Synopsis
A collection of short works brings readers to the disease-infested areas of Rwanda and follows the stories of hard-struggling victims, devoted doctors, and a strung-out advertising writer who does the work of God. Tour.
Reviews
Offering 10 stories reprinted from magazines like the New Yorker and Playboy, Jones's second collection of short fiction displays the gritty, fatalistic vision and narrative adrenaline that distinguished his NBA-nominated The Pugilist at Rest. Set in Africa, the West Coast and other locales, these tales are teeming slices of life, full of unexpected pathos and black humor amid imagery of warfare, starvation, disease and decay. Jones's most vivid heroes?star-crossed doctors and loners, battling manic episodes and self-destructive behavior?decamp to Africa to escape dismal lives at home or return home from Africa in antisocial states. In the title story, a manic depressive doctor, stripped of his license, just back from a stint in Nairobi with Global Aid, spends two days with his lobotomized younger sister?visiting the zoo, watching TV and chatting with Jehovah's Witnesses. In "Superman, My Son," a supermarket magnate, beleaguered by debt, pays a visit to his son?a larger-than-life, born-again manic depressive with a superman complex. "Quicksand" chronicles the unlikely dalliance between a gonzo copywriter for Global Aid, who suffers from malaria and a broken thumb, and a gorgeous Danish doctor travelling from Rwanda to Zaire. The hardwon epiphanies of these embattled individuals make horrifyingly clear the legacy of warfare in the developing world and the everyday tragedies of contemporary America.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Jones' first collection of stories, The Pugilist at Rest (1993), won raves and awards. His second, which should also win accolades, is just as nervy and high powered. Vietnam was the touchstone for the earlier stories; here Africa is the base of operations, and many of Jones' characters are associated with an organization called Global Aid. These doctors and fund-raisers plunge into the madness that is Rwanda and other blood-soaked, malarial and AIDS-infected lands and go a bit crazy. Everyone ingests massive quantities of alcohol, coffee, and cigarettes, and each story is concerned with some form of disease. Jones writes about manic-depressives with a rough-and-tumble sensitivity, finding the humor as well as the sorrow in the preternatural swings from absurdity to nobility, and he portrays those who love and stand by the afflicted as heroic. Jones brings the same acuity to tales about other types of disorders, and his stories, driven by droll and staccato dialogue, are almost painfully tactile. Cold and heat are overwhelming, people are extremely physical, and the threat of morbidity gives every scene an edge. Potent stuff. Donna Seaman
Jones's acclaimed collection, The Pugilist at Rest and Other Stories (LJ 4/15/93), was an outstanding debut even if many of the author's characters?chiefly soldiers and boxers?seemed interchangeable. In supporting a wider variety of themes and characters, Cold Snap is evidence of the author's maturation. In the title story, the collection's best, a manic global relief doctor returns from Africa to Seattle, where the unpredictable weather mirrors his mental state. Other tales feature an advertising copywriter on a hellish tour of Africa, a female Aborigine who finds her calling in drag racing, and, yes, the obligatory story about the life of a boxer as well as another lament on the soldier's life. Jones's frenetic, jittery writing style is well in tune with his characters, and this collection affirms his position as one of our best new writers. One can only hope that a novel is on the horizon. Recommended for most public libraries.?Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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