The bed moved Stories

Review by Booklist Review

Whether geology-camp losers, webcam porno costars, school-newspaper wannabe-dropouts, the female narrators in Schiff's debut collection are all brainy and vividly portrayed in the author's spirited, clever language. A woman becomes obsessed with a guy through his cancer blog; another yearns to know men touched by the events of 9/11; a daughter learns about her recently deceased father through his cached Internet search history; a trip to a nudie hot spring with a flat-broke pot dealer goes a little bit badly. In Rate Me, a woman sends her actual body parts to a rating agency in order to improve herself, piece by piece. Schiff's stories, most of which breeze by at under 10 pages, are about the sex her book's title suggests, but also about grief, religion, culture, and the process of growing and aging. An observer extraordinaire, Schiff elucidates her characters' thoughts and moments, sharing them like little, unassuming gems. Schiff's stories are piercing and playful, witty and wise.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Young women mourn, date, and equivocate in Schiff's lively debut story collection. Her narrators are in their teens and 20s, underemployed, and thwarted in their search for intimacy: "she forgot all the sex she had as soon as she had it, she didn't really have it when she had it, and she hadn't for a long time." "Another Cake," along with several other stories, deals with a father's death, the narrator returning home to New Jersey to find her old books full of "promising girls... girls looking forward to the kind of loss that only hurts a little." "Welcome Lilah" and "It Doesn't Have to Be a Big Deal" take on a reluctance to commit to boyfriends who seem less than ideal. More experimental pieces include "Rate Me," in which body parts are sent off to be rated and improved. "Communication Arts" documents, via increasingly frantic emails, the trials of an adjunct professor whose students range from confused to confrontational; the narrator of "World Trade Date" keeps seeing men who had worked in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and had "escaped, and claimed to be humbled." Consistently and darkly funny, Schiff makes light of her characters' dilemmas, but never belittles their genuine distress, resulting in a fresh, varied collection that will resonate with readers. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A talented young writer explores sex, death, and family relationships in this spare, enticing story collection. "I only know about parent death and sluttiness," Schiff declares in "Write What You Know," the final story in her arresting debut collection. "What else do I know?" She goes on to list a host of other topics"the psychology of Jewish people who have assimilated," "liberal guilt and sexual guilt and taking liberties sexually," "unrequited love, and love that was once requited, but not for very long" among themall of which we've already gleaned from devouring the irresistible stories here. But Schiff leaves out one thing: she also knows how to seduce a reader as blithely as some of her characters casually bed men, writing in stylishly simple and almost staccato prose, beneath the surface of which we soon spot roiling emotionsfeelings of loss, the urge to connect. The young women and girls we meet here sleep around and suffer consequences ("The Bed Moved") or don't ("Little Girl"). They help their fathers ("Longviewers"), mourn them in expected ways ("Another Cake"), and absorb posthumously revealed paternal secrets ("http://www.msjiz/boxx374/mpeg"). They explore the possibilities of budding sexuality at nerdy Geology Camp ("Schwartz, Spiegel, Zaveri, Cho") and the limits of proud promiscuity ("Tips"). Some of the 23 stories in this slim volume are amusingly out there ("Rate Me"; "Communication Arts"); others hit close to home. But after taking them all in, we may find ourselves quite taken with this distinctive new voice in fiction, hungry for more of it andlike the collection's titular bedmoved. Schiff's startlingly honest, deliciously wry stories herald the arrival of a beguiling new talent. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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The Bed Moved   There were film majors in my bed--they talked about film. There were poets, coxswains, guys trying to grow beards.   "Kids get really scared when their dad grows a beard," I said.   Finally, I had an audience. I helped a pitcher understand the implications of his team's hazing ritual. I encouraged indecisive dancer-anthropologists to double major. When a guy apologized for being sweaty, I got him a small towel. I made people feel good.   Then I took a break. Then I forgot that I was taking a break. Spring was here. Jake was here. Also Josh. One dancer-anthropologist dropped anthropology, just did dance. He danced with honors.   "Mazel tov," I said.   The bed moved. Movers moved it. Movers asked what my dad did, why he wasn't moving the bed.   New guys came to the bed. New guys had been in the Gulf War, had been bisexual, had taken out teeth, had taken out ads. Musical types left CDs with their names markered on--I kept a pile. I was careful not to smudge them, scratch them. (Scratch that, I wasn't careful.)   "So many musicians in this city," I observed, topless.   Boxer shorts were like laundry even on their bodies. Guys burrowed down for not long enough, popped up, smiled.   Did I have something? Did I have anything?   I did.   Something, anything, went in the trash, except one, which didn't. One hadn't gone on in the first place.   After, cell phones jingled: Be Bop, Mariachi Medley, Chicken Dance, Die Alone.   Nervous, I felt nervous. There was mariachi in the trains, or else it was just one guy playing "La Bamba." I slow-danced into clinic waiting rooms. Receptionists told me to relax and try to enjoy the weekend, since we wouldn't know anything till Monday. Sunday I lost it, banged my face against the bed. Be easy, girl, I thought. Be bop. Something was definitely wrong with me--I never called myself "girl." I played CDs, but CDs by artists who had already succeeded. They had succeeded for a reason. They weren't wasting time in my bed. One did pass through the bed, to brag. He had been divorced, had met Madonna.   He asked, "Is this what women are like now?" Excerpted from The Bed Moved: Stories by Rebecca Schiff All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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