Prayers of an Accidental Nature, Debra Di Blasi, Coffee House Press, 1999
This group of contemporary stories looks at people from different walks of life driven by a need or yearning; for sex, healing or even death. There is also a lot of dealing with cross-cultural differences.
A married couple become friends with a student from Bolivia with a real talent for telling lies. Young South American men drop their American girlfriends as soon as the romantic heat has cooled. In another story, an American woman juggles two boyfriends from Argentina. Using the charade of an interview with her husband, a woman deals with the dissolution of her marriage. In death, an eighth-grade geography teacher gets back at her obnoxious young tormentor; as a final tribute, her students stand around her grave reciting state capitals. The title story is about a blueblood young man and his unconventional (also South American) girlfriend, who meet his snooty, arrogant relatives, with plans to marry and live in a small village in the mountains.
Di Blasi does a very good job looking at the dark side of intimacy. This is not a perfect group of stories, but its look at lost love and obsession with sex make it well worth reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment