Catapult
Short stories from the Man Booker Prize shortlisted author of History of Wolves
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- 3,99 €
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- 3,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
'A powerhouse of a first story collection notable for its temerity and its skilled combination of humour and insight'
New York Times Book Review
The unknowable wisdom of a baby; two teenagers with plans to build a time machine;the unnerving relationship between a man and his dangerous dog; a bumpy reunion between two childhood friends . . . These are stories about how people grow together and pull apart, the strangeness of lives lived at close quarters. Envy, distrust, confidence, collusion, hope - in this remarkable collection, Emily Fridlund delves into the small lies and large truths that make up our lives.
Selected by Ben Marcus as winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fridlund (History of Wolves) centers her sharp and startling collection around characters who face acute but everyday struggles in relationships that feel stifling and realistic. In the title story, a teenage girl and her Christian boyfriend become fixated on researching time travel while his parents erroneously assume they are sexually active. In "Marco Polo," a wife's irregular sleeping pattern gnaws at her husband's trust despite all signs that her late-night activities are innocuous. "Gimme Shelter" touches on pivotal moments of three siblings' upbringing, carefully building to the regrets that haunt them as adults. Like many of Fridlund's couples, the protagonists of "Old House" don't realize they are in the tail end of their relationship; they gleefully mock their aging landlady's sincere Swedenborgian theology of love, with no awareness that their own intense but hollow infatuation will soon be over. Fridlund's ability to conjure humor in the darkest moments is clear in her blending of sitcom set-ups with bleak undercurrents. Her breathtaking prose and sly expressions make for compulsive reading.
