UGA Libraries News & Events

New fiction at the UGA Libraries, Nov 5

The Queen’s Margarine by Wendy Perriam
PR6066.E675 Q44 2009

In Wendy Perriam’s sixth short-story collection, catalysts for life-change come in surprising forms. A small, white curly dog pursues a man from pub to office, turning his whole existence upside-down. A collection of porcelain figurines drives an elderly widower to escape his home and find solace with Marilyn Monroe. A bunch of orange tulips propels a staidly married librarian into the arms of an exuberant poet. A pair of returned Eurostar tickets whisks long-separated lovers towards heady new romance. Many of Perriam’s characters harbour guilty secrets or long-suppressed desires. Spouses cheat on spouses; restive mothers kick against their ties; loveless singletons yearn for poetry and passion in their lives. Not all her ugly ducklings succeed in turning into swans, but most do at least take wing – and sometimes a touch of magic intervenes. In this inventive new collection, the mundane goes hand in hand with the miraculous – and even the Queen eats margarine.

Suddenly in the Depths of the Forest by Amos Oz
Translated from the Hebrew by Sondra Silverston.
PJ5054.O9 P5713 2010

In a village far away, deep in a valley, all the animals and birds disappeared some years ago. Only the rebellious young teacher and an old man talk about animals to the children, who have never seen such (mythical) creatures. Otherwise there’s a strange silence round the whole subject. One wretched, little boy has dreams of animals, begins to whoop like an owl, is regarded as an outcast, and eventually disappears.

A stubborn, brave girl called Maya and her friend Matti, are drawn to explore in the woods round the village. They know there are dangers beyond and that at night, Nehi the Mountain Demon comes down to the village. In a far-off cave, they come upon the vanished boy, content and self-sufficient. Eventually they find themselves in a beautiful garden paradise full of every kind of animal, bird and fish – the home of Nehi the Mountain Demon. The Demon is a pied piper figure who stole the animals from the village. He, too, was once a boy there, but he was different, mocked and reviled, treated as an outsider and outcast.

This is his terrible revenge, one which has punished him too, by removing him from society and friendship, and every few years he draws another child or two to join him in his fortress Eden, where he has trained the sheep to lie down with the wolves, and where predators are few. He lets the two children return to the village, telling them that one day, when people are less cruel and his desire for vengeance has crumbled, perhaps the animals might come back…

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
PS3625.U15 H68 2010

National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award winner Charles Yu delivers his debut novel, a razor-sharp, ridiculously funny, and utterly touching story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space & time.

Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician – part counselor, part gadget repair man – steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he’s the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him – in fact it may even save his life.

The Return by Roberto Bolaño
Translated by Chris Andrews.
PQ8098.12.O38 R48 2010

Here is the eagerly anticipated second volume of stories by Roberto Bolaño. Tender or etched in acid; hazily suggestive or chillingly definitive: a trove of strangely arresting, short master works. As Pankaj Mishra remarked in The Nation, one of the remarkable qualities of Bolaño’s short stories is that they can do the “work of a novel.” The Return contains thirteen unforgettable stories bent on returning to haunt you. Wide-ranging, suggestive, and daring, a Bolaño story might concern the unexpected fate of a beautiful ex-girlfriend or a dream of meeting Enrique Lihn: his plots go anywhere and everywhere and they always surprise. Consider the title piece: a young party animal collapses in a Parisian disco and dies on the dance floor; just as his soul is departing his body, it realizes strange doings are afoot—and what follows next defies the imagination (except Bolaño’s own).

Although a few have been serialized in The New Yorker and Playboy, most of the stories of The Return have never before appeared in English, and to Bolaño’s many readers will be like catnip to the cats. .

Little Hut of Leaping Fishes by Chiew-Siah Tei
PR6120.E33 L58 2008

Mingzhi is born to be a mandarin: as the formidable Master Chai’s first grandson, his life is mapped from the moment of his birth. But times are changing in China, and as Mingzhi grows, he begins to question his privileged heritage and the secrets and shadows that lurk in the corners of the Chai mansion; eager to flee from the corruption, treachery and rivalries of his family – Master Chai, who farms opium poppies and beats out orders with his dragon stick; the jealousy of his second mother and half brother; and his opium-addict father – Mingzhi soon realizes his only path to freedom is through learning. But as the foreign devils begin to encroach on China, Mingzhi is torn between two cultures; he must make his choice between the past and the future. A sweeping story of rebellion and discovery, Little Hut of Leaping Fishes traces one man’s journey to find a life of his own in the slipstream of historic change.

