A CIRCLE IS A BALLOON AND A COMPASS BOTH

REVIEW BY KATIE ANNE ELLSWEIG | posted October 27, 2009 | permalink
5 Comments

author:
BENJAMIN GREENMAN

Fiction
225 pages
MacAdam/Cage

Benjamin Greenman makes me want to be single for the rest of my life. Seriously. Never before has a collection of stories about “love” left me so jaded, miserable and repulsed at the thought of committed relationships. If I had a boyfriend, I would have left him after reading the story about the girl who broke Bigfoot’s heart and made him want to die. Thanks Ben, you have officially ruined my life.

A Circle is a Balloon and a Compass Both is a collection of short stories, all written by Yale graduate, editor, freelance writer, journalist, etc., Benjamin Greeman. Each story is centered around a relationship and loosely based on an aspect of love such as art, music, sports, power and humor. These relationships are anything but functional and most of them end in one character being utterly miserable.

“Clutching and Glancing” is about a young artist who takes a summer job at a hotel with the intention of seducing her way through the season. She begins a brief affair with a married doctor and after meeting his wife, inconspicuously turns him in after wearing her wedding band while she has sex with him on the hotel room floor. We can only assume she goes on to keep breaking up marriages and he goes on to sleeping on the couch.

“The re-education of M. Grooms” is chock full of dysfunctional single adults in the entertainment business, casual love affairs and people who either drop dead or get arrested for seemingly ridiculous reasons. “Black Grey Green Blue” deals with a man who went to bed with the love of his life and woke up on the moon. He writes her heartbreaking letters about dealing with his moon-found despair. My personal favorite is “Contemplating a Thing About a Person,” a story in which a pile of dog crap becomes a major component of the plot. Someone ends up miserable, but not from stepping in poo.

In all honesty, this book captures a distinct sense of truth when it comes to the complications of human emotions and the idea of being broken. It was fun, entertaining, and humorous but in the end disheartening. Some of us escape to literature because we don’t want to face the truth.

purchase via IndieBound

small_dots_508 A CIRCLE IS A BALLOON AND A COMPASS BOTH

Comments

5 Responses to “A CIRCLE IS A BALLOON AND A COMPASS BOTH”

Lisa Montana on October 28th, 2009 10:38 pm

If the work is as cleverly constructed as this review–I’m sold!!
Kate on October 29th, 2009 8:21 pm

Something about this reminds me of Olive Kitteridge – story told through short story, depressing, etc. Have you read it?
Katie Anne on October 30th, 2009 3:59 pm

I have a copy of it at home but I haven’t read it yet. I will have to read and compare!
Jacy on November 18th, 2009 4:08 pm

I just him read at the Miami Book Fair. He has a new novel out about music. And he’s an editor at the New Yorker.
Elizabeth on November 23rd, 2009 5:42 pm

A circle is a Balloon and a Compass Both is my favorite book. While the stories may leave you mildly disheartened, the passion and beauty behind the characters as well as Ben Greenman’s writing boosted my moral in general. Well written, beautifull constructed and ironically helpful.