Nine Simple Patterns for Complicated Women - Softcover

Mary Rechner

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0982770405 ISBN 13: 9780982770405

Publisher: Propeller Books, 2010

Synopsis

A woman sewing a dress for her anniversary night out finds herself presiding over her young daughters as they cut apart their own clothes. A four year old boy going earnestly about the business of being a four year old boy is perplexed as to why his behavior seems to have dramatic effects on his mother. An elementary school volunteer learns about a role-playing card game from a young boy, and then sees the roles play out in her own home. College friends and couples reunite for a drink, and find that although their campus couplings are in the past, their sexual competitions are still very much present. Over the course of these nine stories, Mary Rechner brings a frank, humorous, and ultimately illuminating narrative voice to the subjects of sex, marriage, family, and work. Her characters strain against expected behaviors and received opinions about emotional life: a grieving woman considers pursuing her dead lover's twin, a master gardener envies the freedom of her widowed friend, a poet considers which of her pieces will work best when read in a strip club, and a patient in the dentist's chair finds her appointment her best chance to reflect on her otherwise hectic life. Nominated for awards and the recipient of fellowships from organizations on both sides of the country, Mary Rechner's prose leavens moments of despair with moments of humor, and recognizes the knotted relationship between pleasure and pain. The patient, uncompromising work of a writer who has carefully observed the moments of possibility and peril that appear--and that we often deliberately seek--in the journey from youth to adulthood, Nine Simple Patterns for Complicated Women is a debut collection that signals the arrival of a significant new voice in contemporary fiction.

About this title

About the Author

Mary Rechner's fiction has appeared in publications including Kenyon Review, Washington Square, Propeller Quarterly, and Oregon Literary Review. Her criticism and essays have appeared in The Believer and The Oregonian. She is a recipient of an Oregon Literary Fellowship, and in 2006, her story Hot Springs was printed as a limited edition letterpress chapbook by Cloverfield Press. She is also the director of Portland's Writers in the Schools program, which places poets, fiction writers, essayists, graphic novelists, and playwrights into Portland area high schools, where they facilitate exercises and instruction in creative writing. Last year, the program sponsored writing workshops in 60 classrooms and served more than 2,000 students. Mary Rechner grew up on Long Island, and currently lives in Portland, Oregon.

Edition details

• Publisher: Propeller Books
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0982770405
• ISBN 13: 9780982770405
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 164