Cake
Subtitle: stories
By: by Tristan Davies.
Series: Johns Hopkins, poetry and fiction
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2003
Place of publication: Baltimore
Language: eng
Number of pages: 154
Subjects: Love stories, American.
Description: "Impressionistic and dreamlike, the stories in Cake explore the complexities of love and relationships in contemporary society. Linked by a sense of regret, these characters are at the mercy of their desires and uncertain longings, often with disastrous results. A young couple experiences town politics, group dynamics, and their own insecurities through a seemingly innocuous holiday ritual in "Snowflake." "Talent Show" introduces us to a series of unnamed women, their dreams and aspirations summed up in a few deceptively simple lines. One life leads into another, until we return to where we began, like a cinematic pan across a landscape of ambition gone awry." "The imagery in these compact and highly visual stories ranges from the everyday to the surreal. "Buena Vista Notebook" deftly blends language and wordplay with the story of doomed love affairs, culminating in a chance meeting that is random yet somehow not unexpected. And "Job" relates the story of what is perhaps the most unusual meeting of two naked people in recent fiction. Comic and yet sad, its hero experiences a moment of painful clarity in the most unlikely of circumstances." "Questions of identity, love, and the nature of existence may never be answered fully in fiction or in life, but each of these stories presents a psychological turning point, often just a fleeting moment, sometimes more bitter than sweet. And in that moment, the characters are brought that much closer to the answers to some of those questions."--BOOK JACKET.
Table of contents: title: Andromeda; title: Talent show; title: A night dive; title: Crazy yvonne; title: Buena vista notebook; title: Grouper Schmidt; title: Personals; title: Snowflake; title: Night; title: She is the mother of the cat; title: Alias; title: Job; title: Snapdragon; title: Counterfactuals; title: On the night before her birthday; title: Cake; title: In the woodlands; title: Dan, Astrid says; title: Alfalfa valve; title: The thing itself.