Glass Houses - Softcover

Rabasa, George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1566890519 ISBN 13: 9781566890519

Publisher: Coffee House Press, 1996

Synopsis

If you can laugh at—or with—Minnesotans, this is your book.

In Glass Houses, George Rabasa offers nineteen stories, generously infused with irony, compassion, and an edgy wit. From the deceptively tranquil lull of a suburban street, to the incessant buzz of a Midwestern city, to the fragility of rural American, this book reveals people we know: our husbands, wives, and children, our neighbors and our co-workers. Here, at last illuminated, are our familiar modern fears: of jobs dissolving, neighborhoods being contaminated, relationships demanding too much or not giving enough, values collapsing, and illusions vanishing. Humorous and unsettling, Glass Houses is a rich collection of stories about the delicate balance of our not-so-private contemporary lives and our ardent attempts to keep the structure sound.

About this title

About the Author

George Rabasa's collection of short stories, Glass Houses, received The Writer's Voice Capricorn Award for Excellence in Fiction and the Minnesota Book Award for Short Stories. His novel, Floating Kingdom received the Minnesota Book Award for Fiction. His other acclaimed novels include The Cleansing, The Wonder Singer, and Miss Entropia and the Adam Bomb. His short fiction has appeared in various anthologies and literary magazines, such as Glimmer Train, Story Quarterly, The MacGuffin, South Carolina Quarterly, American Literary Review, and others. Rabasa was born in Maine, raised in Mexico, and now lives in Minnesota.

Reviews

In his first collection of short stories, Rabasa introduces a delightfully bizarre world and sheds light on it from 19 different angles. Each story is more entertaining than the last, and the overall effect is refreshing even if Rabasa's penchant for the outlandish detail seems contrived at times. In "A Small Mystery," Eleanor Wright is convinced that her new neighbor, Walter Pribble, is a criminal. While her husband markets a new cereal using his neighbor's name (Grain, Fruit 'n Nut Pribbles), Eleanor is fascinated by Walter's nightly ritual of prancing around his kitchen naked. Then there's Sally Caslon in "Beyond the Norm," who sells the head of Mrs. Arveda Gutterman, a 19th-century serial killer, at a garage sale for $50. The local color of Rabasa's realm is especially bright in "The Garbage House," where the Halvorsons of 467 Farrell Street are forced into a Super Eight Motel while sanitation experts empty three tons of garbage that have accumulated during the couple's decade-long quarrel over who should wash the dishes. The greatest strength of this collection is its dialogue. Rabasa recreates the subtle misunderstandings of everyday banter, giving each character such a distinct voice that the dialogue could practically stand on its own. Even though it leaves questions unanswered and problems unresolved, these surreal Glass Houses are definitely worth prying into.

Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1566890519
• ISBN 13: 9781566890519
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192