Breathe Something Nice: Stories (Western Literature Series) - Tapa blanda

Start reading Hammond's story collection and you'll probably wonder why it's been so long since you've picked up a book of short stories. ... Hammond's work is funny, full of bizarre plot turns and odd details, but the craziness is pulled off with such subtlety and ease, it all feels perfectly natural."" -American Bookseller ""Hammond appreciates the strangeness of the lives of seemingly ordinary people. These disquieting stories examine more or less normal characters in times of crisis, when they often make bizarre decisions. . . . They illuminate, without attempting to explain, the irrational element in our lives, and they haunt the mind for weeks."" -Booklist ""There are no quiet stories in Breathe Something Nice. . . . In a series of ambitious evocations, Hammond demonstrates fresh wit and a fine irony. ... These nine stories will linger in the reader's mind long after the last pages has been turned."" -Fred Leebron, Ploughshares

These stunning stories explore, with poignancy and wit, the treacherous, alluring, and sometimes painful territories of memory, family, and friendship. These stories teach us that even "the right people" can harbor hideous secrets, that love, embarrassment, and food can assume bewildering and heartbreaking combinations and that there are many ways of being used by-or using-other people. Hammond's stories probe beyond the surface of our lives to consider the complexities that underlie the most ordinary of relationships and the painful difficulty by which even small insights are achieved. Her characters sometimes flinch from their hard-earned wisdom, but their journeys to comprehension offer the reader a rich and unforgettable experience. These are stories to be read with pleasure and wonder.