The Hidden Side of the Moon: Stories

The stories in this book are strange and varied: they're witty, sharp, disturbing, hypnotic, brilliant, boring, ethereal (sometimes too much so), evocative and compelling by turns. I can't really say anything that would refer equally to all the work presented in this volume. Some of the stories were deadly dull; they were dreaming, floating, non-sensical and, well, too diffuse and non-specific to be anything but boring--though the language was interesting, jumping and alive. Some of the stories don't make sense, and are quite proud to be so. And then there are some very good ones scattered around that make this book worth possessing."The Little Dirty Girl" is funny and touching story about a woman who had resolutely turned aside from life finding something new and compelling in her sudden friendship to a very dirty little girl who is more than she seems--a woman reawakening to human contact. Her emotional state is finely conveyed with a really good first-person POV. "I Had Vacantly Crumbled It Into My Pocket..." is a scary-sad tale of loneliness and the way that some people seek out the dark predator, blackest Death, in relief. Despair! Despair!"Come Closer" is a goodish horror tale of a pretty house on the end of a lane filled with fruit trees... only what are those fruit exactly? "Window Dressing" is fun and fashion through the eyes of a mannequin, the ultimate seductress. She's plastic and she can't think--making her thoughts hilarious. "The Cliches From Outer Space" is funny; a short little reworking of some feminist pet peeve stories done with blackest humor. But my favorite story, the best one in the book, is "The View From This Window" which is just this wonderful story about what it feels like to fall in love, which I know sounds derivative and commonplace, but not so well as in this story. 90% of fiction features falling in love somewhere in its plotlines and thematic paradigms, while in this story, Russ captures perfectly, in her evocative and fearless prose, the craziness, the wonder, the need and scariness of realizing how much this one person means to you. Russ doesn't sketch out the characters or elucidate their thoughts, but merely writes with perfect pitch the roiling confusion of emotion, of love. It's not linear, it doesn't strive for clarity--just immediacy of emotion, of feeling, of the freefall (scary, uncertain, anguished and exalted) of finding oneself in love. This is a beautiful story.

The stories in this book are strange and varied; they're witty, sharp, disturbing, hypnotic, brilliant, boring, ethereal (sometimes too much so), evocative and compelling. I can't really say anything that would refer equally to all the work presented in this volume. Some of the stories were deadly dull; they were dreaming, floating, non-sensical and, well, boring. Some of them don't make sense. And then there are some very good ones scattered around that make this book worth possessing."The Little Dirty Girl" is funny and touching story about a woman who has turned aside from life finding something new and compelling in her sudden friendship to a very dirty little girl who is more than she seems. "'I Had Vacantly Crumbled It Into My Pocket...'" is a scary-sad tale of loneliness and the way that some people seek out the dark predator, blackest Death, in relief. "Come Closer" is a goodish horror tale of a pretty house on the end of a lane filled with fruit trees... only what are those fruit exactly? "Window Dressing" is fun and fashion through the eyes of a mannequin, that ultimate seductress. "The Cliches From Outer Space" is hilarious; it's a short little reworking of some feminist pet peeve stories done with blackest humor. But my favorite story, the best one in the book, is "The View From This Window" which is just this wonderful story about what it feels like to fall in love, which I know sounds derivative and done about a million times, but not so well as in this story. 90% of fiction features falling in love somewhere in its plotlines and thematic structures, while in this story, Russ captures perfectly, in her evocative and delicate prose, the craziness, the wonder, the need and scariness of realizing how much this one person means to you. While many writers can convey emotions like hate and pain and nihilistic blankness, only a few can do the same with that most blatantly ill-used of all emotions deployed in fiction, love.