Apocalypse Then: Stories [Hardcover]

Rick DeMarinis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2004

Despite the world’s insecurities, the most common drama of all is not of apocalypse now, but of apocalypse deferred; the pain of living is having to wait it out. In Apocalypse Then, DeMarinis’s characters try alcohol, they try travel, and (most of all) they try off-limits love. They find themselves in harm’s way, or put themselves there—but in life, as the title story states, "sometimes the worst doesn’t happen."

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The power of DeMarinis' deliciously disconcerting short stories is generated by his card-shark ability to transform the realistic into the bizarre. In his first book of short stories since the outstanding retrospective collection, Borrowed Hearts (1999), and following his eighth crazy novel, Sky Full of Sand (2003), DeMarinis begins with a set of linked, brilliantly off-kilter yet dead-on stories about a guy named Moss who fulfills his dream of working in the defense industry only to find that there is no surefire defense against the enemies within. The 13 incandescent tales that follow each portray a man who has lost his edge, or who decides it's not worth honing one, many of whom are entangled with women who appear kooky and vulnerable but are, instead, focused and tough. Loaded with startlingly vivid details, unusually skewed psychological insights, and ravishingly poetic apocalyptic intimations, DeMarinis' cunning, cuttingly funny short stories track the psychic damage done by war and the chilling shadow of nuclear weapons even as they celebrate our rising, however unsteadily, from the ashes. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

RICK DEMARINIS is the author of several novels and collections of short fiction. His stories have appeared in Harper's, Antaeus, Story, Epoch, and many others. In 1990 he received a Literature Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press; 1ST edition (September 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583226370
• ISBN-13: 978-1583226377
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,123,418 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)