House Parties - Levin, Lynn

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Résumé :
With a deft command of comic distance and abiding compassion for her characters, Lynn Levin in House Parties, her debut collection of short fiction, presents us with a broad range of characters who ardently, foolishly, and often with weird invention, relentlessly spar with their fates. Three friends hike through Yosemite in search of an awe-inspiring waterfall that may or may not exist...a girl on a high-school science trip finds herself abandoned on an island inhabited by aggressive monkeys...a lonely young rabbinical student creates and animates a female form only to see her beloved creature acquire free will...overwhelmed by surveys, an office worker rebels ? la Bartleby...a couple believes that a move to a friendly and sophisticated exurban neighborhood will set the stage for happy marriage. Many of the characters in House Parties see themselves with a certain bemused humor and strive to stay self-possessed even as they struggle against the strange and undeserved things that happen to them. At other times, the characters-sometimes successfully, sometimes not-keep trying to escape the gravity of a plight they created or a problem they refuse to resolve. In observant and generous prose, Levin writes in tones that range from the wry, witty, and hilarious to the lyrical and deeply serious.

Biographie:
Lynn Levin is a poet and writer. House Parties is her debut collection of short fiction. Levin's previous books include the poetry collections The Minor Virtues (Ragged Sky, 2020) and Miss Plastique (Ragged Sky, 2013). The co-author of Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture, 2019, 2013), Levin is also the translator from the Spanish of the poetry collection Birds on the Kiswar Tree by Odi Gonzales (2Leaf/U of Chicago P, 2014). Her poems, short stories, essays, and translations have appeared in Boulevard, The Hopkins Review, Southwest Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Valparaiso Fiction Review, The Broadkill Review, Cleaver, Mandorla, Solstice, and many other places. Lynn Levin was born in St. Louis, Missouri and lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She teaches writing and literature at Drexel University, and, for many years, taught creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania. Her website is lynnlevinpoet.com.