Recipes for Endangered Species - Softcover

Connor, Traci O

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0982541627 ISBN 13: 9780982541623

Publisher: Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2010

Synopsis

Fiction. A dying lover plans to become a zombie. An anxious woman can't decide if she's animal or human. A Jesus the size of a pencil lurks beneath the bed. Monsters, monsters, everywhere. But are they real or imagined? The stories in RECIPES FOR ENDANGERED SPECIES hinge on this uncertainty. Lyrical, darkly funny, sometimes disturbing, this collection explores the secret desires that render people not only imperfect and dangerous, but also authentically human. Such ambiguity lies at the heart of Traci O Connor's RECIPES FOR ENDANGERED SPECIES, resulting in strangely beautiful stories obsessed with the unreasonable, the monstrous, and the extraordinary living among--and within--us.

About this title

About the Author

In addition to RECIPES FOR ENDANGERED SPECIES, Traci O. Connor has published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in journals such as Barrow Street, FOURTEEN HILLS, Gargoyle, Margie, Mid-American Review, Lit, and Diagram. She holds an M.F.A. and a PhD from the University of Utah. A writer and assistant professor at Guilford College, she lives with her family in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Reviews

Aside from the deliberate efforts to shock, these stories constitute some tender, aching love stories. Connor's characters are curious specimens who don't quite fit in, but have rich inner lives, such as Zha Zha, the chronically unfaithful exotic dancer in The Flying Codona (tits are made of cantaloupe and she eats them with a spoon), whose lovelorn boyfriend consoles himself by dreaming of being a trapeze artist. Starla and June is a creepy, Hitchcockian tale about an unraveling love affair involving a prosthetic hand that offers words of courage and strength: Oh, Pet, she'll be back, says the hand. Van Gogh Dreams juxtaposes vivid descriptions of flowers with excerpts from the painter's late asylum notebooks to evoke the chilling stream-of-consciousness of a troubled narrator. Monkey Teeth is a kind of nut job's notebook, full of Lolita-like obsession (including photographs). Cocktail recipes conclude each of the stories in this varied and occasionally unnerving debut collection. (May)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Tarpaulin Sky Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0982541627
• ISBN 13: 9780982541623
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208