Where We Lived: Short Stories
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Book Overview
Meet Tanya, Gwen, Emma, Mia, and Claire, five girls from the same hometown whose lives intersect under unforgettable circumstances. Tanya grows up with an abusive brother and a prostitute's daughter for a best friend. Gwen dreams of being a super-model but, like Tanya on the rougher side of town, must surviveviolence. Emma has a hard-working single mother who can't always protect her. Emma's best friend, Mia, loses her father to suicide. And finally, there's Claire, who escapes their small town but finds she can't escape the past. Through these remarkable characters, Christina Fitzpatrick captures not only the anger and fear in being young and unprotected but also the strength and compassion that unite all who have suffered and survived. In this dark, breathtaking work, Ms. Fitzpatrick's haunting prose elevates the female experience into a powerful, raw read.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0060957468
ISBN13:9780060957469
Release Date:July 2002
Publisher:Harper Perennial
Length:272 Pages
Weight:1.70 lbs.
Dimensions:0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Spectral Allure
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 22 years ago
Just finished Where We Lived the other night and, after turning out the lights, found myself restless. The debut collection was a refreshing find, drawing me into an American landscape sallow and softly faded, one I had forgotten when I left it behind. The prose is shrewd - here insightful and amusing, there taut and uncomfortable. It's so often languid that it doesn't feel threatening until its accurate depiction of the human condition leaves you feeling abandoned even as city of strangers hustles all around you. This is how the girls are brought before us, with a quiet, but harrowing deftness. Fitzpatrick places them into their stories as if on a lathe, carving away more with each spin by us, until they are whittled to a hollow we recognize as ourselves: flawed and awkward, mercurial in our will. The backgrounds are salted with an assortment of others, the uncomely and corrosive, the entertaining and those with promise. The closing piece is the funniest thing I've read since Daniel Orozco's "Orientation" opened the Best American Short Stories a few years back. I'm looking forward to picking up her newest work and finding where she will lead me next. And where she will leave me.
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