PositiveThe Rumpus...[a] lush, imaginative debut ... By making her metaphors literal, Beams creates magical-realist pieces that often calculate the high cost of being a woman ... even when their plots feel slightly didactic, these stories are constructed from gorgeous, finely fashioned sentences. Beams’ flair and originality, and her ability to make sense of the objects of the world, are striking.
Rebecca Schiff
PositiveThe RumpusSchiff’s female protagonists leave their sexual encounters sore, in need of chiropractic care, disconnected from their bodies, with sexually transmitted infections, utterly unsatisfied: 'Guys burrowed down not for long enough, popped up, smiled.' As an argument, this critique of the sexual revolution is thought-provoking. As stories, however, the sameness starts to feel a little numbing, especially because the female characters (who are deliberately indistinct) seem to be mainly reporting on the state of single womanhood when you are sexually free (or is it slutty?)...When the bed is not moving in The Bed Moved, when Schiff turns her attention from fucking to family, even her more conventional stories have movement and moments of genuine feeling.
