Better Living Through Plastic Explosives
Brand: Penguin Canada
Color: Black
Categories: Books, Humor & Entertainment, Humor



Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches
ISBN-13: 978-0143177678
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0143177672
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Print length: 232 pages
Publication date: April 10, 2012
subtitle: Paperback – April 10, 2012
author: Visit Amazon's Zsuzsi Gartner Page search results Zsuzsi Gartner
review: Editorial Reviews Review “Gartner has outdone herself with Better Living Through Plastic Explosives. She will garner a fistful of award nominations, more than a few fireworks and maybe even some hang-up phone calls.” - Winnipeg Free Press "Gartner’s sentences are … expansive, polished and dense with flecks and speckles of dark and light. She can go from sardonic to plangent, wry to heartfelt.” - The Globe and Mail “Superb…. Gartner’s attentiveness to the artificial gives her prose a laser-like sharpness and precision.” - National Post “What crazy, wonderful writing this is—hilarious, exuberant, apocalyptic, heart-stopping. Gartner sees all, dissects all, loves all. An absolutely irresistible collection.” - Barbara Gowdy “Zsuzsi Gartner’s new collection of short stories is as smart, satiric, playful and wicked as her previously acclaimed and bestselling book, ALL THE ANXIOUS GIRLS ON EARTH.” - Janet Somerville “[ Better Living Through Plastic Explosives ] shows the short story form at its savage best, each story capturing, with brilliant economy and grace, not only entire worlds but whole mindsets as they explode into eloquence. Gartner is one of the supreme noticers in contemporary fiction, and with this book she has produced a rare work of wisdom and laughter.” - 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize Jury “[Gartner] drills into your brain with amazing images and a snappy delivery that verges on inciting mental whiplash. What a ride! … Gartner is fall-out-of-your-chair funny, but the hilarity has a splendid whack of asperity to it for a great combination. The 10 stories in this book are wonderfully various and humorously satirical … Her send-up of idiotic earnestness is so refreshing, I can’t wait for the next collection.” - Vancouver Sun “With her second collection of short stories, Zsuzsi Gartner has delved far underground, taken its seismic measure, and returned to give us the report … Dark, sinister, scary? Yes, but Gartner’s skill in the telling is thrilling. I’m a new fan of Gartner. I really liked All the Anxious Girls on Earth … But in Better Living Though Plastic Explosives, Gartner goes darker, deeper, and funnier. Her new stories are more trenchant, more satirical, more surreal. At the same time, Gartner still manages to evoke great empathy for characters and their sad, sad lives. Reading this book, I despaired … But I also felt exhilarated, the same exhilaration I felt when first reading Vonnegut and Barthelme and, more recently, George Saunders.” - Winnipeg Review About the Author ZSUZSI GARTNER is the Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlisted author of two widely acclaimed story collections, Better Living Through Plastics and All the Anxious Girls on Earth . Her fiction has been widely anthologizes, broadcast on CBC and NPR, and won numerous prized, including a 2016 National Magazine Award. She is also the editor of the award-winning fiction anthology Darwin's Bastard's: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow . Zsuzsi has been on the faculty of UBC's Creating Writing MFA program and many of the Banff Centre's writing programs, and is the founder and director of Writers Adventure Camp in Whistler, BC. Excerpts from The Beguiling , her debut novel, have appeared in The Walrus , SubTerrin , and Maisonneuve . She lives in Vancouver.