In Daniel Curley's stories, passionate rage and cool, clear hatred
alter the terms of even the most basic human relationships, etching
odd patterns on the surface of the natural world--a man applies the
methods of Mata-Hari to the task of keeping track of his ex-wife;
the victim of a pickpocket plots psychological revenge on the
criminal population of a Mexico City bus line; a spurned lover
summons all his strength and courage to liberate a roomful of
snakes held captive by his rival.
For the most part, the figures in the landscape of these stories
are men and women performing the rituals that lead to and away from
marriage. In "The First Baseman," a man in the process of getting a
divorce falls in love with a player on a woman's softball team, but
their conversation never goes far beyond the subject of her batting
average. In "Trinity," an estranged couple brought together again
by the death of their daughter finds that they cannot recreate
either their love or their child. And in "Wild Geese," a man's
dream about his childhood, when flocks of geese patterned the sky,
is interrupted and finally shot-through by fevered images of a
tedious dinner party.
Nature exists as a refuge in these stories, but it is a refuge
mostly to be found in the shadow of the fear of death; in the
recesses of memory; beyond the bars that isolate zoo animals from
an unruly world. Demonically honest and sometimes violently funny,
"Living with Snakes" tells of a world where love is at best a
touch-and-go sort of thing, where sometimes men and women are bound
together not so much by affection as by mutual loss, mutual
pain.
General
| Imprint: |
University of Georgia Press
|
| Country of origin: |
United States |
| Release date: |
February 2013 |
| First published: |
March 2013 |
| Authors: |
Daniel Curley
|
| Dimensions: |
216 x 140 x 9mm (L x W x T) |
| Format: |
Paperback
|
| Pages: |
146 |
| ISBN-13: |
978-0-8203-4441-6 |
| Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
General & literary fiction >
Modern fiction
|
| LSN: |
0-8203-4441-9 |
| Barcode: |
9780820344416 |
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