Milton's Elements - Softcover

Strube, Cordelia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0889104778 ISBN 13: 9780889104778

Publisher: Coach House Pr, 1995

Synopsis

Meet Milton, a dyslexic, friendless, out-of-work factory worker who feels himself to be always on the outside, looking in. Seven months ago his three-year-old daughter Ariel was killed in a freak accident. Numb now, helpless, he can go for days without feeling a thing.
Meet Milton's family. His wife, Judith, a grocery check-out clerk who consults the I Ching, quotes John Lennon and has been seeing a 'Trance Channeller' who claims to be in touch with Ariel; his chain-smoking sister Mandy with her unemployed husband Seth and their two juvenile delinquent sons; his abuse-addicted sister Connie who's spent the last ten years living on the streets; his insufferable brother Leonard, a hotel decorator who's dying of AIDS; and Mare, his cantankerous, heart-diseased, gun-toting mother who hates everything and everybody - including her children and herself.
When Judith starts seeing another man, Milton hits her, and she moves out. Now he is completely alone. But within days his family has contrived to move in with him for an indefinite period. United only in their hatred of their mother, Milton, Connie, Leonard and Mandy each struggle to come to terms with their troubled pasts and damaged lives.
Are people born weak and cruel, or do the hardships of time make them so? Turning her blackly comic eye on the legacies of dishonesty and selfishness in family life, Cordelia Strube has created a collection of characters that catch at our hearts even as they make the guests on 'Geraldo' seem almost tame.

About this title

From Library Journal:

Milton is having an unbelievable midlife crisis. He feels like a loser-a reasonable conclusion for a dyslexic adult from a dysfunctional family. When his daughter dies, Milton loses his job, his wife leaves him, and the family he hates-his abusive mother, his brother dying of AIDS, his drug-abusing prostitute sister, and his codependent sister and her two sons-all appear on his doorstep. Milton remains unmoved even when one sister shoots herself, his mother dies of a heart attack, and his brother goes into a coma, all in the same 48-hour period. Reading this novel is like beating your head against the proverbial brick wall-it feels so good when you stop. This unhappy story by a playwright/actress living in Toronto is not recommended for the faint of heart.
Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Providence
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Coach House Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0889104778
• ISBN 13: 9780889104778
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 283