UID:
kobvindex_ZLB35122313
ISBN:
9781324051893
Content:
" From an exquisite (The New Yorker) writer, a searing volume of prizewinning stories starring women facing points of no return.A professor finds a photograph of her deceased mother in a compromising position on the wall of a museum. A twenty-something's lucrative remote work sparks paranoia and bigotry. A transplant to a new city must make a choice about who she trusts when her partner reveals a violent history. The summer after her divorce from an older man, an exiled painter's former friends grapple with rumors that she attempted to pass as a teenager. In this long-awaited debut collection, Kathleen Alcott turns her skills as a stylist on the unfreedoms of American life8212 as well as the guilt that stalks those who survive them. Emergency roams from European cities to scorched California towns, drug-smeared motel rooms to polished dinner parties, taking taut, surprising portraits of addiction, love, misogyny, and sexual power. Confronting the hidden perils of class ascension, the women in these stories try to pay down the psychic debts of their old lives as they search for a new happiness they can afford. "
Content:
Biographisches: " Kathleen Alcott is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, including Infinite Home . Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award, her short fiction has also been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories of 2019 and the Pen/O. Henry Prize Stories of 2023. She has taught at Columbia University and Bennington College, and her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine , the Guardian , Harper's Magazine , and elsewhere." Rezension(2): "〈a href=http://www.publishersweekly.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/pw_logo.png alt=Publisher's Weekly border=0 /〉〈/a〉: May 22, 2023 Most of the stories in this stylish collection from novelist Alcott ( America Was Hard to Find ) follow women in upheaval. In “Part of the Country,” a wife ends a pregnancy much desired by her husband and moves alone to rural California, where her nights are disturbed by the “menacing” wailing of a dog. “Reputation Management” follows tech worker Alice, who scrubs the internet of negative references to her company’s clients. After Alice learns a pedophile has availed himself of her services, she has a crisis of conscience. In the title story, one of the strongest in the collection, a chorus of narrators tell the tale of their erstwhile neighbor, Helen, who decamps from New York City after a divorce,in Maine, her idyllic existence raising chickens and swimming in a local river is cut short after she violates a taboo. Another standout, “A World Without Men,” the only story to feature a male protagonist, involves 70-something husband-and-wife nightclub performers Frankie and Shirley, whose work is curtailed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Shirley assures Frankie they’ll be back at it soon, “Before you can say bored,” but before long they’re both struggling. Alcott’s prose is precise and evocative, and the plots are consistently tight. There’s much to enjoy." Rezension(3): "〈a href=https://www.booklistonline.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/booklist_logo.png alt=Booklist border=0 /〉〈/a〉: June 1, 2023 Peppered with characters who flirt with notions of sexuality and sobriety, abandonment and acceptance, relevancy and rejection, Alcott's debut collection of short fiction subtly probes despair in all its guises and confronts the numerous skills needed to survive uncertain times. Take World without Men, in which elderly lounge singers, comically unified through their identically dyed hair, see both their stage act and marriage shatter under the stress of the pandemic lockdown. Cancel culture comes home to roost in Reputation Management when a PR writer who successfully erases the indiscretions of others unexpectedly finds herself in controversy's crosshairs. Questions of identity, legacy, and trust abound in stories such as the title entry, in which a woman suddenly encounters an unsettling photograph of her mother in a museum exhibit, and Worship, in which a new romantic relationship is undermined by violent past actions. Deftly blending acerbic observations with tender admiration for the ways her protagonists must tackle contemporary challenges, Alcott (America Was Hard to Find, 2019) brings an intense and unflinching presence to the worlds she creates. COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. " Rezension(4): "〈a href=http://www.kirkusreviews.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/kirkus_logo.png alt=Kirkus border=0 /〉〈/a〉: Starred review from June 1, 2023 Beauty and youth, desire and privilege are the threads sewing together these seven stories. Alcott's protagonists are often beautiful, clever young women from economically impoverished backgrounds who wind up with men many years older and far richer. Estranged from their families of origin and never quite at home with their boyfriends and husbands, these women are ill at ease and even suicidal despite their intelligence and acquired grace, and they must struggle for self-acceptance and independence. In Natural Light, the narrator discovers a disturbing photo of her dead mother hanging in a museum, which her father refuses to explain. Separated from her husband, who can't tolerate her darkness, the woman wonders whether she too might be exempt from answering questions about who I was or how I suffered. In Part of the Country, the narrator leaves her husband because she believes he likes weak women and only returns to him after she has proved her strength by hurting him. The best stories here are the first and last. In Emergency, a group of women who collectively narrate the story excoriates their friend Helen, whose life spirals downward after her rich husband leaves her. You can't say whore, they comment about her conquests, and we would never say whore--well, once we said whore--but you could say without qualms there was trouble. Temporary Housing, which plumbs the deep ties between two self-destructive young women, offers searing commentary on how vulnerable women can be. Maybe we aren't girls, the narrator reflects after learning her childhood friend is dead of an overdose, surely we were never children, but we might have the talents of animals, sensing everything that wants to kill us, and that we need to kill. Alcott's prose is cerebral and knotty, but patience yields exquisite insights about women's agency and the corrosiveness of male privilege. Stories that are worth reading twice. COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. "
Language:
English
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