Instant Love Issue #28

By Jami Attenberg

By Amber Drea
Published: June 1st, 2006 | 12:00am

Blogger and journalist Jami Attenberg’s debut story collection, Instant Love (which shares its name with her zine), meditates on the different ways people search for this elusive emotion. Told with precise language and clever dialogue, these darkly humorous tales pinpoint the complexities of romantic, platonic, and familial relationships.

Three characters make repeated appearances: the brainy, hyper-sexual, and independent Holly Stoner, her straightforward yet secretive sister Maggie, and a stuttering, insecure artist named Sara Lee. Attenberg examines key moments when these women are forced to make a decision about who they are and what they want. She juxtaposes images, concepts, and time to create emotional depth and broaden meaning beyond the individual story itself.

In “The Perfect Triangle,” Holly asks her friend Shelly do her eye shadow in a triangular shape, alluding to the love triangle that develops later in the story. The narrative of “Mean Bone,” in which Maggie hopes to shock her nice, dispassionate husband by telling him she once “cut a man,” alternates between the despair she felt then and the despair she feels now. And in “Instant Love,” one of the standout and most erotically charged stories, Holly’s online dating exploits pile up like the trash outside her neighbors’ door.

Even the stories told from other characters’ perspectives are connected in some way. We see Holly and Maggie’s neglectful father, Bill, through the eyes of his latest mistress. When two best friends drift apart by one’s decision to get a divorce, it echoes Sara Lee’s attempt to come between them during college. Like a novel, there’s an overall arc and an entire world in which characters grow and change over time, but each story is self-contained, leaving the reader with a sense of finality.

Jami Attenberg’s dry wit, effective use of structure, and ability to portray characters who are at once familiar and unpredictable places her on the literary shelf alongside the likes of Lorrie Moore. Though the book’s overall attitude toward its subject is cynical, you’re sure to fall in love with Instant Love.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

INSTANT LOVE (Shaye Areheart)
By Jami Attenberg
272 pages
$17.95