Reviews
"This fine collection of 15 stories depicts a broad range of emotion within modern families. In the title story, 'A Brief History of Male Nudes in America,' a young girl is subjected to watching a steady stream of her mother's lovers parade through their house. In 'Frog Boy,' a boy approaching puberty realizes that he is in love with his father's girlfriend. 'Dixon' is a tribute to the way a sister remembers her brother after his accidental death. 'Chocolate' evokes the pain of a deprived childhood with no money for birthday presents. In 'The Uses of Memory,' a mother and daughter engage in conflict over the fate of Franklin, their husband and father, who is comatose. The stories all deal with the pain and pleasure of relationships and the ways in which family members knowingly and unknowingly inflict pain on one another."
—Library Journal
Description
In these stories, Dianne Nelson illuminates that vast territory of pleasure and pain created within modern families. Whether it is a father trying to kidnap his young son from his estranged ex-wife or a woman celebrating her ability to produce babies without any help from men, Nelson’s characters reveal the dark, haunting and sometimes comic dilemmas of kinship.
In the title story, seventeen-year-old April is an involuntary witness to the seemingly endless parade of lovers who frequent her mother’s bed. “I don’t know why my mother finds no lasting peace” she muses. Opening a book and trying to find her peace in “facts, dates, the pure honesty of numbers,” April is overwhelmed finally by the sounds of lovemaking from the adjoining room. “The walls of this house aren’t thick enough to keep that kind of sadness contained.” In “The Uses of Memory,” Netta and Carlene are engaged in a different sort…
 |
Cloth |
