F I C T I O N
FABRICATIONS New and Selected Stories
A CROWNING COLLECTION FROM THE AWARDWINNING SHORT STORY WRITER PAMELA PAINTER.
PAMELA PAINTER Pamela Painter’s short stories have been praised by Margot Livesey for their “wicked intelligence and ruthless humor.” In Fabrications, which brings together 7 new and 24 selected stories, characters struggle to avoid the chaos in their lives, but—driven by addictions and appetites—often bring on disaster. Nobody is ordinary in Painter’s stories. A burglar can’t believe what he is asked to do by the woman whose jewelry he is stealing. Hitchhikers, hell-bent on murder, are thwarted by the miracle of storytelling. A wife can make rooms—and her husband—disappear, but saves the family dog. A young woman insists on the romance of being married in an Elvis Presley chapel, but for the wrong reasons. Children play the game “my family is more fucked up than your family,” and a Vietnam vet teaches his son how to breathe under water. Writing in The New York Times, Alida Becker called Painter’s ability to get inside a host of different characters a “virtuoso performance, graceful and brave and full of feeling.” Fabrications is a testament to Painter’s lyric skill and psychological insight across her career. “Pamela Painter has perfected the short short story. Here is a brilliant chronicle of the human condition, moving, complex, wholly original, and huge fun to read.” —Alice Hoffman Pamela Painter (CAMBRIDGE, MA) is the author of four short story collections: The Long and Short of It, Wouldn’t You Like to Know, Ways to Spend the Night, and Getting to Know the Weather. Her work has
appeared in The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, The Sewanee Review, The Three-Penny Review, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Emerson College.
NOVEMBER
304 pages 5½ x 8½ 978-1-4214-3892-4 $21.95 £16.00 p b Also available as an e-book
Johns Hopkins: Poetry and Fiction, General Editor:Wyatt Prunty
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
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