Here in the World: Thirteen Stories [Hardcover]

Victoria Lancelotta (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2000

The women in Victoria Lancelotta's debut collection of stories live in the space between memory and desire, where what they see around them and what they know to be true can be vastly different things. They live in a world where time is malleable, stones are food, the body is an altar, and the confessional is a difficult paradise. Here a blind man's stick and a church carnival offer equal opportunities for redemption, and the family is the last place to look for home.

Dark, edgy, brilliant, and disturbing, Here in the World tells us stories of women who, however flawed or compromised, are fierce and unforgettable.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lancelotta's debut collection of 13 spare, fragmented short stories about women, nine of which are written in the first person, coheres as a series of dramatic monologues in which the theme of suppressed sexuality is a dark motif. In tensile prose energized by raw sexual imagery juxtaposed against realistic details of landscape and atmosphere, Lancelotta focuses on women with arrested emotional development. Most of the stories are informed by experiences from her Catholic upbringing. "The Guide" is a tale of shame and sexual repression learned in parochial school. "Quiet" deals with an adolescent girl's furtive and humiliating experiences with the boys in her crowd. The narrator of "In Bars" is a deeply lonely woman who spends nights drinking and flirting to escape from solitude and from the sounds of her next door neighbors' domestic contentment. The narrator acknowledges that in bars she has an illusion of the possibility that "we will inhabit the world with a new destiny, that someone will look at us and make us something new." "What Is Close," one of the few third-person narratives, concerns a young woman who travels constantly, with no sense of home or belonging: "What drives her forward is the space between, the not-there, the neither." Though their urgent tone is compelling, the voices in these stories tend to sound the same, varying little in tone, tenor and attitude. Though Lancelotta writes convincingly about sexual need, the unvarying plight of her protagonists, caught in the limbo between religious indoctrination and frustrated desire, eventually strikes only a single note. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Lancelotta's fiction debut contains 13 dark, sensual stories with a dreamlike quality that feature women taking control of their own sexuality, though the results don't always leave them satisfied. "In Bars" tells of a woman's twisted relationship with the married couple that lives next door. In "Nice Girl," the childhood death of an older sister continues to haunt a woman and her mother. "The Gift" is a moving meditation on the secrets buried in family history. Lancelotta's characters always seem unhappy and detached, but her prose is lyrical and mesmerizing. A good choice for academic and larger public libraries.DChristine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Idaho Lib., Moscow
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint Press; First Printing edition (October 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582430993
• ISBN-13: 978-1582430997
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,028,928 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A pure life is just beyond our reach, November 10, 2000

By 

John L. Sheppard (Round Lake Park, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Here in the World: Thirteen Stories (Hardcover)

I'm a Roman Catholic who accidentally grew up in the south. The Baptists would swing by our neighborhood in their buses labeled Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They'd knock on my door and, upon seeing my Catholic schoolboy outfit, would tell me I was going to hell. And I liked the sensation. This is probably why I like Victoria Lancelotta's book so much.

It's been said that there are two types of Catholic -- devout and fallen. Perhaps Victoria Lancelotta makes up a third category, someone who lingers inbetween.

In these stories we find that here, down below Heaven, we taste of suffering drop by greasy drop. Men look into your makeup-coated face, but God looks into your heart -- even in a smoky bar. Men see and smell and touch your body, but God sees your intention. Your fundiment is hidden from sight, but is of the first importance. The great inner struggle is fought during times of darkness, and suffering. A pure life is just beyond our reach -- we heard it slip past, tip-toeing down the stairs, maybe going to that loud party down the street -- but now it's gone, replaced by vague regret.

Note to Catholics: Buy now, and you may receive a Plenary Indulgence. Let's say three years.

5.0 out of 5 stars A World Apart, July 28, 2004

By 

Amanda Auchter (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Here in the World: Thirteen Stories (Hardcover)

Victoria Lancelotta is an exquisite writer. The thirteen stories in this collection are woven by powerful prose and a keen detail to depth, emotion, and place. The stories are engaging and strike the reader in the dead center of the chest. The characters never falter and Lancelotta brings us into a world where the mundane is beautiful and the taboo is extraordinary.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Her dark stories are striking accounts, and hard to put down, December 13, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Here in the World: Thirteen Stories (Hardcover)

Sex, sin and redemption lie at the heart of Lancelotta's disturbing short stories of women who live in a world different from others. These are flawed characters: women who experience the world differently and examine it with a sordid eye. Her dark stories are striking accounts, and hard to put down.