★ 09/15/2014 This story collection by poet, novelist, and critic Upton takes its title from one of several winningly off-kilter stories set at a motivational rural retreat aimed toward breaking down the ego as a precursor to building it up. Upton elicits tremendous sympathy on the part of the reader for these and other characters facing existential crises, often with great aplomb, such as the actress seeking the root of her sudden bout of stage fright in "The Undressed Mirror" and the former student recalling her cad of a lit professor in "La Belle Dame Sans Professeur," a take-off on Keats's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" aimed at the theory-driven academic who ultimately fails to honor the work itself. VERDICT These well-imagined stories bear the mark of the poet in the best sense, and the reader will not soon forget them. They proceed by indirection, with elements that cohere only after the fact and open up further surprises upon rereading.—Sue Russell, Bryn Mawr, PA
Readers will want to live inside this wonderful booknot just in its parties and wrecked gatherings and sophisticated conversations but in the sentences themselves, which are genuine shelters: long, erudite, warmhearted and capable, brimming with scholarship and knowledge. In its own way, each sentence is a container filled with something revelatory.
The New York Times Book Review - Rebecca Lee
03/31/2014 Poet, essayist, and fiction writer Upton's (The Guide to the Flying Island) stories are playful, full of clever allusions that are deftly presented. Often these references seem to be the inspirations for the stories themselves, or for entertaining riffs within them. "Beyond The Yellow Wallpaper" springs from the early feminist story and ends with references to A Midsummer Night's Dream. Titles like "The Swan Princess," "La Belle Dame Sans Professeur," and "The Last Satyr" all overtly display their literary roots. Even the stories with more conventional plots have literature as a context or touchstone: in the wake of a cancer scare, Shana, the heroine of the moving story "Bashful," lists all the serious books she had once intended to read. Several pieces in the book are under 10 pages, and not so much plot-driven as high-concept. "Let Go" features a first-person narrator stressing over the fact that he has to fire someone for the very first time. Upton's story openings tend to be vivid; they're great hooks. The title story begins, "The guy with stringy hair was staring, which made Everett even more nervous, as if something was going on under the table with the guy." This is a smart and highly entertaining book. (May)
"Readers will want to live inside this wonderful book not just in its parties and wrecked gatherings and sophisticated conversations but in the sentences themselves, which are genuine shelters: long, erudite, warmhearted and capable, brimming with scholarship and knowledge. In its own way, each sentence is a container filled with something revelatory." The New York Times Book Review, Sunday Shortlist Masterful stories by a writer of great lyrical gifts. Upton focuses on personal relationships, especially the immediacy and estrangement that emerge from the intensity of family life
Upton specializes in ending her stories with epiphanies that can be searing in their poignancy. These 17 tales explore personal and familial relationships with both pathos and humorand all are well worth reading." Kirkus Starred Review Poet, essayist, and fiction writer Upton’s stories are playful, full of clever allusions that are deftly presented
Upton’s story openings tend to be vivid; they’re great hooks
This is a smart and highly entertaining book." Publishers Weekly Starred Review These well-imagined stories bear the mark of the poet in the best sense, and the reader will not soon forget them.” Library Journal Starred Review Upton, award-winning poet and literary critic, shows her mastery of the short form
This entertaining collection will appeal to fans of a variety of literary authors, such as Grace Paley, Edith Pearlman, and Louis Norda." Booklist "Lee Upton's stories in The Tao of Humiliation are startlingly original, emotionally compelling, and delicately crafted, making them that most satisfying of finds: a great read."Bathsheba Monk, WDIY, Lehigh Valley’s NPR Affiliate Simply put, this is one of the finest short story collections published in 2014. Alternately chilling, funny, devastating, and hopeful, Upton’s stories introduce us to a theater critic who winds up in a hot tub with the actress he routinely savages in reviews; a biographer who struggles to discover why a novelist stopped writing; a woman who searches through her past lives to recall a romantic encounter with the poet Yeats; a student who contends with her predatory professor; and the poignant scenario of the last satyr meeting his last woman. This is short story writing at its best.” BUSTLE "I really like the stories in Lee Upton’s The Tao of Humiliation, witty, solidly constructed pieces that are really unlike anything I’ve read before. I’m curious, of course, as to whether there’s more stories that feature a bunch of fragile males trying to sort out their feelings in hotel conference rooms, or if it’s just coincidence that two of the three I read feature this set-up. Either way, I’m going to read more of this book, as it’s a good one." Michael Czyzniejewski, creator of Story 366
2014-04-03 Masterful stories by a writer of great lyrical gifts. Upton focuses on personal relationships, especially the immediacy and estrangement that emerge from the intensity of family life. The first story, "The Ideal Reader," blends fact and fantasy as the narrator presents herself as the biographer of Malcolm Alfred Kulkins, a fictional literary lion and supposed friend of Truman Capote and other glitterati. Mysteriously, Kulkins had published almost nothing during the last 17 years of his life, a period dating from the suicide of Seyla Treat, one of his former lovers, with whom he had a daughter, Flame. The biographer ultimately learns that talent is passed across generations when she intuits that some priceless material supposedly left by Kulkins might have been forged by Flame instead. "The Tao of Humiliation" (which one character within the story mishears as the "cow" of humiliation) introduces us to Barry, Everett and Lucas, three men on a retreat in the woods who are forced to confront some unsavory moments of their pasts—and in their farcical misadventures, they don't seem to have learned from their mistakes. One of the best stories is the wryly comic "You Know You've Made It When They Hate You." Here, a community-theater drama critic continually savages the performances of Molly Crane, a hapless local actress, but by the end of the story, they literally find themselves in hot water when they share a hot tub, and she realizes that she's "as miserable at being a wife as she was at being an actress." Upton specializes in ending her stories with epiphanies that can be searing in their poignancy. These 17 tales explore personal and familial relationships with both pathos and humor—and all are well worth reading.< BR>★