A Perfect Stranger: Summary and book reviews of A Perfect Stranger by Roxana Robinson, plus links to an excerpt from A Perfect Stranger and a biography of Roxana Robinson.
A Perfect Stranger And other stories
by Roxana Robinson
Hardcover: Apr 2005,
256 pages.
Paperback: Mar 2006,
256 pages.
In Roxana Robinson's lucid and elegant prose, her characters' inner worlds
open up to us, revealing private emotional cores that are familiar in their
needs, their secrets, and their longings. These people tell us the truth–not
only about themselves, their relationships, and their lives, but about ourselves
as well.
In "Family Christmas," a young girl takes a holiday trip to her grandparents',
where the formal atmosphere is shattered by a mysterious and chaotic event that
she knows she's too young to understand but struggles to comprehend.
In "Blind Man," a college professor copes with the onslaught of grief after
his daughter's death. In "The Face Lift," two college friends renew their bond
across a great cultural divide. The sad and hilarious "Assistance" flawlessly
details the tragicomic aspects of ageing–seen through the eyes of a
daughter-turned-caretaker. The terrors of illness are explored in "The
Treatment," and in "Assez," a trip to Provence reveals the true volatility of
love–and reminds us that we often don't realize that what we have is enough
until it's gone.
A Perfect Stranger powerfully and affectingly examines the complex, intricate
network of experiences that binds us to one another. These stories are tender,
raw, lovely, and fine - and they reaffirm Roxana Robinson's place at the forefront
of modern literature.
Short stories are often overlooked in favor of novels, but why when they're just the thing for so many occasions? Short stories are just the right length for the bath, subway ride or just those few minutes of downtime that we all need; they also make great "beach reads" because it's easy to close the book every few dozen pages and actually notice you're on the beach! (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Booklist - Annie Tully
If there is one flaw here, it's Robinson's determination to draw neat parallels or contrasts, often with a lesson learned in the final paragraphs of a story. But despite a few heavy-handed metaphors, this is a lucid and resounding collection rich in memorable human relationships.
Kirkus Reviews
Thirteen splendid stories in an elegant third collection from Robinson range widely to give us a peek into the obsessions and troubles of the well-versed and well-off......Stories that tick away with the precision of perfectly wrought timepieces.
Publishers Weekly
Robinson's third collection proves her a master of the short story - [her] ear is wonderful, her graceful prose a real pleasure.
Alice Munro
Start in on any sentence, and I'm absolutely sure you'll read to the end of the story, and of the book, and you'll come out of it feeling grateful, deeply stirred, seriously happy.
Joyce Carol Oates
Roxana Robinson's beautifully rendered prose captures moments of domestic drama - sometimes painful, sometimes ecstatic, always heartrending and illuminating.
Roxana Robinson is the author of two novels,
Sweetwater and This Is My Daughter; a biography of
Georgia O'Keeffe; and two previous short-story collections, A
Glimpse of Scarlet and Asking for Love. Most, if not
all, of her works have been named Notable Books of the Year by
The New York Times. She has received fellowships from the
Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and
the MacDowell Colony. Her fiction has appeared in Best
American Short Stories, The Atlantic, The New
Yorker, Harper's, Daedalus, and Vogue. She
lives in New York City and Westchester County, New York.
A collection of stories that weave themselves around the idea of love---love to seek and love to flee; love as desire, as guilt, as confusion or self-betrayal; love as habit, as affair, and as life-changing rebellion.
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(346 words).
Alice Munro
