Homunculus - Hardcover

Stubblefield, Jerry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0930773918 ISBN 13: 9780930773915

Publisher: Black Heron Press, 2009

Synopsis

When a man can't achieve intimacy with someone else, such as a wife, he ends up achieving it with himself, which is no good. Hector Owen is well aware of his problem. He's a washed-up playwright whose imagination and creative impulse nevertheless have failed to wane in spite of his efforts to deny them. With a lackluster career behind him and a failing, sexless marriage in the Appalachian town to which he has retreated, Hec suddenly finds himself in the company of his own creation, a nasty, yet frequently charming homunculus calling himself Robin. And Robin, once freed from his lifetime of confinement within Hec's over-stressed mind/body, has a dangerous agenda that includes sex, love and ridding Hec of his lovely wife. Both literary and science fiction, Homunculus moves the Frankenstein proposition into the realm of psychosis. Is Dr. Frankenstein more culpable for the terrifying actions of his electrically energized monster than Hector Owen is for those of the glib, droll homunculus to whom he's given birth?

About this title

From the Author:

Jerry Stubblefield is a sixties survivor, experienced in hallucinations of various kinds and able to walk comfortably next to realities unshared with the neighbors. The playwright-turned-novelist graduated from the drama school at the University of Texas at Austin and is a recipient of the Samuel French Award. He is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre and studied under renowned playwrights Arthur Miller, David Henry Hwang and Wendy Wasserstein. He currently teaches creative writing and playwrighting in Asheville, North Carolina, where he lives with his wife and daughter. His son is musician Nick Stubblefield.

From Booklist:

Unemployed playwright Hector Owen’s few theatrical successes are long behind him. Languishing at home while his emotionally distant wife earns a paycheck, he still manages to keep his eccentric imagination running at fever pitch. One night, after enduring a protracted bellyache, he watches as a slimy little man, or homunculus, crawls out his navel and burrows under the bed. Cleaned up and kept hidden from his wife and neighbors, the homunculus, who calls himself Robin, quickly becomes a much-needed friend and sounding board for Hector’s creative and sexual frustrations. But Robin has a nasty side that personifies Hector’s repressed urges, including one that may involve avenging an early marital wound and plotting to murder his wife. Stubblefield draws on his own playwriting experience to deliver crisp dialogue and penetrating character studies. Despite its horror-genre motifs, Homunculus is a psychologically probing tale of a dysfunctional marriage’s effect on literary ambitions, and its portrait of neurotic impulses made flesh is one readers won’t soon forget. --Carl Hays, Booklist, Vol. 105, No. 16, April 15, 2009

About this edition

• Publisher: Black Heron Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0930773918
• ISBN 13: 9780930773915
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256