A collection of short stories reflects the shadowy workings of the human heart in the business of everyday life with titles such as Aren't You Happy for Me, High-Heeled Shoe, and The Natural Effects of Divorce.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Bausch has offered us two fine novels, Violence and Rebel Powers , since his last collection, The Fireman's Wife and Other Stories. The eight previously published stories gathered with the title novella here testify that he has held on to the delicate touch that has long been the mark of his shorter works. Most of the stories examine relationships that cross generations, mainly between grown children and their parents. In "Weather," a daughter, whose marriage is in jeopardy, spars tensely with her mother on a shopping trip to a mall; an incident of surprising, if minor, violence clears the air between them. It is with the novella, however, that Bausch commands the greatest attention. An older couple plan to move from the home and land where they raised their son and daughter. The abrupt and startling death of one leads the other and the children to reevaluate their expectations of love. Writes one character to another: "I ask you to imagine how it can feel like starvation to be intimate with someone you can't really reach, the sort of person whose love is somehow only partly there . . . ." Death, birth, the arcing of love--this is Bausch territory, mapped with a fine, unwavering hand.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Somber in tone but masterful in execution, the eight stories and one novella in this collection document rifts and ruptures in contemporary family life. Carefully wrought ironies focus plots, and well-executed dialog reveals relationships in dynamic flux. The first story ("Aren't You Happy for Me?") is largely the transcript of a long-distance telephone conversation in which a young woman haltingly announces to parents, who are themselves planning to separate, her pregnancy and impending marriage to a man much older than her own father. In "Evening," Bausch examines the ecological threats to an endangered species-"the only traditional couple" remaining in a neighborhood. As in Bausch's successful novels, Violence (LJ 12/91) and Mr. Field's Daughter (LJ 5/15/89), the pain here is palpably real, and it reverberates across several generations. Recommended for most collections.
--Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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