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Front porches, family cars, playgrounds, swimming pools: from such
familiar haunts of childhood, these stories look out on the world
through young eyes and hearts. Wise beyond their years - or soon to
be - Ruthie, Omar, J.J., and the other kids in these stories veer
in and out of touching distance to hard lessons about trust, love,
and mortality. However engaged or aloof, grownups are always
nearby. Far-from-perfect emissaries to the realm of adulthood, they
pose questions for children even as they offer answers.
In Lori Ostlund's debut collection people seeking escape from
situations at home venture out into a world that they find is just
as complicated and troubled as the one they left behind.
In prose highlighted by both satire and poignant observation,
Ostlund offers characters that represent a different sort of
everyman--men and women who poke fun at ideological rigidity while
holding fast to good grammar and manners, people seeking
connections in a world that seems increasingly foreign. In "Upon
Completion of Baldness" a young woman shaves her head for a part in
a movie in Hong Kong that will help her escape life with her lover
in Albuquerque. The precocious narrator of "All Boy" finds comfort
when he is locked in a closet by a babysitter. In "Dr. Deneau's
Punishment" a math teacher leaving New York for Minnesota as a
means of punishing himself engages in an unsettling method of
discipline. A lesbian couple whose relationship is disintegrating
flees to the Moroccan desert in "The Children beneath the Seat."
And in "Idyllic Little Bali" a group of Americans gathers around a
pool in Java to discuss their brushes with fame and ends up
witnessing a man's fatal flight from his wife.
In the eleven stories in "The Bigness of the World" we see that
wherever you are in the world, where you came from is never far
away.
In Lori Ostlund's debut collection, people seeking escape from
situations at home venture out into a world that they find is just
as complicated and troubled as the one they left behind. In prose
highlighted by both satire and poignant observation, Ostlund offers
characters that represent a different sort of everyman - men and
women who poke fun at ideological rigidity while holding fast to
good grammar and manners, people seeking connections in a world
that seems increasingly foreign. In ""Upon Completion of Baldness""
a young woman shaves her head for a part in a movie in Hong Kong
that will help her escape life with her lover in Albuquerque. The
precocious narrator of ""All Boy"" finds comfort when he is locked
in a closet by a babysitter. In ""Dr. Deneau's Punishment"" a math
teacher leaving New York for Minnesota as a means of punishing
himself engages in an unsettling method of discipline. A lesbian
couple whose relationship is disintegrating flees to the Moroccan
desert in ""The Children Beneath the Seat."" And in ""Idyllic
Little Bali"" a group of Americans gather around a pool in Java to
discuss their brushes with fame and end up witnessing a man's fatal
flight from his wife. In the eleven stories in ""The Bigness of the
World"" we see that wherever you are in the world, where you came
from is never far away.
In this stirring collection of linked stories, Linda LeGarde Grover
portrays an Ojibwe community struggling to follow traditional ways
of life in the face of a relentlessly changing world. In the title
story an aunt recounts the harsh legacy of Indian boarding schools
that tried to break the indigenous culture. In doing so she passes
on to her niece the Ojibwe tradition of honoring elders through
their stories. In "Refugees Living and Dying in the West End of
Duluth," this same niece comes of age in the 1970s against the
backdrop of her forcibly dispersed family. A cycle of boarding
schools, alcoholism, and violence haunts these stories even as the
characters find beauty and solace in their large extended families.
With its attention to the Ojibwe language, customs, and history,
this unique collection of riveting stories illuminates the very
nature of storytelling. The Dance Boots narrates a century's
evolution of Native Americans making choices and compromises, often
dictated by a white majority, as they try to balance survival,
tribal traditions, and obligations to future generations.
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Shelf Love
Yotam Ottolenghi, Noor Murad, …
Paperback
R595
R475
Discovery Miles 4 750
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