Coup de Foudre
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
The explosive new collection by the celebrated author of Thirst and PEN/Faulkner Award finalist Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies, Coup de Foudre is the kind of groundbreaking work of literary invention Ken Kalfus's fans have come to expect. The book is anchored by the full text of the provocatively topical title novella that appeared in Harper's, a sometimes farcical, ultimately tragic story about the president of an international lending institution accused of sexually assaulting a housekeeper in a New York hotel. Recalling recent news events with irony and compassion, Kalfus skewers international political gridlock and the hypocrisies of acceptable sexual conduct.
In "The Moment They Were Waiting For," a murderer on death row casts a spell granting the inhabitants of his city the foreknowledge of the dates they will die. In "v. The Large Hadron Collider," a judge distracted by the faint possibility of an adulterous affair must decide whether to throw out a nuisance lawsuit that raises the even fainter possibility that the entire Earth may be destroyed. "The Un-" is a nostalgic story of a young writer's struggles as he tries to surmount the colossal, heavily guarded wall that apparently separates writers who have been published from those who have not.
Varying boldly in theme, setting, and tone, the stories in Coup de Foudre share Kalfus's distinctive humor and intellect, inextricably bound with high literary ambition.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This collection from Kalfus (Equilateral), containing one novella and 15 short stories, overflows with ideas and oddities that mostly succeed. In "Square Paul-Painlev ," a young man, in deep contemplation, begins to suspect that a park bench possesses an unusual gravitational pull. "The Moment They Were Waiting For" finds the residents of a town suddenly cognizant of the dates they will die, all thanks to a curse uttered by a death-row inmate at his execution. Not all of Kalfus's narratives hinge on the fantastic, however. The title novella, about the fall of a misogynistic French finance bigwig, echoes the real-life trials of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Similarly, stories such as "Mr. Iraq" in which a political journalist, on record supporting the invasion of Iraq, attempts to subdue a Washington, D.C. antiwar rally in 2005 and "Laser" in which a man has laser surgery to curb deterioration from glaucoma in his eye, only to find his vision failing soon thereafter plant firm roots in situations real and vivid. Still, with so many concepts on display, certain stories fail to thrive. The alphabetized wordplay of " City of Spies'" feels more like an exercise than a story, and "Gemini," though clever in construction a man recounts the day he lost his job without revealing why resolves with little satisfaction.