Citrus County by John Brandon
PS3602.R3598 C58 2010

There shouldn’t be a Citrus County. Teenage romance should be difficult, but not this difficult. Boys like Toby should cause trouble but not this much. The moon should glow gently over children safe in their beds. Uncles in their rockers should be kind. Teachers should guide and inspire. Manatees should laze and palm trees sway and snakes keep to their shady spots under the azalea thickets. The air shouldn’t smell like a swamp. The stars should twinkle. Shelby should be her own hero, the first hero of Citrus County. She should rescue her sister from underground, rescue Toby from his life. Her destiny should be a hero’s destiny.

The Day My Mother Cried and Other Stories by William D. Kaufman
PS3611.A846 D44 2010

The lasting charm of Kaufman’s stories lies in a delightful mix of personal incidents and observations set against an anchoring backdrop of cultural tradition. His new collection is filled with tales from his parents homeland in the Ukraine, his own childhood reminiscences, and his adult travels. We watch the young author forced alongside every Jewish boy on the block to emulate Yehudi Menuhin on a ten-dollar violin with a moldy bow until the boy is spared by an innate lack of talent and his father’s judgment of his concert: Enough is enough is more than enough. Kaufman is carefully attuned to the awkwardness of adulthood as well as to that of early adolescence. In “Interlude in Bangkok,” his narrator scours the city for a synagogue while pursued by a prostitute. Later he and a friend encounter Greta Garbo in a museum cafe and are too frightened to approach her. I am not she, intones the mysterious movie star, and in his own way, Kaufman says that of himself in these stories through an autobiographical narrator whose memories take on resonant, literary shapes in their retelling.

Radiant Daughter: A novel by Patricia Grossman
PS3557.R6726 R33 2010

In Radiant Daughter, award-winning novelist Patricia Grossman follows a Czech-American family for twenty-seven years, beginning in suburban Chicago in 1969 and ending in Brooklyn, in seaside “Little Odessa,” in 1996. Though the novel begins as a traditional assimilation story– immigrant parents, “native” children, and the conflicts one might expect–it evolves into a highly particular and harrowing tale surrounding the descent of Elise Blazek, the family’s brightest star. Radiant Daughter is also a story of translation–between generations, from the Czech of Irena and Stepan, to the “American” of the children, and finally to the Russian that is Elise’s academic specialty.

As Husbands Go: A novel by Susan Isaacs
PS3559.S15 A86 2010

A rare mix of wit, social satire, and suspense, along with characters who leap from the page to speak directly to the reader — a moving story about a love that just won’t give up, As Husbands Go is the latest from critically acclaimed, bestselling author, Susan Isaacs. Call her superficial, but Susie B. Anthony Rabinowitz Gersten assumed her marriage was great — and why not? Jonah Gersten, M.D., a Park Avenue plastic surgeon, clearly adored her. He was handsome, successful, and a doting dad to their four-year-old triplets Dashiell, Evan, and Mason. But when Jonah is found in the Upper East Side apartment of second-rate “escort” Dorinda Dillon, Susie is overwhelmed with questions left unanswered. It’s bad enough to know your husband’s been murdered, but even worse when you’re universally pitied (and quietly mocked) because of the sleaze factor. None of it makes sense to Susie — not a sexual liaison with someone like Dorinda, not the “better not to discuss it” response from Jonah’s partners. With help from her toughtalking, high-style Grandma Ethel who flies in from Miami, she takes on her snooty in-laws, her husband’s partners, the NYPD, and the DA (is the person arrested for the homicide the actual perp, or just an easy mark for a prosecutor who hates the word “unsolved”?), as she tries to prove that her wonderful life with Jonah was no lie. Susan Isaacs brilliantly turns the conventions of the mystery on end as Susie Gersten, suburban mom, floral designer, and fashion plate, searches not so much for answers to her husband’s death as for answers to her own life.

Ocean State: Stories by Jean McGarry
PS3563.C3636 O23 2010

The stories of Ocean State roll over the reader like a wave. Family pleasures, marriage, the essential moments and mysteries of a seemingly ordinary world that break into magical territory before we can brace ourselves – Jean McGarry puts us in life’s rough seas with what the “New York Times” has called a ‘deft, comic, and devastatingly precise’ hand.

