Laughing and Sexology Personified! "Shoes Hair Nails: Stories by Deborah Batterman"

Published by:  Author via Smashwords

Pages:  190

Barnes & Noble: Nook ebook

or Trade Paperback

Genre: Contemporary fiction, short stories

What Critics Are Saying :

Nancy Zafris~

"Using humor to part the curtains, Deborah Batterman steps inside the seriousness of amusingly awry relationships. Such is the illuminated cloth of Shoes Hair Nails that friends and passersby shine as brightly as family and lovers. In Batterman's heartfelt and jazzy debut, all ties are family ties."
—author of Lucky Strike and The Metal Shredders

Are Nail Salons Really The Male Equivalent to "Locker Rooms" for  Women?  LOL

Who's The Author :

Deborah Batterman is the author of Shoes Hair Nails (Uccelli Press, 2006). A story from her debut collection was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her stories have appeared in anthologies as well as various print and online journals, including Many Mountains Moving, Sistersong, Dunes Review, The MacGuffin, The Alsop Review, Octavo, three candles, Ensemble, Standards: The International Journal of Multicultural Studies, Prose Toad, and The Potomac.

The Bookish Dame Shares :

Kept me laughing and crying all night long!  Love this story collection. This book of short stories is truth and revelation the likes of which I had to marvel at and probably will forever.  How did I live so long and not be able to articulate some of the vital, primal things in my feminine heart regarding male sexuality, a woman's reasons for sex, family relationships that don't fulfill love, and the like?  I recognized them, but could never verbalize these feelings like Deborah Batterman has in her timely book of short stories.  Women everywhere will love "Shoes Hair Nails."  Men would do well to read it, too.

Like a book written with the wisdom of a "yankee" Flannery O'Connor, Batterman's stories are filled with satire, and laugh aloud humor, it's true; and, the profound insights she offers up in the quotable saltings of her work are new and stunning.  I love her words about life's choices, or non-choices, as it were:

"Some people jump into the fire, others dance around it till it burns itself out...And still others--fool themselves into thinking they're dancing in the wind, flying freely through the trees, when all they're really doing is grabbing for the next available branch.  Can't really call that choice, girl, can you?  It's more like drifting, if you ask me.  Or weighing options.  Where's the choice in that--the true, from-the-heart, from-the-gut choice?"





A warning: Don't judge the book by its first story!  I found Deborah's writing too obscure in her first story.  Her 2nd (or 3rd ?) generation removed-from-the-Holocaust Jewish culture, mixed with modern practices of parental love and mixed up relationships had me thinking too long and hard after reading...  This story, "Shoes," was too disjointed and obscure for me at first.  It doesn't have the flow and apparent wisdom of her other stories.  I thought it was less, initially engaging for a reader.  My hope is that her readers won't stop there and judge all the collection by this story.  Although I did recognize the connection of the shoes to her mother and life, it still wasn't as strong a story as you'll find later in her book.  I suggest starting with "Nails."



What Does A Woman's Nail Length and Color Choice Say About Her?

What I did like about "Shoes" and all of her stories is this running theme that life brings us opportunities to enjoy and to experience love in several forms: it's not always the love we chase most ardently that lends the most lasting pleasure in the long-run.  It behooves us to take the beautiful moments we're offered despite otherwise being constrained--since those moments may be our only times in life that hold cherished wisdom and memories to keep us going in life. 

 Or as Deborah Batterman expresses it:

"Maybe you had to stop banking on the future to make it (life) work for you...Maybe too much insurance took (takes) the life from you."

The Dame's Final Word:

If you're wondering what you're doing in your marriage or significant relationships, if you're "stuck" and immobile, if you want to capture your "good name" back, if you wonder what men really want and what women's expectations are, and if you need a truth that brings a confirmation of laughter;  you better click the link to get "Shoes Hair Nails" right after you read this!


5  Sassy "Steel Magnolia" (shining platinum crackled over hot pink) nail Stars

PS:  Thanks for the kick in the tush,  Deborah!

Your Bookish Dame

Bloomingdale's: "Serenity"
New Fall Collection  :]