cat person

”Ellie in “Biter” bites. Ted in “The Good Guy” needs to fantasize about stabbing women to sexually perform. Laura in “The Matchbox Sign” imagines that her body is crawling with parasites — and her boyfriend participates in the fantasy. These characters remain their pathologies; the curtain falls on them before we can ever ask: Now what?”

is it her job to tell us "now what"?

Not sure. The critic seemed to think her portrayal of these characters was one dimensional—they were just their obsessions

that's kinda how i felt about ted tbh

I haven’t read the book. I know i sort of felt like that about “the good guy.” “Ted’s” self absorption and indifference to the women in his life was nauseating—which was the point, obviously—but in the end I wasn’t sure what to think except “ted sucks.”

Xp sorry didn’t see you posted again. But ya. Probably won’t read this so i’ll never know for sure what the book is like

read the first three stories last night. Damn... this is pretty bad

This seemed to me like a more trustworthy slam than the NYT review:

https://slate.com/culture/2019/01/kristen-roupenian-book-cat-person-review.html

I've read all but the last two stories. Really, really rough - clearly rushed and poorly written & edited throughout. The subtlety, detail, pacing, and banal horror of "Cat Person" - a completely brilliant story not at all diminished by the stuff it's sandwiched between in here - are missing. Just caught up on the thread, and yeah, I was thinking Stephen King the whole time, also Chuck Palahniuk. Lots of body horror, gore, magical realist/fantasy stuff. "The Good Guy" isn't even worth discussing. I thought "Bad Boy" was good but felt incomplete. As others have said itt, the pacing and uncertainty of "Cat Person" are so much of what make it great, and she gets to have a "shock" ending that is actually sadly pretty predictable and common and familiar. Other than Girls, there aren't many other works of fiction that have so vividly captured dating in the 2010's. But the horror and pulpiness of the writing obscure the social critique, which for the most part is pretty pedestrian and uninteresting. Pretty disappointed - I'm not a horror fan (do love SK though), but she's sort of a lousy writer, and needed more time to work on this stuff. A one hit wonder for now.

Rip

its sad she was a cat person :(

reading "the good guy" shocked me; i didn't know new yorker editors still work so hard.

there aren't many other works of fiction that have so vividly captured dating in the 2010's

dating has always been like this, nothing 2010s about it imo

it is often much more exciting and less grim than this, surely? not that this scenario isn't common

yeah it's exciting, high risk/high reward

LL you're right, I misremembered there being some Tinder element in the story (despite having read it for the second time only a few days ago). besides the texting, could've easily taken place in the 90s

I am now going through all my remembering all my horrible dating stories. UGH. I really wish there had been more online interaction about it during my peak years, I would never have put up with some of that shit.

i think dating is a whole different ball game for women. i don't like the alienated aspect of online dating and pray i'll never feel the need to go back to it, but i've honestly never been treated cruelly or disrespectfully by someone who i just happened to be dating. worst experience was the night someone just made it clear that she found me extremely boring.

this is one of my more obvious observations but still.

I've only online dated twice (like 2 dates/people) but it doesn't matter, it happens outside of that. For women it is a continual calculus of what you portray, how nice you are, how funny, how much you aren't a total cunt, what was the final tabulation of services paid for by each other, you went on a date and realized...meh... but still try to salvage something because you might just not know "THE REAL THEM". And then since you put all that energy in anyway and your/his apartment is so far away and you have been taught to never make anyone uncomfortable or sad... how dangerous do they seem, do they know where you work and who your friends are that they might sabotage your life later or show up somewhere and threaten harm. It's exhausting.

yeah exactly. so much anxiety seems built into it for women. i don't really ever worry about that stuff. i hate disappointing people, so saying "it's not gonna work" can be hard, but like, not because i fear a bad reaction. different worlds.

it's funny that in the one story the guy doesn't hold back what he's thinking in the beginning (and you could read this as confidence from feeling invulnerable / privilege of not fearing violence from women if u were so inclined) and it leads to a violent reaction that appears to kill him

true. maybe i should watch out more.

ok I finished it. "Death Wish" is sort of like "Bad Boy," a dating/sex nightmare that veers into magical realism. those ones are both OK but man... the last one, "Biter," ends with the most EYEROLL worthy #MeToo era stinger. the whole story is a setup for that last sentence, which might as well be accompanied by a rimshot.

plz share

are there any stories where people are in emotionally supportive relationships based on mutual affection? maybe something else bad could happen to them after, but to start.

