From Publishers Weekly Chameleon-like, Shacochis assimilates diverse
geographic locales and voices in these surprising stories. In "I Ate Her
Heart," a wild tall tale set in Texas, a harmonica-playing good-old-boy finds
that violence and love may intersect. "Where Pelham Fell" is about a diehard
Virginia aristocrat who obsessively collects bones from a Civil War
battlefield. Contrived diction mars "The Trapdoor," set in an Elizabethan
London playhouse. The opener, "Les Femmes Creoles," hilariously yet touchingly
limns two old crones who weave romantic rescue fantasies around male intruders
on their derelict plantation. Three of the eight tales return to the Caribbean
locale that Shacochis musically evoked in his first collection, Easy in the
Islands , which won a 1985 American Book Award. The most complex piece here,
"Celebrations of the New World," is a zinger. The respective families of a
newly married coupletheir roots generically Midwestern and Lebanese-Irish-
Mexicanconfront each other in a July Fourth bash; we see America as a seething
caldron rather than a melting-pot. These memorable stories capture a sense of
the enormous compromises that life forces on us as we lurch toward a clouded
future. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more From Library
Journal Winner of the 1985 American Book Award, Shacochis here presents a
Southboth American South and Caribbeanthat is less a geographical place than a
metaphor or mystery seen through gauze. Thus, in "Les Femmes Creoles" we meet
two very old sisters living on an abandoned estate in the Caribbean. Whether
their hallucinatory state is due to hunger or madness, whether they actually
exist or are spirits, is unclear. Yet Shacochis has entered their souls so
deeply that they never fail to hold one's attention. Operating on several
symbolic levels, the stories all demand a considerable patience but reward the
reader with strange insights and a close glimpse of strange worlds.Marcia
Tager, Tenafly, Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more
Features:
Product Details:
Hardcover: 209 pages
Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (February 13, 1988)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 051757067X
ISBN-13: 78
Package Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
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