Mothers and other monsters: Stories
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Date
2008
Authors
McHugh, Maureen F.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Northampton, MA : Small Beer Press, 2008
Abstract
A debut collection and finalist for the Story Prize. Maureen F. McHugh is an expert craftswoman who brings her clear-eyed vision (and empathy) to the relationships at the heart of our lives. Her stories are elevant, insightful, and beautifully written: She uses her deceptively simple prose to illuminate the unexpected chasms that open between generations. The reader's guide includes an essay, an interview, and talking points.
The 13 stories in McHugh's debut collection offer poignant and sometimes heartwrenching explorations of personal relationships and their transformative power. In "Presence," a woman helps her husband through an experimental therapy for his Alzheimer's disease and, by the story's end, is less his spouse than a nurturing mother to his developing personality. "In the Air" bridges three generations with its account of the different emotions a woman wrestles with as she anxiously tracks her wandering senile mother and her rebellious teenage daughter by means of biologically implanted homing devices. "Laika Comes Back Safe" represents so believably the feelings two school friends share about their lives in dysfunctional families that the revelation that one occasionally transforms into a werewolf seems entirely within the realm of possibility. Whether writing an alternate Civil War history in "The Lincoln Train" or a tale of extraterrestrial anthropology in "The Cost to Be Wise," McHugh (Nekropolis) relates her stories as slices of ordinary life whose
The 13 stories in McHugh's debut collection offer poignant and sometimes heartwrenching explorations of personal relationships and their transformative power. In "Presence," a woman helps her husband through an experimental therapy for his Alzheimer's disease and, by the story's end, is less his spouse than a nurturing mother to his developing personality. "In the Air" bridges three generations with its account of the different emotions a woman wrestles with as she anxiously tracks her wandering senile mother and her rebellious teenage daughter by means of biologically implanted homing devices. "Laika Comes Back Safe" represents so believably the feelings two school friends share about their lives in dysfunctional families that the revelation that one occasionally transforms into a werewolf seems entirely within the realm of possibility. Whether writing an alternate Civil War history in "The Lincoln Train" or a tale of extraterrestrial anthropology in "The Cost to Be Wise," McHugh (Nekropolis) relates her stories as slices of ordinary life whose
Description
191 p.
Libro Electrónico
Libro Electrónico
Keywords
Parent and child--Fiction, Science fiction, American literature, Short stories
Citation
McHugh, M.F. (2008). Mothers and other monsters : stories [Adobe Digital Editions version]