Short People

This collection of stories gets inside the heads of kids. Furst reveals voices of children that are eerily familiar but more expressive than even the most articulate child could ever be. He has a particularly good eye for detail. His memory for the stuff we had as kids--and our bizarre attachment to these tv shows and toys--could be the stuff of a bad 90s movie. But Furst uses this attention to detail for much more than ironic "retro" nostalgia. In a least redemptive interpretation, these stories could question whether it is all worth it. At their most respectful, the stories give kids a kind of respect that they very rarely get, even though they deserve it. Oh, and it is also very funny.

SHORT PEOPLE, the first book of stories by the very talented Joshua Furst, is more than just a superb collection of short stories - it is a unique format of exploring the minds of children. Furst has written plays and his intensely pungent dialogue he writes for his characters reflects that experience. Furst scoops out ordinary children (whose view of the universe is nascent if unsoiled by truth) and has them interact to suggest the way simple incidents of childhood can brew into adult character deviations. He tells 'reports' of a dysfuntional family the way those dysfuntions are perceived by children and in doing so he makes 'mature deviant behavior' all the more terrifying. There are stories that play for laughs (how well he knows the terror of guilt imposed by onanism, by sexual exploration, by body image perceptions!) and stories that are devastatingly sad. Interspersed between these ten tales are one page 'document statements' about such occult trials as incest, physical abuse, autism, hyperactivity, etc and it is only in one of the final stories that the reason for insertion of these strange small 'fragments' emerges.In one of the most successful stories, "Failure to Thrive", a nurse describes the 'short people' in her care in a special care nursery: "They were the children of frail, wealthy women in need of extra recovery time, or poor women there without family, or women whose husbands were out at the bar, whose boyfriends were in jail, whose handful of lovers had no idea - and never would - that they'd just given birth; these were the children of children who would never see them, of women who would never want the, of parents already beginning to feel guilty for being less capable than they knew they should be."Powerful stuff, this. Yet there is also much to just entertain in Furst's writing. His ideas are so pregnant that they beg to be extended into full novels. Despite the 'short story' nature of this first book, it still is a page turner that is very difficult to put down. An excellent debut!

This book really blew me away. Mr. Furst has a hyper-acute sense of the pitfalls of childhood, the moral and ethical whirpools we're thrown into by our parents and "friends." My heart broke over and over as I made my way through this beautifully crafted collection of stories, some moments making me relive my own pains and humiliations, some moments too horrible and touching for me to ever imagine. I found myself lost in these chracters - as lost as they are - and when each story ended I felt I'd been placed inside their lives, so vibrantly, for that brief time. When I reached the end of the book I wanted more, more. There are ten stories in the book, as well as interstitial writings that pack a wollop on their own. I call your attention to the story "Red Lobster" which will bowl you over with its economy, fluidity, and heartwrenching honesty. Do yourself a favor and pick up this excellent book.

I've never read anyone who writes about children the way Joshua Furst does. The stories in this debut collection are acute and honest, and are often harrowing. In places Furst's style reminds me of Dostoyevsky. I particularly admired The Age of Exploration and Merit Badge. There is also a kind of running story outside of a story that pays off with surprising power near the collection's end. All in all, it's an auspicious debut.

I've never read anyone who writes about children the way Joshua Furst does in this debut collection. His stories are acute and honest, often harrowing. In places he reminds me of Dostoyevsky. I especially enjoyed The Age of Exploration and Merit Badge. There is also a very effective kind of story outside of a story that runs through the book and pays off near the end. I won't spoil it by describing how it works, but suffice it to say that it really does.