No

hm, i guess that makes sense based on her whole style. but ime most relationships are like that. not perfect, sometimes they don't work out, but people tend to care about their partners, even if they also resent them in some ways. what was alienating about "the good guy" is he only saw the women in his life through the prism of himself--how they reflected back on how he saw himself (powerful, a "good guy," whatever).

xxp Mordy - the setup for the punchline would take too long to explain & its groanworthiness might be lost. it has to be read to be believed. I'll try later

xp well yeah, she's not the ambassador of dating and relationships, she has a niche and mines it.

for sure, and i'm not saying she "should" do her thing differently. the thing that is surprising, reading about this, is that she isn't really going for realism anyway, even though cat person suggested that was her bag. these are horror stories.

she should have leaned into the punchline gimmick and ended every single story with "Whore."

whore or stories

But my favorite is the final story in the collection, “Biter,” which is about a girl who discovers a love of biting in preschool. Later, as an adult, she must find a socially acceptable way to get away with assuaging her craving for flesh; when she accidentally stumbles on a predatory man, she discovers that she can bite with impunity. It made me say “ew” out loud while I was reading it, but I didn’t feel like that “ew” moment was used (as with the white worm) for no reason. This story’s ending, which I won’t spoil, lands. Its moral seems to be: Take advantage of the flaws in the system, as long as they’re not going anywhere. Good for the biter, I guess.

Is the punchline something about biting off more than she could chew?

how hard does she want to bite? a little biting is ok

being single and dating is at once the most debased and pathetic state one can find themselves in, and the most fascinating, because you can tell your friends tittilating and gruesome tales of bad dates. i look forward to finding a long-term partner, yetcst the same time know that once i do, ill be forever more boring to everyone i meet

Oh man, I loved to bite as a child, teen, uh early dater. I really had to hone that in. Maybe I should read that story.

i feel like biting is extremely normal. if you're biting enough to break skin that's pretty different though.

so the woman makes up a game called "Opportunity" to figure out a way to clandestinely bite her new boss: where he's most often alone, where she could satisfy her urge to bite him and plausibly get away with it. the boss is portrayed as a total heartthrob, innocent and hot, all the women in the office love him. the woman is really playing Opportunity a lot and trying to figure out how to bite him. one day, he goes in for an unsolicited kiss and grabs her butt. she bites a huge chunk of his cheek off, extremely satisfied. the final two lines:

Because, as Ellie quickly learned, there was one in every office: the man everyone whispered about. All she had to do was listen, and wait, and give him an Opportunity, and soon enough, he would find her.

COME ON

Yeah, I was a bad biter. I think it was aggro/frustration issues already seeing/feeling it in my mind/jaw. I probably would relate to this story.

wait, how was it an unsolicited kiss if she was playing "opportunity"?

also she would definitely not get away with that.

"Biter" is written from the POV of a female "predator," someone who learned early in life that her sexual desire to bite people isn't socially acceptable, and suddenly finds herself employed by a man so attractive her urge to bite him overcomes logic and self-control. she's enamored with him and we see him as a flawless, inevitable victim. when he makes a move far more aggressive than she anticipated, she's able to plausibly retaliate and not only not get in trouble, but gain the respect of her coworkers, who actually have been menaced by this "elf" all along. Fuck

the combo of horror/magical realism + sexual/romantic realism does not work at all imo - these stories are a drag

Weird

so on a “short stories with similar shtick that’s somewhat shocking/out there” how does this writer compare to like, Chuck Palahniuk

xpost That one seems to work. But I haven't read it. I literally feel I live most of my life waiting for a rational and defendable reason to beat the shit out of someone and bite them Rick Grimes-style. Because I am tired of passively getting out of the way of terrible men.

xp besides Stephen King that's the other author I thought of. I mean, whatever collection "Guts" is in is lightyears ahead of this.

xpost That one seems to work. But I haven't read it.

it's not a bad conceit, but the execution is just atrocious

Well at least the cover of the book is nice.

How does the magical realism/sex/horror element of her writing compare with someone like Alissa Nutting?