Description
Fiction. An Italian soul-seeker in India encounters an antique racist toy-bank from 19th-Century America and believes it to be an incarnation of Krishna. A fertility-seeking single woman in New York's Chinatown becomes fixated on a Chinese boy and plots a kidnap. An American archaeologist suffers from under-medicated bipolar disease after the 1976 earthquake in Guatemala. A New Yorker interprets the small earthquake of 2011 as a sign of conspiracy, and her obsession masks feelings of grief surrounding the disappearance of her self-destructive twin sister. Following the existential mystery of Paul Auster, Paul Bowles' critique of the tourist, and Flannery O'Connor's redemptive grotesques, Kadetsky adds a sharp and nuanced voice to the short story, calling upon her extensive travels abroad and study of languages for a portrayal of innocents often caught in the tangles of global alliance and discord.
"This thought-provoking collection explores the variety of ways that we seek personal and spiritual connections—and the ways that we can poison ourselves and others in our quests. Elizabeth Kadetsky is a writer of keen insight and graceful prose."—Dan Chaon
"Elizabeth Kadetsky deftly constructs fully realized places—some foreign, some familiar—and fully realized characters—some of them more like us than we'd like to admit. She tugs gently on these places and people until she finds their loose strings, and begins spooling out quiet strands of damage or dread. Before you know it, the dread is your own. These stories sneak up on you, hijack you, and before you know it, it's too late. A stunning first collection."—Brian Evenson
Author Bio
Elizabeth Kadetsky is the author of First There Is a Mountain (Little, Brown), a memoir of year spent in India studying with the yogi BKS Iyengar, and the short story collection THE POISON THAT PURIFIES YOU (C&R Press, 2014), which was chosen by Vogue.com as one of the best under- the-radar picks of 2014. Her personal essays and short stories have been published in New England Review, Antioch Review, Glimmer Train, the New York Times, and many other venues. She is an assistant professor teaching fiction and nonfiction at Penn State and splits her time between New York City's East Village and State College, PA. Her work can be found at elizabethkadetsky.co m.
Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA