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2 Local Warehouse Literature- A to Z

Core: A Romance

by Kassten Alonso

Core: A Romance Cover

ISBN13: 9780971691575
ISBN10: 0971691576
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

Only 2 left in stock at $3.75!

 

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

This intense and compact novel crackles with obsession, betrayal and madness. As the narrator becomes fixated on his best friend's girlfriend, his precarious hold on sanity rapidly deteriorates into delusion and violence. Alonso skillfully uses language to imitate memory and psychosis, and deliberate misuse of standard punctuation blurs the distinction between the narrator's internal and external worlds. This story can be read as the classic myth of Hades and Persephone (Core) rewritten for a twenty-first-century audience as well as a dark, foreboding tale of unrequited love and loneliness. A sense of alienation and Faulknerian grotesquerie permeates this landscape, where desire is borne in the bloom of a daffodil and sanity lies toppled like an applecart in the mud.

Review:

"Jump through this gothic stained-glass window and you are in for some serious investigation of darkness and all of its deadly sins. But take heart, brave traveler, the adventure will prove thrilling. For you are in the beautiful hands of Kassten Alonso."Tom Spanbauer, author of The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon and In the City of Shy Hunters

Review:

"Romance is too limiting a word to describe the content of this book, which is the manifestation of some more powerful and tangled compulsions, more reckless ambitions." Michael Ray, Editor, Zoetrope: All Story

Review:

"A novel of considerable daring and precision. In finely worked language, Kassten Alonso explores the border between Hell and the everyday, finding it closer than we might have hoped. A dense, surprising, beautifully worked novel." Kevin Canty, author of Honeymoon and Other Stories

Review:

"Kassten Alonso takes the reader on a wild ride inside the mind of a profoundly disturbed man as he descends into madness and violence. A beautifully written book. Impossible to put down." James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces

Review:

"Kassten Alonso's amazing Core will startle you. A fierce story that actually taught me to read it as I went deeper and deeper — it's as if this book is written in a rich, beautiful language I'd once known and somehow forgotten. I'm happy and terrified to have it back." Peter Rock, author of The Bewildered
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About the Author

Kassten Alonso was born in Seattle, Washington in 1968. He graduated from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and currently lives and works in Portland. He's been writing since he was five years old. Core is his first published novel.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 3 comments:
rwl12, April 25, 2007 (view all comments by rwl12)
Awful, awful, awful. Beyond bad. Beyond words. Have since actually seen this author at an event and thought he was really disrespectful and rude even though I was seated fairly far away. I just don't get this book and couldn't get through it at all.
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zenithblue, June 26, 2006 (view all comments by zenithblue)
Beautiful, heartbreaking story told in incredible prose--the writing works the way Virginia Woolf's does in that it actually creates the internal and external world of the protagonist rather than describing it from a distance. The experience is harrowing--we are taken directly into a profound isolation, the unhinged subjectivity of someone lost to the world, and yet still distressingly human. If you like modernist prose, classical themes, and a savage contemporary intelligence, this book is absolutely for you.
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Sunshine, May 7, 2006 (view all comments by Sunshine)
Didn't like the writing style. It was confusing trying to figure out whether it was in his imagination or was actually happening.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780971691575
Author:
Alonso, Kassten
Publisher:
Hawthorne Books
Subject:
General
Subject:
Thrillers
Subject:
Mentally ill
Subject:
Male friendship
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Psychological fiction
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Copyright:
2005
Edition Description:
Trade Paper
Publication Date:
20050531
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
208
Dimensions:
9 x 5.5 in 10 oz
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Related Aisles

Core: A Romance Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$3.75 In Stock
Product details 208 pages Hawthorne Books - English 9780971691575 Reviews:
"Review" by , "Jump through this gothic stained-glass window and you are in for some serious investigation of darkness and all of its deadly sins. But take heart, brave traveler, the adventure will prove thrilling. For you are in the beautiful hands of Kassten Alonso."
"Review" by , "Romance is too limiting a word to describe the content of this book, which is the manifestation of some more powerful and tangled compulsions, more reckless ambitions."
"Review" by , "A novel of considerable daring and precision. In finely worked language, Kassten Alonso explores the border between Hell and the everyday, finding it closer than we might have hoped. A dense, surprising, beautifully worked novel."
"Review" by , "Kassten Alonso takes the reader on a wild ride inside the mind of a profoundly disturbed man as he descends into madness and violence. A beautifully written book. Impossible to put down."
"Review" by , "Kassten Alonso's amazing Core will startle you. A fierce story that actually taught me to read it as I went deeper and deeper — it's as if this book is written in a rich, beautiful language I'd once known and somehow forgotten. I'm happy and terrified to have it back."
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