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About This Book
ISBN13: 9781932511475 |
Awards
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
"From the world that could not be saved, the storyteller salvages small, strange stuff and assembles it into a narrative of alarming beauty and mystery and sadness." — from the introduction by Carole Maso
Southern California: land of dislocation and assimilation, a place Diane Lefer knows well. In California Transit, she uses conversational prose and macabre wit to zero-in on a Mexican woman detained indefinitely by immigration officials, isolating her from her American family; a zoo employee considering what to do with a euthanized antelope's head; and, in the title novella, a lonely woman, riding buses all day, who cannot avert the violence building within her.
This collection explores the difference between justice and law through a lens unfiltered by moralistic or didactic intention. Like a surveillance camera meant to record crime, not stop it, Lefer presents a world gone wrong, not because of people's hatred for one another but because of their impossible, unfulfilled yearning to connect.
Review:
Review:
Synopsis:
Southern California: land of dislocation and assimilation, a place Diane Lefer knows well. InCalifornia Transit,she uses conversational prose and macabre wit to zero-in on a Mexican woman detained indefinitely by immigration officials, isolating her from her American family; a zoo employee considering what to do with a euthanized antelope's head; and, in the title novella, a lonely woman, riding buses all day, who cannot avert the violence building within her. This collection explores the difference between justice and law through a lens unfiltered by moralistic or didactic intention. Like a surveillance camera meant to record crime, not stop it, Lefer presents a world gone wrong, not because of people's hatred for one another but because of their impossible, unfulfilled yearning to connect.
Diane Leferis the author of two previous collections, The Circles I Move Inand Very Much Like Desireand the novel Radiant HungerShe lives in Los Angeles, where she is an artistic associate of Playwrights'Arena, volunteers with the Program for Torture Victims, and serves on the animal behavior observation team of the research department at the Los Angeles Zoo. She teaches in the MFA writing program at Vermont College of the Union Institute andamp; University.
About the Author
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miscink, May 1, 2007 (view all comments by miscink)
Who knows these women? At first glance, the women in Diane Lefer's short fiction collection, California Transit, aren't at all the kind of people we meet in our day-to-day comings and goings. But then again, there is something familiar about them. Aren't they the women on the outskirts of our purposeful paths, who sometimes get in our way? Or maybe it's something else. Well, whoever they are, one thing's clear: they don't particularly know themselves. As much as they'd like us to believe that they do.
This is the unconscious tie that binds a group of matter-of-fact characters and the glimpses the writer gives us into the extraordinary directions their seemingly ordinary lives have taken. It's also what makes this far-reaching material feel very close to home. So while the map of California Transit covers a sweeping territory--race relations, immigration reform, domestic abuse, human rights, animal rights and the religious right--it all comes back to: Yeah. Any of these women could be any of us.
The collection is full of stories which highlight the writer's sometimes shocking, off-handedly intentional voice, her uncanny ability to create the unexpected "we," and humor that sneaks up on you sideways--coming out of the skewed truths her characters hold self-evident. But California Transit's centerpiece is a pretty stunning novella, "At the Site Where Vision Is Most Perfect." With intelligence, wit and compassion, this piece forces us to feel the true absurdity of the tragedy shared by a mother, father, and in particular their 15-year-old son. What's more absurd is that it's a tragedy that's shared by all of us in America today, whether we know it or not.
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9781932511475
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Sarabande Books
- Compiled:
- Maso, Carole
- Subject:
- General
- Subject:
- Short Stories (single author)
- Subject:
- General Fiction
- Copyright:
- 2007
- Publication Date:
- April 2007
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Grade Level:
- General/trade
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 237
- Dimensions:
- 8.99x6.35x.66 in. .85 lbs.
