Sing to It – Amy Hempel

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

‣ short stories

‣ beautiful, poetic writing

‣ complex

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"But men don't care about a better person. You can't photograph virtue."

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Sing To It is a collection of short stories that have very little, if any, correlation—at least, it seems so to me. This was my first work by Amy, though she has several, and I found she reminded me of Helen Oyeyemi. Not in her dedication to magical realism and folklore, but in how her writing contains unapologetic complexity. Nothing is over-explained; in fact, most things are under-explained. 

Amy is an artful writer. Her simple sentences are poetic, almost musical. She references e. e. cummings in the very beginning and I love cummings, but that aside, I love this collection. Though I have my favorites (Sing to It, Greed, Four Calls in the Last Half Hour, The Correct Grip, Cloudland), each story is uniquely beautiful. Amy's words are thought out; her narratives show what good writing can do for an ordinary situation. She is clever; her humor is subtle. 

Much of the collection requires re-reading. Her under-explanation causes the reader to question—both what they've read and their thoughts on it. I'd love to read this book for a class; so many parts of it lend themselves to interesting conversation when taken apart and reassembled, especially Cloudland. The collection includes a variety of great standalone quotes; that, the way it brought about a certain reflection in me, and the desire I have to reread it already, make Sing To It a five-star read for me.