The Left-Handed Marriage: Stories [Hardcover]

Leigh Buchanan Bienen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

In her first book of fiction, Bienen moves knowledgeably and engagingly from African tales to domestic comedy. The Left-Handed Marriage, Leigh Buchanan Bienen's debut collection of fiction, ranges widely in subject matter, tone, and locale, from legal drama to domestic comedy, from Kampala and Shanghai to Trenton, New Jersey. In her award-winning story "My Life As a West African Gray Parrot," the domestic comedy is filtered through the consciousness of an aging parrot. In "He Was a Big Boy, Still Is," a dramatic monologue by a white public defender, counseling the mother of a young, mentally impaired black defendant, Bienen's characteristic mix of comedy and pathos sets the tone. A near-fatal accident to a circus performer, in "The Circus Comes to Kampala," transforms two mocking spectators into highly capable, compassionate adults. In "Technician," an ordinary, unemployed, young Trenton man is recruited as a state executioner. Here and throughout, Bienen's fiction is intelligent, knowledgeable, ironic, compassionate, and totally believable.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The stories of Bienen's first book demonstrate an eye for detail and nuance in human relationships and cultural differences. In the story that lends its title to the collection, a charming and affable, if self-absorbed, lawyer agrees to his wife's suggestion that he take a second, younger wife, who can give him a son. She has dreamy recollections of time spent in Kenya, where she met the European first wife of a Kenyan who thereafter practiced his culture's time-honored tradition of polygamy, in which the European wife managed to thrive, nevertheless. In New York, the story's setting, however, an analogous arrangement fails to satisfy. In another story, a world-weary, cynical account of life and lost affections, an aging parrot notes his latest owner's growing negligence and recalls past relationships and travails. In further stories, the journal of a dance troupe member visiting China reveals telling cultural and personal differences, and the cultural mixture of a seedy gypsy circus in politically turbulent Kampala enables insights into anonymity and emotional confusion. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

[M]ost of the stories are as engaging and satisfying as a novel....marks the arrival of a new talent. -- Washington Post Book World, Jennifer Greenstein, 5 August 2001

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Ontario Review Pr; 1st edition (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 086538102X
• ISBN-13: 978-0865381025
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,928,018 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Introduces the reading public to a major literary talent, November 10, 2001

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

This review is from: The Left-Handed Marriage: Stories (Hardcover)

Although she has had her short fiction published in such prestigious literary publications as the TriQuarterly, The Mississippi Review, Ontario Review, and The O. Henry Awards, The Left-Hand Marriage is Leigh Bienen's debut anthology showcasing her work as a truly gifted writer and in possession of powerful narrative abilities. Aptly serving to introduce the reading public to a major literary talent, the stories comprising The Left-Hand Marriage include: My Life as a West African Gray Parrot; To China; The Circus Comes to Kampala; After Chekhov; We Are All Africans; The First Secretary; My Mothers' Lovers; He Was a Big Boy, Still Is; Technician; and the title piece, The Left-Hand Marriage.