Direct Sunlight: Stories (First Edition)

Sneed, Christine

ISBN 10: 0810146169 / ISBN 13: 9780810146167

Published by Tri Quarterly Books, 2023

About this Item

Evanston: TriQuarterly Books / Northwestern University Press, 2023. First edition. First printing. Trade paperback original. Decorated wrappers. Fine. A tight, clean copy, apparently unread, with no faults. Octavo, 248 pages. "Direct Sunlight" is a collection of twelve sharply observed stories that explore contemporary life through characters grappling with relationships, loss, desire, and disillusionment. The stories include The Swami Buchu Trungpa, Where Do You Last Remember Holding It?, The Monkey s Uncle Louis, Direct Sunlight, In the Park, House of Paine, The Petting Zoo, Mega Millions, Ma am?, Dear Kelly Bloom, Wedding Party, and The Common Cold. "Direct Sunlight" is her third story collection, following "Portraits of a Few of the People I ve Made Cry" and "The Virginity of Famous Men".

Seller Inventory # Fiction-Sneed

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Direct Sunlight: Stories (First Edition)
• Publisher: Tri Quarterly Books
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0810146169
• ISBN 13: 9780810146167
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

A collection of twelve stories by award-winning author Christine Sneed
 
The stories in Direct Sunlight, award-winning author Christine Sneed’s latest, are inspired by the memorable strangeness of everyday life. The characters in these topically diverse tales experience events that bring the terms of their day-to-day lives and their relationships into focus in a way hitherto foreign to them.
 
The title story features two adult children learning of their father’s second family long after his death in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “Mega Millions” explores the aftermath of a small-town midwestern factory employee’s enormous lottery win. In “Dear Kelly Bloom,” a young journalist takes on the role of advice columnist at a faltering Chicago newspaper around the time of the 2008 financial meltdown and soon finds himself tasked with replying to his own mother’s letter requesting guidance on family matters. In “The Monkey’s Uncle Louis,” a contentedly childless man tries to make sense of his sister’s decision to adopt a capuchin monkey after she and her husband find themselves unable to conceive a baby of their own.
 
The stories in Direct Sunlight rely on humor but are balanced by Sneed’s clear-eyed sobriety about the sorrows inherent in the human condition.

About the Author

CHRISTINE SNEED is the author of three novels, most recently Please Be Advised: A Novel in Memos, and two previous story collections, Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry and The Virginity of Famous Men. She has received the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, the Chicago Public Library Foundation's 21st Century Award, and has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other honors. Her stories have also appeared in The Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Prize Stories. She lives in Pasadena, California.