Death Is Not an Option
Suzanne Rivecca
(Author)
Description
In these stories, a teacher obsesses over a student who comes to class with scratch marks on his face; a Catholic girl graduating high school finds a warped kind of redemption in her school's contrived class rituals; and a woman looking to rent a house is sucked into a strangely inappropriate correspondence with one of the landlords. These are just a few of the powerful plotlines in Suzanne Rivecca's gorgeously wrought collection. From a college student who adopts a false hippie persona to find love, to a young memoirist who bumps up against a sexually obsessed fan, the characters in these fiercely original tales grapple with what it means to be honest with themselves and the world.These stories explode "with piercing insight . . . illuminating the dangerous dance between victims and saviors. [They] deliver us to the edge of grief, that precarious place where the moral compass spins--where codes of love and law and religion fail. Mercy here depends on a tiger's sublime grace, our capacity to resist deeper harm, and the right of every broken being to remain silent" (Melanie Rae Thon).
Product Details
Price
$21.95
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Publish Date
July 01, 2011
Pages
224
Dimensions
5.58 X 8.24 X 0.58 inches | 0.42 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780393339901
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About the Author
Suzanne Rivecca's fiction has appeared in Best New American Voices 2009, among other publications. A winner of the Pushcart Prize and a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she lives in San Francisco.
Reviews
Recalls early Gaitskill in its stark depiction of girls who lost their innocence long before they knew it was theirs to lose.
Ferociously intelligent. . . . Rivecca populates her stories with imperfect, acutely drawn characters, which is a rare pleasure, simply because her approximations are so believable.
I was astonished and transported by the stories in this collection which are simultaneously hilariously funny and sharply, sometimes painfully, perceptive. I stayed up reading them late into the night because I did not want to put them down and I thought about them for a long time after I finished the last one. I think about them still.--Emily Mitchell, author of The Last Summer of the World
The intensity of thought and feeling in Suzanne Rivecca's stories is remarkable.... The stories are brilliant, funny, and scary. This book is a major achievement.--Charles Baxter, author of The Soul Thief and The Feast of Love
Refreshing tales, laced with bitter humor and '90s pop- culture references.
[Rivecca's] talent allows her to impressively flex the muscle of fiction, making us keep our attention where it belongs--on these bracing stories promising a fine career.
These sizzling coming-of-age stories are served on a plate of shattered glass, with a side of lacerating humor. Rivecca's audacious narrators--all ask the question, What am I doing here? The answers in this gutsy, heart- rattling debut collection are deliciously complicated and always unexpected.--Pam Houston
Ferociously intelligent. . . . Rivecca populates her stories with imperfect, acutely drawn characters, which is a rare pleasure, simply because her approximations are so believable.
I was astonished and transported by the stories in this collection which are simultaneously hilariously funny and sharply, sometimes painfully, perceptive. I stayed up reading them late into the night because I did not want to put them down and I thought about them for a long time after I finished the last one. I think about them still.--Emily Mitchell, author of The Last Summer of the World
The intensity of thought and feeling in Suzanne Rivecca's stories is remarkable.... The stories are brilliant, funny, and scary. This book is a major achievement.--Charles Baxter, author of The Soul Thief and The Feast of Love
Refreshing tales, laced with bitter humor and '90s pop- culture references.
[Rivecca's] talent allows her to impressively flex the muscle of fiction, making us keep our attention where it belongs--on these bracing stories promising a fine career.
These sizzling coming-of-age stories are served on a plate of shattered glass, with a side of lacerating humor. Rivecca's audacious narrators--all ask the question, What am I doing here? The answers in this gutsy, heart- rattling debut collection are deliciously complicated and always unexpected.--Pam Houston
