Who I Was Supposed to Be: Stories - Softcover

If Susan Perabo wrote pop songs instead of fiction, they'd be filled with the kinds of hooks that get stuck in one's head for hours. The first line of nearly every story in her debut, Who I Was Supposed to Be, is a testament to her infectiousness. Just try to read these openings without wanting to unravel the whole yarn:

My mother, beside herself with loss, spent thirty-five thousand dollars on lottery tickets in nine months.
After the baby died, I found it imperative that my German shepherd Stu understand and accept the concept of death.
I was twelve the summer I watched four men beat up my father on a softball field at his company picnic.

Quirky Americans populate Perabo's stories, playing their unusual circumstances straight-faced for laughs. Unfortunately, Perabo often starts with a great premise but doesn't get too far with it. "Retirement," the story of Batman's assassination told from the point of view of his butler, Alfred, falls curiously flat, in want of a little more literary "OOF!" and "POW!" In "Counting the Ways," Katy, wasting her life in a thankless data-entry job, comes into an inheritance and blows the whole thing on a dress once worn by Princess Di. When the Princess meets her tragic fate, the dress skyrockets in value, and Katy debates whether or not she should sell it. Instead of exploiting this inner turmoil, Perabo leaves the story in the hands of her character's clueless and ineffectual husband, Joel.

Many of these stories feel as though Perabo let her unique vision of America become diluted by academic expectations about what constitutes the form--conflict, irrational action, emotionally vague denouement. It's a shame when she succumbs to sounding like every other short-story writer on the block, but a wonder when her own voice shines through. --Ryan Boudinot

Susan Perabo teaches creative writing at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in the anthologies Best American Short Stories and New Stories from the South.