The Hotel Eden stories
By: Ron Carlson.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Norton
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 224
Subjects: United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction.
Genres: Fiction.
Description: In the title story a young man waiting in the Hotel Eden discovers - as many others have - that Eden is not a permanent domicile. In "Zanduce at Second," a baseball player turned killer-by-accident undergoes a surprising transformation. We root for escaped felon Ray ("A Note on the Type") as he carves his name on a culvert wall. We drive through the sweltering summer streets of Phoenix as a nineteen-year-old narrator goes through an unsettling sexual awakening ("Oxygen").

In these and other stories, whether his characters are getting sabotaged by nightcaps or encountering nudists on a rafting trip, Ron Carlson takes us to a generous array of places in a new way. Finally, in "The Chromium Hook," he takes us to a lovers' lane where he solves an ancient mystery. Carlson's work has always made a difference. His men and women are resourceful creatures, driven and derided by conscience, comforted by the possibility of love, and at all times ready for the next thing.
Table of contents: title: The Hotel Eden; title: Keith; title: The prisoner of Bluestone; title: Zanduce at second; title: The house goes up; title: What we wanted to do; title: The chromium hook; title: A note on the type; title: Nightcap; title: Dr. Slime; title: Down the green river; title: Oxygen.