The Apple's Bruise: Stories [Paperback]

Lisa Glatt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2005

From the bestselling author of A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That, a moving, disturbing, and utterly original collection of stories that examine a universe where memory and fact collide, and the imagination fills in the gaps left behind.

The stories in The Apple's Bruise take a smart and unflinching look at love, frailty, and happiness and prove beyond doubt that Glatt is a modern master at blending heartbreak and hilarity. In "Dirty Hannah Gets Hit by a Car," a seven-year-old girl bullied by a neighbor across the street gains strength after a serious accident; in "Animals," a zoo veterinarian from a family of butchers tries at once to deal with his marital problems and the high rate at which his animals are dying; and in "Soup," a young widow tries to reconcile her feelings for her teenage son's friend, the town delinquent.

With tenderness, insight, and humor, Glatt casts her gaze simultaneously on the beauty and the absurdity of our humanity, creating unforgettable portrayals of unusual characters and the complexities of desire and fidelity that compel them.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Passive-aggressive and not so passive characters make power plays in the bedroom (or kitchen, cars or couch) in Glatt's dark, efficient stories (after her 2004 novel, A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That). The men and women drink too much, marry badly, dislike each other, get depressed and engage in joyless sex. "And I remember thinking: We are ugly and deserve each other; we deserve this. Then I helped him with my zipper," a woman reminisces about an early experience in "Waste," about her resentful surrender to her husband's demands that she pee on him. In "Soup," a widow flirts with her teenage son's delinquent friend, with dangerous results. A man suppresses his lust for his stepdaughter in "Animals." In "The Body Shop," a man makes a pass at a stripper and then his wife seduces the strip-club bouncer; in "Ludlow," Glatt depicts a doomed marriage during what should be the honeymoon stage. A husband and wife spew vitriol at each other in "Grip," then treat their young daughter no better, abandoning her as callously as some people do cats. Though Glatt's writing is often funny and insightful, she offers a relentlessly harsh take on human nature and sexual politics.
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Review

"Dazzling, thrilling, and as full of shocking wonder as a snowstorm in the Sahara, Glatt's stories don't just push the literary envelope, they transform it in dangerously inventive ways....It's all here, all hauntingly real, disturbingly funny, and in a word: brilliant."

-- Caroline Leavitt, author of Girls in Trouble and Coming Back to Me

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743270525
• ISBN-13: 978-0743270526
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,452,816 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ouch Real, July 28, 2005

By 

Denise Sebesta Lanier (Houston, Texas USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Apple's Bruise: Stories (Paperback)

Whenever I'm in a public place (a street, a shop, a diner) and I fall witness to the nakedness of some stranger's life (a raw argument, a flailing stumble, a too-much-information cell phone call) - I get this rigidness in my spine, feel a flush in my neck - like embarrassment or sideways guilt or even a funky kind of angry. Being that close to other people's unhemmed emotions (the ones they'd most likely prefer I weren't hearing and watching) well, it's just too real; ouch real. I hate it. But it thrills me, too, because somehow in those subverted slices of voyeurism - I feel less alone. I feel less awkward. I feel humbled and grateful, for reasons I cannot explain. I feel on the inside of a secret I can't quite puzzle out. A dangerous but delightful secret. I manage to be both "in the know" and still on the razor's edge of heightened mystery. (My favorite place to be!) Lisa Glatt's character's are this kind of authentic-unsettling, this brand of I-can't-not-look wreck. There isn't a single story in The Apple's Bruise that could evoke the remark: oh, it's just like That story by soAndso. Because each tale, each character, is utterly unmet in anything you've ever read before.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Apple's Bruise, July 15, 2005

By 

C. Alu - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Apple's Bruise: Stories (Paperback)

I loved this book. The quirky and wonderful people that populate these stories will break your heart and make you laugh and make you look at life in a new way. From the zoo animals dying to the little girl getting hit by a car to the mother who is attracted to her teenage son's friend -- the images and characters Glatt creates stay with you long after you've finished the book. Buy it, borrow it or steal it -- but read it!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Apple's Bruise, July 18, 2005

By 

Teri Slaven "voracious reader" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Apple's Bruise: Stories (Paperback)

I couldn't put it down! Her characters are quirkly, sad but inciteful, without the stereotypical cast of characters. Several stories leave a lot to the imagination. Instead of a beginning, a middle and an end, Lisa Glatt mostly shares just the middle with her readers as to how the characters will turn out. I loved it!