Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty

By Diane Williams

In Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty, Diane Williams lays bare the urgency and weariness that shape our lives in stories honed sharper than ever. With sentences auguring revelation and explosion, Williams's unsettling stories—a cryptic meeting between neighbors, a woman's sexual worries, a graveside discussion, a chimney on fire—are narrated with razor-sharp tongues and naked, uproarious irreverence.

These fifty stories hum with tension, each one so taut that it threatens to snap and send the whole thing sprawling—the mess and desire, the absurdity and hilarity, the bruises and bleeding, the blushes and disappointments and secrets. An audacious, unruly tour de force, Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty cements Diane Williams' position as one of the best practitioners of the short form in literature today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: McSweeney's
• Release date: Apr 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781938073083

Book preview

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Table of Contents

Title Page

ALSO BY DIANE WILLIAMS

Epigraph

MY DEFECTS

BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND 6 AM

IF TOLD CORRECTLY IT WILL CENTER ON ME

PEDESTAL

DEATH BED

GLEE

MY FIRST REAL HOME

BROOM

ON THE JOB

MOOD WHICH GRIPPED ME

THE USE OF FETISHES

WOMAN IN ROSE DRESS

WEIGHT, HAIR, LENGTH

COCKEYED

THE WEDDING MASK DOOR PULL

RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOR

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE TWILIGHT

THE NEWLY MADE SUPPER

PONYTAIL

CHICKEN WINCHELL

THE EMPORIUM

GIVE THEM STUFF

THE DUCK

IF YOU EVER GET THREE OR FOUR LAUGHING YOU WEREN’T SOON TO FORGET IT

PROTECTION, PREVENTION, GAZING, GRATIFIED DESIRE

VICKY SWANKY WAS A BEAUTY

CARNEGIE NAIL

STOP WHEN THE PERSON BECOMES RESTLESS OR IRRITABLE

STAND

ONE OF THE GREAT DRAWBACKS

COMMON BODY

HUMAN BEING

I LIKE THE FRINGE

RUDE

MRS. KEABLE’S BROTHERS

NEW LIFE FROM DEAD THINGS

NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN REMOTELY FEASIBLE

TAN BAG

ARM UNDER THE SOIL

BEING STARED AT

EXPECTANT MOTHERHOOD

COMFORT

THE STRENGTH

THIS HAS TO BE THE BEST

A MAN, AN ANIMAL

SHELTER

ENORMOUSLY PLEASED

HELLO! HI! HELLO!

DEFEAT

AS THE WORLD TURNED OUT

LORD OF THE FACE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Copyright Page

ALSO BY DIANE WILLIAMS

This Is About the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time, and Fate

Some Sexual Success Stories Plus Other Stories in Which God Might Choose to Appear

The Stupefaction

Excitability: Selected Stories 1986–1996

Romancer Erector

It Was Like My Trying to Have a Tender-Hearted Nature

Perfectly safe; go ahead.

—DIANE WILLIAMS

MY DEFECTS

I’m happy at least to do without a sexual relation and I have this fabulous reputation and how did I get that in the first place? I am proud enough of this reputation and it stands to reason there’s a lot that’s secret that I don’t tell anyone.

I want to end this at the flabber, although I am flabbergasted.

I opened the cupboard, where the treats are stored, and helped myself and made a big mess, by the lakeshore, of the food, of the rest of my life, eventually.

Michelle, the doctor’s nurse, showed me a photograph of her cats. The smart cat opens the cupboard, Michelle says, where the treats are stored, and she can help herself, and she makes a big mess!

I crossed the street to survey the lake and I heard crepita-tions—three little girls bouncing their ball. I used to see them in perspective—my children—young people, one clearly unsuitable. She can’t help herself—she makes a big mess.

With my insight and my skill—what do I search for at the shore?—the repose of the lake. But sadly, although it does have a dreamy look, it is so prone to covering familiar ground.

BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND 6 AM

Women were not a major ingredient in my thinking at that time.

She was blonde, very small, and if I remember right she had big breasts. Uh, Arthur was sleeping on

Reviews for Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty

[lizaha_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Mysterious, funny, volatile, affecting, unsettling and exhilarating. To my mind, Williams' maybe unparalleled attention to language has the effect of delivering emotion and sensation more directly to the reader, rather than adding distance or abstraction. Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty is even sharper, tighter and more distilled than her previous work, which is already some of the tightest, sharpest and most thoroughly distilled being written today.