La Negra Blanca – A stripper becomes the fixation of a wealthy client who feels entitled to her body. New resident Marcy feels out of place next to her perfect neighbors and immediately sees that they “only in relation to those around them.” There are racial and class divides amongst the inhabitants and employees.
My favorite was Crazy Women.įlorida – A peek into the windows of a Naples, Florida community. The cycle of violence and the burdens our family can place on us.ĭifficult Women – Different categories of misunderstood women: Loose Women, Frigid Women, Crazy Woman, Mothers, Dead Girls. He thinks his wife doesn’t know, but she does–and she prefers the brother. The Mark of Cain (link goes to story)- When this husband is with his mistress, he has his twin brother take his place at home. My favorite moment is the short time when Bianca’s affliction is celebrated. Unable to handle the side effects of Bianca’s company, everyone in her life abandons her. Water, All Its Weight – Everywhere Bianca goes, the water follows–and then comes the rot and mold. Carolina is married now, but the sisters will always remain inseparable. Savvie and Carolina endured a terrible trauma together when they were children. I Will Follow You– A haunting story about the unbreakable bond between sisters. Many were shorter, character pieces, but I tend to like longer stories with more plot. I usually only feature my favorite short stories in these collections, but I felt the need to think through all these stories. It made me feel more at ease when thinking about the stories that ventured into magical realism. This story was simply a story about a girl who is followed, haunted by water and its weight. When I write, there is rarely some grand statement I am trying to make. I didn’t feel like I fully understood every story, but I found this great quote from Gay about the creation of Water, All Its Weight: “When I wrote this story I was living in an apartment with a rotting ceiling, and I thought: “What if someone created rot just by existing?” It’s interesting that a lot of people read way more into this story. It goes to show the importance of having a diversity of voices. I had this exact same conversation in college and I remember how it made me question my own sanity. There’s a part in Difficult Women ( Crazy Women) where a woman explains the considerations she makes when walking home late at night and her boyfriend tells her she is crazy.
One of the best parts of this collection were the moments of recognition and vindication–the feeling that someone else out there understands. I got the most out of it when I only read a single story at a time, so that I could focus more on their differences than their similarities. My only complaint is that if you read it straight through, it feels like you’re repeatedly reading about the same situations. Common threads weave throughout many of the stories: child loss, adultery, abuse, rough sex, twins, the bond between women. In multiple stories a character begs another not to break their heart, only to be later disappointed. These characters have been pushed to the limit and each story felt like an additional weight on my shoulders. We’re introduced to a variety of women: jaded women, women who don’t think they deserve love, women who have been hurt by those they trusted or strangers, women who want to feel pain, women who are trying to find their place, women who know exactly what they want out of life, fierce women who instinctively protect their loved ones. I felt like I intimately knew each character, even though some of the stories were very short. One of the many things that Gay excelled at was creating fully-formed characters and relationships in just a few pages.
I can’t say I enjoyed reading Difficult Women, but I’m glad I read it. Twenty-one short stories about flawed, complex individuals who might typically be reduced to dismissive categories.