Do the Windows Open? is a series of hilarious linked tales documenting the mania of the modern day in devastating detail-tales that have had readers of The New Yorker laughing out loud for years.
The beguiling and alienated narrator-who finds nearly everything interesting and almost nothing clear-has set herself the never-ending goal of photographing a world-renowned reproductive surgeon, Walden Pond, the ponds of Nantucket, and all the houses Anne Sexton ever lived in.
On the way, she searches for organically grown vegetables, windows that open, and an endodontist who acts like a normal person. She sometimes compares herself unfavorably to Jacqueline Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and Princess Diana.
What emerges is a unique sensibility under siege. This is a remarkably original literary performance, one that speaks to anyone looking for the refuge laughter offers from life in an absurd world.
Julie Hecht's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and Harper's. She lives in East Hampton, New York in the winter and Massachusetts in the summer. She has been writing stories since she was eight years old.
Show moreDo the Windows Open? is a series of hilarious linked tales documenting the mania of the modern day in devastating detail-tales that have had readers of The New Yorker laughing out loud for years.
The beguiling and alienated narrator-who finds nearly everything interesting and almost nothing clear-has set herself the never-ending goal of photographing a world-renowned reproductive surgeon, Walden Pond, the ponds of Nantucket, and all the houses Anne Sexton ever lived in.
On the way, she searches for organically grown vegetables, windows that open, and an endodontist who acts like a normal person. She sometimes compares herself unfavorably to Jacqueline Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and Princess Diana.
What emerges is a unique sensibility under siege. This is a remarkably original literary performance, one that speaks to anyone looking for the refuge laughter offers from life in an absurd world.
Julie Hecht's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and Harper's. She lives in East Hampton, New York in the winter and Massachusetts in the summer. She has been writing stories since she was eight years old.
Show moreJulie Hecht's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and Harper's. She lives in East Hampton, New York in the winter and Massachusetts in the summer. She has been writing stories since she was eight years old.
It's surprising that Hecht, a longtime contributor to the New Yorker and a winner of the O. Henry Prize, hasn't published a book before this. These nine stories are all narrated by the same bracingly neurotic heroine, a 40-ish photographer named Isabelle who has a lot to say on virtually everything from the intricacies of macrobiotic cooking to whether or not her optician is or was a Nazi, the son of Nazis, a neo-Nazi or, at the very least, a Nazi sympathizer. When she's not working on her idiosyncratic photo-essays (flowers in decline, reproductive surgeons and their dogs), Isabelle spends an inordinate amount of time chasing down objects essential for her daily life, like organic vegetables and reversible alpaca coats from England. Meanwhile, she keeps up a barrage of exceedingly manic diatribes on such pressing subjects as the greenhouse effect, the passage of time and how annoying Swedish people can be‘all expressed in borderline hysterical, impeccably crisp diction, like Miss Manners with the wrong prescription. The best of these stories are hilariously funny, filled with the horrors of modern life (bad architecture, traffic jams, the smell of peanuts on the bus) and wacky exchanges with her loudmouthed reproductive surgeon, Dr. Loquesto, her careless floor sander, the guy at the Discount Drugs or her neighbors in Nantucket and East Hampton. Some of the stories may remind the reader of a long phone conversation with a batty, obsessed neighbor who doesn't know when to hang up. You may breathe a little sigh of relief when they're over‘but then again, her point of view is so entertaining, you can't wait for her to call back. (Jan.)
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