Picked it up purely because of the cover quote by The Paris Review: The godmother of flash fiction. Its stories dance somewhere between poetry and short fiction.
They are not quite the regular cadence of fiction. Every sentence feels like it has a world of meaning behind it.
The stories' themes are mostly about family, but most of all, the alienness between men and women. What make these even more powerful is the life lived by an older woman, that seeps into the stories to make them more rounded and balanced rather than them being a breath of youthful short-sighted inclinations towards meaning.
Is Diane truly the godmother of flash fiction? I can at least say that her stories inspired me. They feel like a good balance of fever dream and legibility.
Some quotes.
I tell myself I am a prominent supporter of Ruby's and well familiar with her tendency towards idealizing.
I intend to be unreservedly triumphant in love—that sounds good—also undefeated in in all of the other drastically risky aspects of my life.
Both from Tassel rue. The latter is a nice mocking of our expectations of perfect relationships and our fear of being hurt or being with "the wrong person".
She has said, "I don't make friends easily with men. I don't really like the trouble of them. I like the idea of men."
From One woman and five men.
It is sad to ask, please don't ask—but what is the measure of this wife's utility, character, desirability?
Why did I ask?
From Everything is wonder.
And in the morning, I pinned a beautiful and well-made cloth flower clip over one ear to cheer myself up, because in my dream I had neglected a dying child while it felt like eons were passing.
From I fixed my hair.
I realize now, after writing out some of these quotes, that their value derives much more from the context of the complete story. The true strength of Diane's flash fiction lies in the way her stories feverishly build up short-lived worlds. Painting humans and their flaws and friction while the previous sentence hasn't even ended yet.