Tumble Home

 The third in Amy's collection of stories.  I believe that this is the book that I had probably read the most of originally.  You can really see Amy evolving as a writer in this collection (which is no small feat considering how great she is in her previous work).  The stand outs in this collection for me are 'Weekend', 'Church Cancels Cow', and 'The Annex', although they all have something worth reading for. 
This collection also features Amy's first novella, a story of the same title as the book 'Tumble Home', and I must admit that I found it a bit of a chore to get through.  I want to think that I wasn't in the mood for it when I was reading it, but I'm not sure that's it.  I think part of it is that I enjoy structure and story arcs and whatnot, and that's not what Amy's going for here at all - and so it's hard for me to really judge it.  In her shorter work I'm happy to just spend time with these characters and this world for the delightful pages that she allows me to do so.  But in a longer work I find that the lack of story movement to be a tad frustrating.  It's by no means bad writing - Amy is incapable of that - but it's just not my kind of thing. 
This week I'll read the final volume The Dog of the Marriage, of which I've previously read a few, but very much looking forward to revisiting.  I've then got to take a long stare at my stack of books to figure out what to tackle next :)
Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories  The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel