The ten stories in this debut collection examine the perils of love and what it means to live during an era when people will offer themselves, almost unthinkingly, to strangers. Risks and repercussions are never fully weighed. People leap and almost always land on rocky ground. May-December romances flourish in these stories, as do self-doubt and, in most cases, serious regret. Mysterious, dangerous benefactors, dead and living artists, movie stars and college professors, plagiarists, and distinguished foreign novelists are among the many different characters. No one is blameless, but villains are difficult to single out-everyone seemingly bears responsibility for his or her desires and for the outcome of difficult choices so often made hopefully and naively.
"If this story collection crackles with the energy of youth, it also feels written by a cool-eyed soul reincarnated at least three times ... By turns funny and pitiless, these tales amount to a vision. The book's voice is unforced in its ready wit, detached compassion. There is an admirable candor. Each character's sexuality seems the natural outcome of a life fully risked."-Allan Gurganus, contest judge and author of The Practical Heart and *Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All*
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Ten finely delineated tales featuring protagonists entangled in less-than-ideal romantic scenarios constitute this year's winner of the Grace Paley Prize. The best stories feature women caught up in liaisons with men either much younger or older. In "Quality of Life," a 26-year-old woman begins seeing a wealthy man more than double her age, Mr. Fulger, who takes her out infrequently and presses money on her, which she takes because it "made her life more easeful." She dates other men her age, but can't seem to stop seeing Mr. Fulger, whose solicitousness eventually has unexpected consequences. In the title story, the granddaughter of a late, famous artist becomes involved with a young artist who may be playing her to obtain the precious notebooks bequeathed to her. Teetering on the brink of self-possession, Sneed's protagonists aren't sure they trust themselves, such as the 55-year old narrator of "By the Way" who can't admit to her much younger lover her fears of faltering memory and mortality. Sneed writes with the care of a fine stylist and the heart of a sympathetic reader. (Nov.) (c)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Sneed�s first collection was awarded the Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, an honor clearly deserved given the lucidity of her style, the depth of her perception, and her supple mix of wit, frankness, and compassion. Beautifully interiorized, her provocative stories explore unbalanced relationships, particularly between men and women of differing ages. Sneed also has a rare gift for convincingly articulating the sensations and emotions of sex. A tale of �monstrous rationality� dramatizes a soul-killing arrangement between an elusive older man and a young woman, while a 55-year-old woman, a dancer, in love with a 35-year-old man, confronts the avalanche of fears age delivers. The volatile chemistry of fame and envy stokes the finely textured title story, which portrays a disaffected young woman confounded by the complications following the death of her grandfather, a renowned artist; a delectably unsettling tale about a successful screenwriter at her high-school reunion; and a masterfully counterintuitive story about an English professor and a movie star and his bodyguard. With a surprisingly futuristic and funny closing story, this is an exceptionally smart, connective, and moving collection. --Donna Seaman