Book review: “Show Don’t Tell: Stories”, by Curtis Sittenfeld

In “The richest baby-sitter in the world”, Kit reflects on his time spent taking care of the child of a character from Jeff-Bezos before becoming a famous billionaire. In “White Women Lol”, Jill, a white woman, tries to redeem herself after she was canceled online for having said to a group of blacks who, according to her, are stands to leave the birthday party ‘A friend. And in “Lost but not forgotten”, Sittenfeld brings the character of Lee Fiora to his first novel, “Prep” – Now, at his 30 years of reunion, reflecting on his past while attacking his future and a new potential love.

“Show, Don’t Tell” is a so-called golden rule in creative writing, another largely detained belief that comes back to a lot of hypotheses on how things should be. Using the edict as the title of his collection, but then to disobey it voluntarily – and by making everything so damn amusing – Sittenfeld says a lot about the constraints that we, and in particular the middle -aged women, came to accept. Presenting the glory of the complicated life of its characters and allowing them to speak with voices is a kind of rebellion, and it is exhilarating.

In the history of the title, we meet Ruthie Flaherty, a 25 -year -old woman close to the end of her first year of a higher education writing program, pending the letter which will inform her of her second year funding, which will define its next steps as a person in the world. The many distractions she faces swirling through history: among them, she wants to win back the affections of her classmate Doug; Ask his 50 -year -old neighbor to quit smoking in his apartment; And discover how to answer Bhadveer, a male classmate who insists that beautiful women cannot write a great literature.

Of course, what Ruthie really tries to understand is who she will be. And, has the completion of history succeed? Twenty years later, she is a successful author – “in this case, my novels are considered” women’s fiction “,” she explains – and meeting Bhadveer, “who has reached the status we We all believed ourselves aspiring at the time, “for a drink. Once there, Bhadveer insists on appointing the classmates who are not “writers”, and it is only a month later that Ruthie discovers how she wishes she replied: “Yes, you can To say if people have published books, ”she thinks. “But you can’t say if they are writers. … The way they live in the world, the way they observe it – of course, they are writers. »»