The Safety of Objects
Stories
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
The breakthrough story collection that established A. M. Homes as one of the most daring writers of her generation
Originally published in 1990 to wide critical acclaim, this extraordinary first collection of stories by A. M. Homes confronts the real and the surreal on even terms to create a disturbing and sometimes hilarious vision of the American dream. Included here are "Adults Alone," in which a couple drops their kids off at Grandma's and gives themselves over to ten days of Nintendo, porn videos, and crack; "A Real Doll," in which a girl's blond Barbie doll seduces her teenaged brother; and "Looking for Johnny," in which a kidnapped boy, having failed to meet his abductor's expectations, is returned home. These stories, by turns satirical, perverse, unsettling, and utterly believable, expose the dangers of ordinary life even as their characters stay hidden behind the disguises they have so carefully created.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In each of these 10 stories by the author of Jack , characters' thoughts and deeds veer far beyond ordinary boundaries. The couple in ``Adults Alone,'' whose children have been left with a grandmother for a few days, descend into mindless torpor and crack-smoking. Reality returns with the news that their boys are coming home early. In ``Jim Train,'' a character whose office is unexpectedly closed also finds himself slipping off the edge of self-definition. Homes's characters need to hang on to the safety of their everyday lives, and the point that reverberates through these fictions is how tenuous a hold they actually have. In ``A Real Doll,'' a teenage boy has a series of erotic encounters with his little sister's Barbie doll: ``I'm Tropical, she said, the same way a person might say I'm Catholic or I'm Jewish.''stet punctuation.eed Ken, she complains, ``Is not what you'd call well-endowed. . . . All he's got is a little plastic bump.'' After an even more bizarre sexual liaison with Ken, the narrator becomes disenchanted with Barbie, who has been mutilated by her owner. Though occasionally given to straining for shocking effect, Homes has here demonstrated a quirky and original flair. QPB selection.
Customer Reviews
The Safety of Objects
Yawn... When you're trying this hard to be clever, it comes off as deliberate and almost sad. Very haphazard writing; not captivating at all.