man's Bluff 33

All You Touch 49

Happily Ever After 59

Shadows and Partially Lit Faces 64

Lucky 76

The Devil Makes Three 94

That's How It Was with Howie 117

Tick Tock 128

Drowning Girl 141

Editorial Reviews

2021 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award: Finalist in Cover Design: Small Format, Fiction
2020 American Fiction Awards: Winner in Short Story
2020 Best Book Awards Finalist
Included in 2020's Best Beach Reads by Parade

“Featuring 12 stories about women in various cities and eras, each share a connection to one another. And you're along for the journey as they reveal certain truths about the female experience. It's an anthem, and also a cry for a change.”

—Parade, “20 Classic and New Books About Feminism”

“A compelling collection that captures the mystery and menace beneath love and family life.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“I'm in love with this book. It is just so good. It's real and definitely something that makes you feel like you've been heard and you have a friend.“

—Ann Garvin, Founder of Tall Poppy Writers and USA Today best-selling author of I Thought You Said This Would Work, I Like You Just Fine When You're Not Around, The Dog Year, and On Maggie's Watch 

 “Corie Adjmi has a flair for dramatizing scenes. She homes in on the killer moment, and her dialogue is so honest that I was cringing at times . . . It is just so vivid. ”

—Susan Breen, author of The Fiction Class

“Corie Adjmi’s stories are sharply written, unsparing, and spot-on. With wisdom and humanity, Life and Other Shortcomings plumbs the mysteries of adult life: the menacing underside of love, the protean nature of grief, and the baffling difficulty of staying true to ourselves and the things we value most. Assured in her storytelling, Adjmi writes with force and perception. Her stories are a must-read.”
—Elyssa Friedland, author of The Floating Feldmans and The Intermission and Love and Miss Communication

“Pitch perfect and very haunting, Life and Other Shortcomings is a true delight. Adjmi’s interlocking stories are as funny as they are tragic. Her characters are so real and relatable, you’ll find yourself rooting for them, even as they get into trouble. Adjmi is a great new talent.”
—Alison Espach, author of The Adults

“All that glitters is not gold in Corie Adjmi’s wonderful short story collection Life and Other Shortcomings. Adjmi exposes the fear, envy, and yearning that simmer just beneath the surface of her characters’ beautiful lives. Her writing is both elegant and powerful. I was hooked from the first page to the last.”
—Ellen Sussman, New York Times best-selling author of four novels, A Wedding in Provence, The Paradise Guest House, French Lessons and On a Night Like This

“Among the women of these sto­ries are duti­ful house­wives, devout­ly reli­gious women, inse­cure teenagers, and many oth­er col­or­ful char­ac­ters. Pop culture references peppered throughout - including nostalgic callbacks to Dr.Scholl's sandals, Swanson's Frozen Dinners, Star Trek, and The Brady Bunch —only add to the realism and heart of the book. These stories are full of drama, humor, descriptive language, and insight, and they make for a very enjoyable read. Adjmi subtly, but so perceptively, unfolds the characters' private fears, hopes, and dreams, zeroing in on how a single experience or event can change a life.”

—Jewish Book Council 

“Twelve accounts bear witness to the female experience, and how the choices we make look differently depending on when and where we live. As a whole, the collection illustrates the influence of patriarchy, especially so before the #MeToo movement.”

—Travel +Leisure 

“For fans of Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, Amazon's Modern Love, and HBO's Mrs. Fletcher, Life and Other Shortcomings is both a cautionary tale and a captivating window into women's lives. An honest, incisive, and compelling portrayal of the female experience.”

—Beyond the Bookends 

“We're all familiar with the happy parts of relationships, we've been raised on them, but Life and Other Shortcomings gets into the nitty-gritty of what comes over time.”

—Paperback Paris 

“Corie Adjmi's Life and Other Shortcomings is a slice of life literary work full of lessons that need to be shared today. Juxtaposing the present with the past, the book reveals a web of interconnected stories meant to relate to women's everyday lives. These stories are so honest and relatable, it hurts.”

—Readers' Favorite 

“Corie Adjmi's linked short stories tell of the heartaches and difficulties of growing up—physically and spiritually—as a woman in a patriarchal society. Wonderful writing!”

—Francoise Brodsky, Director Shakespeare & Co 

“When you're tired of binge-watching Netflix, this collection is an honest cautionary tale about the female experience.”

—Brit + Co 

“Twelve stories highlight very different women and their journeys.Take a peek into these women's lives and into their relationships.“

—Frolic Media 

“Take a break from reality and relax with a great new book.“

—BuzzFeed 

“Honest portrayal of women in a patriarchal world.“

—Bookstr

“Poignant,laugh-out-loud funny, and unnerving all at once, Life and Other Shortcomings is the one you've been waiting for. This collection is replete with emotionally charged, compassionate, true tolife characters. Stories come together to create layer over layer of veiled emotional and psychological complexity.“

—Nicole Dweck, author of The Debt of Tamar

From the Publisher

2020-05-15
Adjmi’s debut collection of 12 linked short stories explores women’s lives from varying perspectives.

Characters recur in these tales, but each stands on its own. They take place in a range of eras from the 1970s to the present and take readers to various cities in the United States and Spain. All are succinct, slice-of-life stories, and at least half feature characters from the three couples introduced in the opening story, “Dinner Conversation,” which is set in New York City in 1998. The six diners are close friends who call themselves “The Sixers,” but despite their long history, they each have insecurities that will ultimately destroy their relationships. All the women in these stories navigate treacherous journeys through landscapes rife with misogyny and physical and psychological abuse. Many of the women have internalized their fears of growing older, as expressed by Kelly, the narrator of “The Drowning Girl”: “I WAS ONCE YOUNG AND PRETTY. THIS, WHO YOU SEE NOW, IS NOT ME.” Adjmi conjures convincing portraits of a variety of female characters with economical language and biting dialogue. Their relationships with men are not enviable, as most of the male characters are angry, belittling, and erratic. With piercing clarity, the author often offers an unexpected payoff in the final sentence. In “The Devil Makes Three,” for instance, Iris, an Orthodox Jew, prepares for a mikvah, a monthly ritual bath for women, before resuming marital relations. The engaging description of this arcane process is coupled with an account of Iris’ chaste online dalliance with a non-Jewish man. Readers can admire her adherence to the faith, see how restricted her life is, and end up with a sense of the sensual joy that she shares with her husband. However, not every story lands as well; some are a tad too cryptic. In the fablelike “Happily Ever After,” man loves car, woman loves man, woman destroys car, and man’s personality disintegrates. Adjmi’s take on reality is more satisfying.

A compelling collection that captures the mystery and menace beneath love and family life.

Kirkus Reviews