By: Lucy Corin Publisher: Tin House Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Tin House Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 220 Publication Date: September 28, 2007
In this refreshing, funny, and startling collection of stories, Lucy Corin veers far from the path of staid contemporary fiction. She masterfully weaves traditional and experimental topics and techniques, creating a fictional world where people behave normally in the most extreme situations, and in bizarrely with almost no provocation at all. But thanks to her vivid, sharp prose and insightful first-person voices, even the oddest behavior is utterly believable. Unpredictable and playful, these stories transcend their apocalyptic feel to offer a vision that is clear, humane, and completely engaging. The Entire Predicament secures Corin’s reputation as an original, stylistically courageous voice in contemporary avant-garde fiction.
Like nothing you've seen before In no particular order, here are some highlights from the elusive, allusive, hilarious, dead-serious stories in The Entire Predicament:
`Mice' - lyrical ecstasy over the Siberian Tundra
`Incognito' - in which a television reporter takes off her wig
`Some Machines' - PostModern Times inside the machine
`Refrigerator' from `Some Machines' - how to live by the light of a fridge
`Rich People' - a postmodern folk tale about pate, the type you eat and throw away
These are just a few of my favorites. As Miles Raymond from 2004's Sideways might say of Pinot Noir, "oh its flavors, they're just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and... ancient on the planet." For the connoisseur - very highly recommended.