Faculty Member Amy Hempel Awes Critics With New Collection of Short Stories

Bennington’s Graduate Writing program core faculty member, Amy Hempel has inspired a virtual standing ovation from critics, authors, and readers alike with her new book The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel, published by Scribners.

The New York Times Book Review begins, “This could be a very short review. Read this book.” It doesn’t end there. O, The Oprah Magazine writes, “There are writers who pull you along in deep, satisfying drafts of narrative and human color; then there are writers who, sentence by sentence, cause you to stop breathing. Hempel leads the latter group.” Publisher’s Weekly defines “Hempel’s genius, whether in first or third person, is to make her characters’ feelings completely integral to the scenes they inhabit; her terse descriptions become elegantly telgraphic—and telepathic—reportage, with not a word wasted and not a single fact embellished.”

Novelist Chuck Palahniuk, who admitted to spending $75 on a copy of her first edition hard cover, observes, “Each story is so tight, so boiled to bare facts, that all you can do is lie on the floor, face down, and praise it.” The New York Times concludes, “You read her stories and wonder, ‘Why are they so wonderful?’ The answer comes to you at the very end of this volume, in a line toward the close of “Offertory.” “Because a human being made this.”

To read more about Amy Hempel’s work:
The New York Times Book Review (May 21, 2006)
The San Francisco Chronicle (May 14, 2006)
Chuck Palahniuk on Amy Hempel in LA Weekly