Touch & Go - Softcover

Stein, Eugene P

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0688161960 ISBN 13: 9780688161965

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 1998

Synopsis

A wholly original writer breathes new life into a literary tradition in this fearless, masterfully inventive collection of thirteen stories.

Stick your finger in Shorty's rice pudding -- still warm from the pot -- at Mom's Diner. (Shorty's the cook.) There's always a word of friendly advice and a positive outlook here, and even the criminals appreciate the good service.

If you fall in love when you're traveling, pay attention to whom you trust -- and where you go. You have to be careful of Death in Belize, but the beaches there are very, very pretty, and the people, good-looking and kind.

Workers, unite! See the beauty of utopia in The Triumph of the Prague Workers' Councils -- Tatiana Malevich's masterwork in collage. The artwork's whereabouts remain shrouded in mystery, but Elaine and Jessica, revolutionaries and amateur detectives, are sure to uncover it if they don't kill each other first.

A Darvon, two Xanax, two Valiums, and some Chardonnay. Shula's got to look up that combo in the drug hotline handbook to know how it'll mess you up. Speaking of which, after all those Close Calls, why aren't you dead yet?

In Touch and Go, Eugene Stein evokes strange -- yet strangely familiar -- worlds, feelings you didn't know were there, flavors aplenty. Into the dark corners of your heart and mind he shines a unique light on love, life, and desire -- illuminating and brilliant.

About this title

About the Author

Eugene Stein was born in New York City and attended Yale College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of a novel, Straitjacket & Tie, and now lives in Los Angeles.

From Kirkus Reviews

The author of the novel Straitjacket and Tie (1994) displays a greater narrative range, and more stylistic daring, in this first collection of 13 stories. The weaker pieces here rely on the same gay themes as Straitjacket: In ``Mixed Signals,'' a teenager in Forest hills experiences his first homosexual longing for his older brother's college roommate, whose gay self-confidence reassures the younger boy. In ``Death in Belize,'' a naive American executive in his 20s is seduced by a handsome Peruvian who turns out to be a hustler and a carrier of a lethal infection. Some shortcuts offer quick comedic takes on ambitious studio execs (``Buster Keaton Gets Faxed''); a fan's obsession with Patti Smith (``Dream of Life''); a diner where nothing negative is allowed (``Mom's Dinner''); and The Book as sexual subject (``Kiss This Book''). The longer stories vary from the strained seriousness of ``Hard Bargains''--in which a young Chicago journalist discovers her racist tendencies--to ``The Grandma Golem,'' a fable that retells the Jewish myth with a slight twist. A fine story, ``Close Calls,'' is partly drawn from Stein's day job as a v.p. of comedy development for CBS; it records the pressures of the entertainment business and one young exec's substance-abuse problem. On a wholly other note, ``The Art of Falling'' and ``Broken Mathematics'' offer delightful tales of modern love--one between a charming tax-dodger and his sexually- repressed investigator, the other between a grad student in math and two contrasting lovers. The best piece here, though, is the inventive, intelligently playful ``The Triumph of the Prague Worker's Council,'' a mystery involving an obscure Russian Situationist artist. The story cleverly embodies the very radical anarchist notions it explores. Various and worthwhile, from Lynch-like bits of surrealism to steady-handed realism, Stein's literary fictions will surprise those literary types who may hold his high-powered job against him. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0688161960
• ISBN 13: 9780688161965
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192