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& Other Stories
by Karen E. Bender
National Book Award finalist Karen E. Bender returns with a story collection that uses both a realistic and a speculative lens to explore a universal situation—the ways parents and children separate at different times of life.
Grounded in both the contemporary United States and a variety of dystopias, the new stories in Karen E. Bender's third collection examine the evolving dynamics of the nuclear family in adolescence, motherhood, the empty nest, and caring for the aging parent. From a young woman who wants to learn secret words to terminate a pregnancy to a mother who discovers an extra child in her home she had forgotten about, to a couple separated from their son in globes orbiting the Earth, to society's terrible plan to leave the burning planet for a life on Mars, the stories honor the emotional force of these situations by grappling with themes of freedom, self-definition, youth, aging, control, and power. Bender's work explores the ordinary in the extraordinary, using settings both familiar and fantastic to discover new truths in the lifelong connection between parents and their children.
"Highly original stories that speak to the challenges of being human in the 21st century." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Bender's impressive latest explores relationships between friends and family with a mix of speculative and realist tales...Bender's more fantastical stories recall the work of Isaac Asimov, while her realist takes offer insight into the complex lives of characters navigating loss and disappointment. It's an accomplished collection from a seasoned storyteller." —Publishers Weekly
"Meticulously crafted...Despite a premonition of disaster in many of Bender's riveting selections, an atmosphere of gentleness envelops her characters...In Bender's investigation of isolation and community, parents and children, friends and seeming enemies, these twelve stories allow readers a wide lens through which to both contemplate world events and what may lay ahead—and to consider the vital role of compassion when weighing one's choices...[B]eautifully crafted." —Shelf Awareness
This information about The Words of Dr. L was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Karen E. Bender is the author of the story collections The New Order and Refund, a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. She is also the author of the novels Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, Story, Harvard Review, The Yale Review, The Iowa Review, and other magazines. Her stories have been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery Stories, and New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, and have won three Pushcart prizes. She has won grants from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has taught for numerous MFA programs and is currently a visiting writer for the Stony Brook University MFA in creative writing and on the core faculty for the Alma College MFA program. She is the fiction editor of the literary magazine Scoundrel Time.
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