Inherited disorders
Subtitle: stories, parables & problems
By: Adam Ehrlich Sachs
Edition: First Regan Arts hardcover edition.
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 262
ISBN-13: 9781682450154
Subjects: American Short stories; Fathers and sons; Fiction
Description: Adam Ehrlich Sachs's Inherited Disorders is a rueful, absurd, and endlessly entertaining look at a most serious subject--the eternally vexed relations between fathers and sons. In a hundred and seventeen shrewd, surreal vignettes, Sachs lays bare the petty rivalries, thwarted affection, and mutual bafflement that have characterized the filial bond since the days of Davidic kings. A philosopher's son kills his father and explains his aphorisms to death. A father bequeaths to his son his jacket, deodorant, and political beliefs. England's most famous medium becomes possessed by the spirit of his skeptical father--who questions, in front of the nation, his son's choice of career. A Czech pianist amputates his fingers one by one to thwart his father, who will not stop composing concertos for him. A nineteenth-century Italian nobleman wills his ill-conceived flying contraption--incapable of actual flight--to his newborn son. In West Hollywood, an aspiring screenwriter must contend with the judgmental visage of his father, a respected public intellectual whose frozen head, clearly disappointed in him, he keeps in his freezer. Keenly inventive, but painfully familiar, these surprisingly tender stories signal the arrival of a brilliant new comic voice--and fresh hope for fathers and sons the world over.
Table of contents: title: The nature poet --; title: Above and beyond --; title: The chimney sweep --; title: The worker's fist --; title: Diving record --; title: Progress --; title: Unlike Sofia Coppola --; title: Our system --; title: Turin, 1962 --; title: Concerto for a corpse --; title: The Flemish engraver's son --; title: The children's book --; title: Obligation --; title: Hostage situation --; title: The sweeper --; title: Herb's place --; title: No --; title: The death of Inspector Pirenne --; title: The sulfer baths --; title: Last line --; title: In equilibrium --; title: Hand-me-downs --; title: Accepted donations --; title: The furniture owner's son --; title: Two hats --; title: Dead language --; title: The clock tower --; title: Commentary --; title: Explanation --; title: Vindicated --; title: In the house of the cryptoporticus --; title: In a vat --; title: Divergence from Lescanne --; title: Ice climbers --; title: Practical joke --; title: The Tallinn Holocaust Memorial Museum --; title: Reproduction --; title: Footsteps --; title: Nematodes --; title: Verb inflections in an Algonquin dialect --; title: Controll --; title: Siegel's shoes --; title: Breathing problems --; title: The conversationalist --; title: The stipulation --; title: Resemblance --; title: Correspondence --; title: A bad Modigliani --; title: Find and replace --; title: The family Rivulidae --; title: The Uppsala school of meteorology --; title: The Konigsberg building --; title: Talent --; title: Exploitation --; title: Peace plan --; title: The inverted pyramid --; title: Figments --; title: The constitutional law scholar's traits --; title: Salvageable --; title: Masters --; title: Something to genetics --; title: Assisted living --; title: Vengeance --; title: A nightmare --; title: Vanished --; title: The family shiraz --; title: Abuse --; title: Legacy --; title: Crush --; title: The Ottoman historian's head --; title: The labor historian's head --; title: Improvement --; title: Printing error --; title: The end of Evans --; title: Utterly inscrutable --; title: The madman's time machine --; title: Fleischman's predicament --; title: The Balkan historian --; title: Grief --; title: Two museums --; title: Order matters --; title: Determinism --; title: Betrayal --; title: Disagreement --; title: Shimura's robot --; title: Human consumption --; title: Stunt --; title: The performing arts --; title: In sympathy --; title: The fourth sonata --; title: Partial temples --; title: Capital --; title: Strassberg & Strassberg --; title: Doubts --; title: Regret --; title: Poignant --; title: Middle ground --; title: The Brentano tales --; title: The Bosnia project --; title: The flying contraption --; title: Normalcy --; title: Tone --; title: Patrilineal --; title: Decision-making --; title: Philanthropy --; title: Precision --; title: An asymmetry --; title: Groomed --; title: Unfinished things --; title: Sanctuary --; title: Groundwork --; title: Parrot care --; title: Exhaustion --; title: Last wishes --; title: Last words --; title: A memorial on the River Havel --; title: Unrest.