Short Lean Cuts [Kindle Edition]

Alex Pruteanu (Author)

Book Description

The surreal, morbidly amusing novella of a self-obsessed, hypochondriac ex-academic living in present-day America. Follow his musings, rants, and wacky encounters with savage characters during his day job as a house cleaner, as he heads toward what he believes is a resolution to his life.

WARNING: For mature audiences. Explicit content.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Since emigrating to the United States from Romania in 1980 Alex M. Pruteanu worked as a day laborer, a film projectionist, a music store clerk, a journalist/news writer for the U.S. Information Agency (Voice of America English Broadcasts), a TV Director for MSNBC and CNBC, and a freelance writer. Currently he works for a major state university.

Alex has published fiction in Peer-Amid, The Legendary, Girls With Insurance, Trick With a Knife, Amphibi.us, Slingshot Litareview, and Pank Magazine.

Product Details

• File Size: 228 KB
• Print Length: 98 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005946MKY
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #659,796 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fiction and Philosophy -- Thinly Sliced March 22, 2012

By Pat Pujolas

Format:Paperback

This author is one part poet and one part killer; plus two parts existentialist. As an aside, I flunked math in high school, but I know a great book when I read one. "Short Lean Cuts" is 96 pages of brilliant flash fiction, centered around the same intriguing, self-destructive, anti-helvetican narrator. (Yeah I made that word up.) The themes here are post-modern nihilism, anti-consumerism, and cultural narcissism; the humor is dark and incisive. But more than anything, what stays with you long after are the narrator's sharp insights, the surreal almost hallucinogenic scenes, and the staccato-like rhythm of the author's voice. Each piece here is an allegorical snapshot of modern society -- sliced razor thin.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Demands to be read again July 6, 2011

By Robb Todd

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Swift and dark ... and the minute I wrote "dark" I regretted it because that is an over-used word when describing books and maybe does this one a disservice. This book is better than that and deserves a better word than "dark." Let me try this again.

The sentences Short Lean Cuts are drunken slashing scalpels and by the time you finish reading this story you will be in shreds. And who doesn't want a story to do that?

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars No short cuts here October 21, 2011

By Sundin Richards

Format:Paperback

In the work of Alex Pruteanu, one finds humor among desolation, which is the bravest sort. The work is fierce among savageries, and thus shows the kind of compassion available to those who've lived in the savage world awhile. This is no small feat, but rather a condition to which many writers may aspire. Pruteanu is not a fan of despair, but rather the ways we overcome it. On a more technical note, Pruteanu's prose is unapologetic in it's forthrightness. No mere craftsman is he but follows the old maxim
"Poeta nascuitur non fit." The maker is born, not made. If you're not reading him, you're missing the boat. Hurry up.

More About the Author

Alex M. Pruteanu emigrated to the United States from Romania in 1980. He has worked as a journalist, a television news director, freelance writer, and editor. He is the author of novella "Short Lean Cuts" (Amazon Publishing) and "Gears: A Collection" (Independent Talent Group, Inc.).

His writing has appeared in NY Arts Magazine, Guernica, PANK, Connotation Press, FRIGG, The Atticus Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, and many others. His short story "The Barber" has been nominated for a 2013 Micro Award by A-Minor Magazine. Alex lives with his family near Raleigh, North Carolina.