num_pages: 223
description: As in Sherwood Andersons Winesburg Ohio place is at the center of Cynthia Morrison Phoels debut collection of linked stories. Quirky remote and agonizingly intimate the ragged village of Old Mountain is home to a cast of Bulgarian townsfolk who do daily battle with the heat or the bitter cold with soul-crushing poverty with petty disagreements among themselvesall the while attempting to adapt to changing times and keep up with their neighbors. Money is tight in this valley of run-down Communist blocks and crumbling plaster houses but community is tighter.When a largely unemployed father in A Good Boy trades his much-needed summer earnings for a hulking satellite dish everyone knows about it. The same way everyone knows about the shop lady who rests her finger on the scale to drive up the price of cheese in Galia. In Satisfactory Proof a budding mathematician completes a prestigious masters degree in number theory but fails to recognize the patterns of care and compassion everywhere around him. And in the concluding novella Cold Snap as the town endures freezing temperatures and waits for the central heat to be turned on the characters we have already met make a satisfying encore appearanceas the brittle cold pushes them to the edge of reason.Phoel transports us to a country where jobs are scarce and men are more in love with their satellite dishes than their wives. Old Mountain is not an easy place to live but these stories with their surprising leaps of empathy make it a pleasure to visit.Margot Livesey author of The House on Fortune StreetI admire Cynthia Phoel's use of original material and the skill with which she makes an unfamiliar world real.Alison Lurie author of Truth and Consequences
language: English
title: Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories
publisher: Southern Methodist Univ Pr