These Things Happen - Hardcover

Thurm, Marian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671649248 ISBN 13: 9780671649241

Publisher: Poseidon Pr, 1988

Synopsis

This collection of stories puzzles over diverse matters of American domestic life, depicting the energetic trials of romance and responsibility and the unpredictability of various relationships

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Unpredictability and the strangeness of ordinary people are the constant themes in this second collection of short stories. Thurm ( Floating , Walking Distance ) has a precise ear for the language of odd moments. "Leaving Johanna" is a story about a couple whose marriage has stalled for Charles, the husband, who fabricates an affair as an excuse to move out. In "Away from the Heart," a young single mother opens her door to two teenaged girls called Ice and Metro who have helped her carry the baby's stroller upstairs. She later discovers that they have robbed her of her jewelry. In each of these 10 stories, Thurm negotiates the darker corners of normal life. Her imaginative scenarios"Sanctuary," for instance, takes place at a bar mitzvah, and focuses on an encounter between the father's ex-wife and his current homosexual loverare matched by the liquid clarity of her prose.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Thurm is a competent enough reporter, but this collection of ten stories is ephemeral magazine fiction, easily read and forgotten. The same characters and infidelities reappear under different guises. New Yorker Charles finds breaking off an eight-year relationship more painful than he had imagined, while New Yorker Russ finds the relationship he imagines impossible because twice-divorced Tammy is inseparable from her mama. At a bar mitzvah, Andrew's ex-wife and his homosexual lover discover their competition is not over. In the best of the lot, a woman visits her aged father, his much younger wife, and the new baby anyone can see is not his. Thurm authored Floating ( LJ 2/1/84) and Walking Distance ( LJ 4/1/87). Maurice Taylor, Brunswick Cty. Lib., Southport,
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Poseidon Pr
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0671649248
• ISBN 13: 9780671649241
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 173