Awards
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2013 Powell's Staff Top 5s
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From Powells.com
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Powell's Short List: Best Story Collections of the 21st Century (So Far)
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Staff Pick
Rebecca Lee confessed in an interview that she's a "glacially slow" writer, and it's no wonder. Her language is so exquisitely wrought, and her affection for her characters so strong, that each story feels like a masterpiece. Bobcat is cosmopolitan without being pretentious, graceful without being precious, and funny without being overly clever. If you're a reader who appreciates the lovingly crafted, you'll adore this collection. Recommended By Renee P., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Rebecca Lee, one of our most gifted and original short story writers, guides readers into a range of landscapes, both foreign and domestic, crafting stories as rich as novels. A student plagiarizes a paper and holds fast to her alibi until she finds herself complicit in the resurrection of one professor's shadowy past. A dinner party becomes the occasion for the dissolution of more than one marriage. A woman is hired to find a wife for the one true soulmate she's ever found. In all, Rebecca Lee traverses the terrain of infidelity, obligation, sacrifice, jealousy, and yet finally, optimism. Showing people at their most vulnerable, Lee creates characters so wonderfully flawed, so driven by their desire, so compelled to make sense of their human condition, that it's impossible not to feel for them when their fragile belief in romantic love, domestic bliss, or academic seclusion fails to provide them with the sort of force field they'd expected.
Review
"Bobcat and Other Stories is nothing short of brilliant. Rebecca Lee writes with the unflinching, cumulatively devastating precision of Chekhov and Munro, peeling back layer after layer of illusion until we're left with the truth of ourselves....This extraordinary story collection is sure to confirm its author as one of the best writers of her generation." Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Review
"Rebecca Lee's unforgettable debut story collection, Bobcat, manages to be both heartwarming and heartbreaking, not to mention witty and wise. I was so thoroughly immersed in these universes, so glad to meet her characters, these inquisitive, open-hearted citizens of the world that I did not want the book to end." Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins
Review
"Astonishing prose....This fresh, provocative collection, peerless in its vehement elucidation of contemporary foibles, is not to be missed." Publishers Weekly, starred review
Review
"A shining example of furious and smart writing." LibraryJournal.com
Synopsis
"Wise and funny . . . A] near-perfect collection."
--Entertainment Weekly
Rebecca Lee, one of our most gifted and original short story writers, guides readers into a range of landscapes, both foreign and domestic, crafting stories as rich as novels. A student plagiarizes a paper and holds fast to her alibi until she finds herself complicit in the resurrection of one professor's shadowy past. A dinner party becomes the occasion for the dissolution of more than one marriage. A woman is hired to find a wife for the one true soulmate she's ever found. In all, Rebecca Lee traverses the terrain of infidelity, obligation, sacrifice, jealousy, and yet finally, optimism. Showing people at their most vulnerable, Lee creates characters so wonderfully flawed, so driven by their desire, so compelled to make sense of their human condition, that it's impossible not to feel for them when their fragile belief in romantic love, domestic bliss, or academic seclusion fails to provide them with the sort of force field they'd expected.
About the Author
Rebecca Lee is professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and the author of The City Is a Rising Tide. Her fiction has been read on NPR’s Selected Shorts, and her stories have been published in the Atlantic Monthly and Zoetrope. “Fialto,” which appears in this collection, was the winner of the National Magazine Award for fiction.