Forget about borrowing a cup of sugar from the neighbors ever wonder what might happen if an infertile couple asked for some sperm? If a woman walked out on her husband and their 2-year-old daughter but took the dog? Eating disorders, divorce, cancer, class envy, postpartum depression, suburban anomie, Volvos with seat warmers: they’re all here in lovely, privileged, unsettling Lake Oswego. These cryptic, sometimes bizarre little items provide a fitting point of departure for Rust’s fertile imagination. Each story begins with a fairly innocuous item taken from the local newspaper’s police blotter: a dead bird found in a mailbox, a naked man running in the park, a vicious cat, an “unknown hairy thing” stuffed in a garbage can. Set in the swanky Portland suburb of Lake Oswego, Ore., the 12 stories in Rust’s debut collection evoke a world of material privilege and emotional bankruptcy. IISigned by Author.Some of the Reviews of The Prisoner Pear: Stories From the Lake Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio, 2005. The author's stories are both humorous and disturbing, going beneath the surface of a community into the murky world beneath. Each story begins with an entry from the local paper's police blotter-small, odd events such as a headless parakeet in a mailbox, a nude jogger-and giving them weight and significance. A dozen stories of privileged lives, taking place in an affluent suburb of Portland, Oregon, though they could be taken from any number of such places in the United States. Internals very clean and unmarked, pages lightly toned. Rear lower corner scuffed, back few page corners nearby ruffled, front corners witrh light wear, cover flares up a little. Clean and bright wrappers with art work: 'Three Pears and a Plumb' (detail) by Dan J. Author inscribed and signed on Title Page. ISigned by Author Signed by Author First Swallow Press Printing.
0 kommentar(er)
