Like You'd Understand, Anyway

This collection of short stories is thoroughly absorbing, transporting the reader across time and space. The details of the stories put the reader firmly into the settings, with strongly portrayed characters that the reader can't help but empathize with, even when they aren't the most sympathetic. Most of these stories focus on the disastrous consequences of human hubris and folly, from the Chernobyl disaster to the French Revolution, and provide compelling insights into the people involved in these events.

This is the book that made me a Jim Shepard fan. Time Magazine, in its "Best Of" for 2007, called it off-beat. I like to think of the stories as very human. You probably know next to nothing about Hadrian, Cosmonauts or executioners living during the French Revolution- and I know even less. But what makes these stories stand out is the combination of sympathetic, conflicted characterizations, vivid imagery and flashes of humor. Shepard isn't a best-selling author by any means- when I borrowed his second collection,"Love and Hydrogen," from the Library it turned out no one else had- but for anyone looking for involving, energetic storytelling should give this book a chance.

The funniest thing happened while reading "Like You'd Understand, Anyway". I didn't like it. I was telling myself how absurd these stories were and I should just put this thing down. I wasn't connecting with the book. The characters were weird and the endings were weirder. After plodding through the book, I found myself thinking about the stories. The tsunami in Alaska, the weird family in The Zero Meter Diving Team, the soldier with the wacko father. I actually enjoyed reflecting in those stories and characters. It was like Shepard wrote the book that way. It was so far out that it burned onto your psyche. It makes me think of some of the other books that I didn't finish because I wasn't into them. What did I miss? Bravo! Bravo for Like You'd Understand, Anyway. It's the finest book I ever hated.

This is a wonderful book of short stories, beautifully worded illustrations of the convoluted relationships between men--brothers, fathers and sons, friends, strangers. Each story is told of a different place and time, but the theme runs constant. I don't even like short stories, as a rule. But these were great. Ordered for a gift as soon as I completed my library rental of the book.

What's left to say? The stories here are brilliant. People have commented on how various the stories here are, taking you from Chernobyl to Australia's inland desert to revolutionary France. And there's a marvelous treat in experiencing these exceptionally evocative, varied settings--every time you pick up the book, you're taken somewhere entirely different. But it's not just a party trick--even as they take you all over the globe and human history, they also feel like they fit together with their own kind of cohesiveness, led by concerns about family--a cohesiveness that makes each individual story even more rewarding upon re-reading. I have a feeling I'll be returning to them for a long time, always looking forward to finding something new.