This was my first true experience with reading Flash Fiction and I guess it was…ok?

I tend to struggle with things like this because immersion is so important to me in fiction, and almost by definition that’s difficult to achieve when the entire book is essentially composed of vignettes.

I think the entries in this needed to be more cohesive and more of a whole, so to speak, for this to be truly successful. As it was published it feels choppy and difficult to find much meaning in, and I think that a bit more consistency of theme and tying together of the individual micro fictions would have made this book a lot more successful.

Still, Williams writes compellingly, and this makes me curious about her work beyond this experimental piece.

Thank you to NetGalley and Soho Press for the ARC.

I am not familiar with Diane Williams, and so I Hear You're Rich is my introduction to her work. With that in mind, I can understand the reviews criticizing its difficulty and possible incomprehensibility as much as I feel an instinctive desire to defend it. The stories within work not so much as flash fiction or vignettes as they do as poems, and my take is this is why I Hear You're Rich seems so divisive. Going into this without any expectations led to a wild, startling start that became more and more enjoyable so long as I let Williams take me on this ride that feels, at times, like a fever dream. Although each story is deceptively short, it's dense and a hard read, so I cannot recommend it casually. However, I would like to urge everyone to form their own opinions as this work is an acquired taste if I've ever seen one.

While some of these stories are cryptic, for the most part I enjoyed the collection. Williams' writing, as always, is smart and entertaining. Most of these pieces feel polished to a sparkling hue. Others I failed to understand/grasp. Even so, I appreciated the chance to dip in and out of the collection and Williams' lovely writing.

Received complimentary e-galley from the publisher; all opinions are my own.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Soho Press for an advanced copy of this collection of shorter than short stories.

Brevity is the soul of wit, and can make for some very good short stories. Diane Williams, writer, educator, mentor and magazine publisher, along with much more, is known as the godmother of flash fiction for her stories, and for her championing of the medium. Williams' magazine NOON, comes out yearly featuring works not only by the author, but by others both familiar and debuting. Quite a few of her stories are shorter than the previous sentence. I Hear You're Rich is a collection of thirty-four stories ranging from very short to a few pages.

The stories touch on love, hate, confusion, life, death, and much more confusion. Unlike earlier works these seem even more experimental, different in how they are presented and even more where the stories take the reader. If at all possible they could even be considered more minimalist. Sometimes the theme is clear, sometimes the story just ends. One of them we seem to join in the middle of. As in any collection there are a few that stand out, and some that can be glossed over. If there is a theme for the stories, I think it would be that to quote a British album title, modern life is rubbish. Some hit hard. Some land a glancing blow, one or two wiff it, but the swing and the effort is appreciated. Williams has a real gift for words, knowing what fits, what a reader should know, or what the reader can fill it. Like Count Basie its the words that Williams doesn't use that really make the story.

To write small is hard, I know from my own writing that a half full page looks like a lazy day spent working. However to get in, leave a mark and get out, that takes real skill. The book is only 128 pages, but I recommend not reading it all at once. In multitude the message and feelings can be lost, or the reader whelmed but what is on the page. Best to read one or maybe two or three on the weekend. Let them stay in the mind, and work out what one thinks. A collection of stories probably not for everyone, but that is true about many things. When one has said what is needed to be said what is left. Diane Williams knows this well.

Williams is a reliably strange, eccentric writer and this collection continues in that tradition. While less coherent than her earlier works, the often opaque prose is still enjoyable for those familiar with her work. Not a great jumping-off point for new readers.

Although I usually appreciate Diane Williams's writing for its whimsy and voice, this collection wasn't my favorite. I found some of the stories basically nonsensical, and in many cases, the fine threads that usually hold her work together were missing.

Diane Williams pushes her original style in decadent, strange, and increasingly terse new directions. This book feels like a bit of a F-U to contemporary culture, whatever that might mean. My favorite of her works thus far.

Girl, no.

I realize that Diane Williams is seen as a master of form, and I like quirky, stylized writing. However, I feel like this collection was taking the piss a bit, so to speak. Stringing a few abstract, convoluted sentences together and calling them a "story" is a bit much, and Williams seemed so intent on being cryptic and post-modern that it lost me entirely. I get nuance, I can dig for deeper meaning and see the bigger picture, but this was a true struggle.

This was my first Williams collection (I have another on my TBR) and I want to say it'll be my last, but I'm hoping this is a singular case of self-indulgent drivel and not a return to form or anything.