First, Body: Stories - Hardcover

Thon, Melanie Rae

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039578588X ISBN 13: 9780395785881

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 1997

Synopsis

The author of Girls in the Grass presents another collection of her short stories, including the tale of a privileged Florida girl who reveals that the secret dangers of her life include alligators and a crippled grandfather.

About this title

Review:

"Two nurses with scissors could make a man naked in eleven seconds." The first sentence of the first story from this collection grabs you and offers an insightful metaphor for all that is to come. With dark and seductive prose, Thon strips away the surface of her characters to get to the raw heart of being. Her characters' lives are edged with pain, addiction, loneliness, and dire circumstances. Sex is an act of survival, drugs less a matter of choice than necessity, human contact less an act of intimacy than a jostling for position. And Thon dumps you right into the middle of these desperate lives, graced only with her lyrical and searching voice. Although it's a slender collection, barely more than 150 pages, it hits you hard--you'll want to catch your breath after each story. Granta has declared Thon to be among the best young American novelists, and this collection does not belie the accolades.

About the Author:

Melanie Rae Thon teaches at the Ohio State University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 039578588X
• ISBN 13: 9780395785881
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 165