The Physics of Imaginary Objects by Tina May Hall
PS3608.A54824 P48 2010

Winner of the 2010 Drue Heinz Literature Prize The Physics of Imaginary Objects,  in fifteen stories and a novella, offers a very different kind of short fiction, blending story with verse to evoke fantasy, allegory, metaphor, love, body, mind, and nearly every sensory perception. Weaving in and out of the space that connects life and death in mysterious ways, these texts use carefully honed language that suggests a newfound spirituality.

The Lovers: A novel by Vendela Vida
PS3622.I34 L68 2010

Twenty-eight years ago, Peter and Yvonne honeymooned in the beautiful coastal village of DatÇa, Turkey. Now Yvonne is a widow, her twin children grown. Hoping to immerse herself in memories of a happier time—as well as sand and sea— Yvonne returns to DatÇa. But her plans for a restorative week in Turkey are quickly complicated. Instead of comforting her, her memories begin to trouble her. Her vacation rental’s landlord and his bold, intriguing wife—who share a curious marital arrangement—become constant uninvited visitors, in and out of the house.

Overwhelmed by the past and unexpectedly dislocated by the environment, Yvonne clings to a newfound friendship with Ahmet, a local boy who makes his living as a shell collector. With Ahmet as her guide, Yvonne gains new insight into the lives of her own adult children, and she finally begins to enjoy the shimmering sea and relaxed pace of the Turkish coast. But a devastating accident upends her delicate peace and throws her life into chaos—and her sense of self into turmoil.

With the crystalline voice and psychological nuance for which her work has been so celebrated, Vendela Vida has crafted another unforgettable heroine in a stunningly beautiful and mysterious landscape.

A Winding Road by Jonathan Tulloch
PR6120.U45 W56 2009

One lost masterpiece, three epochs, countless lives. Spring 2008. The art world is awash with money, and Piers Guest is getting his share. Celebrated art mogul, critic, impresario and ‘adviser’ with a client list ranging from the wealthiest of individual collectors to an international merchant bank, he is a bona fide member of the glitterati. Graced with his own beauty, he gallivants through London’s galleries, cafes and hotels, playground for multi-millionaire artists, financiers and infidelity, while still enjoying a Chelsea mansion with his wife and daughter. Until a mysterious meeting about a newly discovered masterpiece begins a hunt that will lead him onto an altogether different terrain…1933. Under the shadow of the newly elected Nazi party, Helga and Ernst Mann bring a disabled child into the world. While her husband Ernst, a folklorist, drifts near the baleful influence of the Third Reich, Helga will stop at nothing to keep her child safe. 1890. Vincent Van Gogh is living out his last few weeks in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise. Tormented by illness and regret, his only companions are the melancholy Dr. Gachet, the ghosts of his own past, and the group of disturbed but engaging patients being treated by Gachet. Taking up his brush, he paints the picture that will draw so many disparate lives together. From the troubled genius of Vincent Van Gogh to the wartime birch forests of Ukraine, from the scintillating labyrinths of contemporary art and commerce to a mother’s desperate journey across Germany into the teeth of the Red Army, Jonathan Tulloch’s novel examines madness and creativity, love and destruction, the painting of a picture and the lust to own.

Hilda Hurricane: A novel by Roberto Drummond
Translated from the Portuguese by Peter Vaudry-Brown.
PQ9698.14.R777 H5613 2010

Eighteen-year-old Hilda, known as “the girl in the gold bikini” when she swam at her country club in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, abruptly leaves the gilded life to take up residence in room 304 of the Hotel Marvelous–as a prostitute. There she becomes Hilda Hurricane, an erotic force of nature no man can resist. The exception is reporter-narrator Roberto Drummond, who attempts to unravel the mystery of why the girl in the gold bikini would forego a comfortable life to join the world’s oldest profession. While some in Belo Horizonte cheer Hilda’s liberated lifestyle, others seek to have her moved outside the city limits, and a would-be saint cannot seem to finish the exorcism he began outside the Hotel Marvelous. Set against the social and political upheaval of the 1960s, Hilda’s story seduces even as Drummond becomes aware of more ominous forces approaching Belo Horizonte. Hilda Hurricane was both a critical and a commercial success in Brazil, with more than 200,000 copies sold. (The DVD of the television adaptation has sold more than a million copies.) Admirers of Kurt Vonnegut will revel in Drummond’s similarly sharp satire and playful digressions, particularly about left-wing politics, which blur the boundary between fiction and autobiography. Yet the real genius of the author’s interventions may be that they never slow the story long enough to lose sight of this mysterious beauty swept up in the turmoil of the times.