Eley Williams's first short story collection is a celebration of the precision--and inevitable imprecision--of language. Attrib. and Other Stories follows a group of indecisive characters (usually first person, usually unnamed, often addressing a mysterious "you") in a series of moments before the crescendo: the pause before a kiss, the dismount at a subway stop, the half-sleep before total consciousness. These characters are united by their inaction, and by the language they use to describe that inaction, mulling over words, definitions and puns, as they think of the perfect phrase that should've been said in a moment now past.
Williams (The Liars Dictionary) explores the barriers of communication, the ways in which our thoughts can never be perfectly translated. Two of the 16 stories, "The Alphabet" and "Synaesthete, Would Like to Meet," explore various conditions that distort language into something unrecognizable. In the former, one partner's aphasia has driven a wedge between a language-loving couple. As the recognition of words dies, so does the relationship: "Forgetting hairbrush became forgetting our address became forgetting dates became figmenting became fragmenting became I remembered your beautiful, beautiful face but could not quite place it." The connection between the language and the thing itself is deftly explored, again and again.
Despite their frequent focus on loss, breakups and otherwise emotional situations, the stories are tragically funny. In "Platform," while staring at a photo of a friend long gone, the narrator notices a man losing his toupee in the background, "like a ridiculous Frisbee of hair, or one of those gliding squirrels." Despite its frequent neuroticism, Williams's work brims with ever-present humor. --Simone Woronoff, freelance writer and reviewer