Falling and Other Stories - Stoltzfus, Ben

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Résumé :
A novella and six short fictions, is by turn mythic and realistic, moving and wistful, innovative and traditional. It maps a wide geography of human emotions: lust, adventure, love, alienation, explicit violence and implicit passion. Ben Stoltzfus makes each character-a glamour girl, a scuba queen, a shaman, a mountain climber, a skier, a ball-court superstar, women in distress, even strangers-come vividly alive. In Falling you, the narrator, climb toward the summit with Juan, your friend, following flashbacks in the narrative trail. In The Bank, a father and son come to terms with a lifetime of estrangement. In Glamour Girl, a woman reminisces about her husbands, rich people, Joe Louis and happy days in the spotlight. In Scuba Queen, two college friends, now in their thirties, dive for abalone in the kelp beds of the Pacific Ocean where their rivalry begets a dangerous and miraculous denoument. Masks and Bergamasks is a love monologue, a silent conversation between a teacher and a student during a lecture on French Symbolist poetry. In Samantha's Choice, three friends debate free will versus determinism, and are caught in an avalanche while skiing Mount Washington. In The Games of Chich?n Itz?, a shaman dreams Mayan life and ritual into a dramatic ball-court encounter between two teams; the play of the gods is re-enacted as struggle, blood-sacrifice and renewal. Subtly honed with hallmark precision and keen insight this wide-ranging collection exemplifies the best in narrative art.

Biographie:
Ben Stoltzfus is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside. He is a novelist, translator, literary critic, and internationally recognized inter-arts scholar. He has published twelve monographs of literary criticism and received many awards: Fulbright, Camargo, Gradiva, Humanities, Creative Arts, and MLA. He has published five novels and two collections of short stories. Romoland, a pictonovel written in collaboration with artist Judith Palmer, was also published by 39 West Press in 2017. Stoltzfus's most recent collection, Falling and Other Stories, was published by Anaphora Press in 2018. He lives in Riverside, California with Judith Palmer, his wife.