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August 2007

Living Between Two Worlds

Sunday, August 26, 2007

"He followed her into the living room, where she gestured to the piano. He had never seen one up close before. It was smaller than he thought it would be, and blacker. All of a sudden, he was frightened.”
-- Alix Ohlin, "Simple Exercises for the Beginning Student."

A madman points up the absurdity of war, and a young boy learns about longing and loss, in two contemporary tales from different worlds.


Men: baffled, real, and ideal.

Sunday, August 19, 2007



“The girls love Safety Man. Megan is ten and Molly is eight, and they have decided that Safety Man is handsome. They have been involved in dressing him—their father’s old leather jacket and sunglasses and a baseball cap turned backward. They are pleased to be protected by a life-sized simulated male guardian.”—Dan Chaon, “Safety Man.”
James Thurber comically adrift in a radio station, and two unusual views of the role of men in marriage.


The limits of love.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

“My husband is the kindest, most gentle man I have ever met. I clearly don’t deserve him. He’s like a surfing, golfing, St. Francis of Assisi.”—N.M. Kelby, “Jubilation, Florida.” Two tales of mismatched loves and moments of reckoning.


Moments of Reckoning

Sunday, August 05, 2007

It was a big drop from being the wife of Delphin Slade to being his widow. As the wife of the famous corporation lawyer every day brought its exciting and unexpected obligations...and the amusement of hearing in her wake “What?! That handsome woman with the good clothes and the eyes is Mrs. Slade? The Slade’s wife? Really? Generally the wives of celebrities are such frumps.” –Edith Wharton, “Roman Fever” ”
Women are at crossroads in a contemporary story of love and family and an Edith Wharton classic.