Ghost Traps: Stories - Hardcover

Abel, Robert H.

2.8

5 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0820312525 ISBN 13: 9780820312521

Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr, 1991

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Ghost Traps is a collection of twelve stories about characters who are on the edge and under duress, individuals backed against a wall as they try to free themselves from their own limitations, habits, and destructive desires.

In the title story, Harper learns to fish from a man whose son is “catching hell” in the Korean War. When the son returns, he begins stealing lobsters from Harper’s traps, and Harper, out of a sense of obligation and guilt, teaches him to fish, vainly hoping it will help the man put together the pieces of a life that war shattered. In “The Connoisseur,” a wealthy collector on an archeological dig in the Himalayan foothills realizes he “knows how to stay out of jail, charge rent, build hotels, and pass Go,” but has not spiritual life. Unlike his guide, a Sherpa, who could remain content with nothing but the Himalayas, the collector finds himself wanting in all but material success.

Whether they win or lose, Robert Abel’s characters make the best of circumstance with creativity, wit, passion, and endurance. In “Lawless in New York,” Professor Alice Reinquist, the sole woman in her university’s delegation to an academic conference, maintains her sense of humor by thinking of Wonder Woman’s Gold Lasso, which makes “even the most cunning of evildoers unable to prevaricate.” Tracey Wynn, a woman who considers herself on loan to her aloof boyfriend, keeps her options open by always leaving a portion of her neck exposed because she “cannot stand being closed in by anything and because she knows it invites at least a fantasy kiss.” In “Appetizer,” a man fishing in Alaska resourcefully asks two hungry grizzly bears, “How much love can $600 worth of salmon buy?”

Although many of these characters inhabit a world in which the bottom is about to fall out, they invariably find good reason―and courage―to take the next treacherous step. From the salty waters of Cape Cod Canal to the mountains of Tibet; from a Puerto Rican pub to an elegant New York bar where “Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer had no doubt insulted each other,” Ghost Traps is filled with people hustling for survival and fighting for identity in a world reluctant to give anyone an even break.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Robert Abel is the author of Full-tilt Boogie; The Progress of a Fire; Freedom Dues, or, A Gentleman’s Progress in the New World; and Skin and Bones. His stories have appeared in Playgirl, Contact, and Denver Quarterly.

From Publishers Weekly:

Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and author of Full-tilt Boogie and The Progress of a Fire , among other works, Abel has in these 12 stories demonstrated a finesse that will gladden the hearts of readers disenchanted with the flatness of the contemporary short story scene. From one unlikely scenario to another, Abel holds the reader's attention with the pacing of a seasoned raconteur. "Appetizer" epitomizes his fabulous technique: a solitary fisherman is menaced by a bear, and he must literally fish for his life in order to provide her with diversionary salmon. The increasing tension and drama of the narrative is offset by the laconic voice of the narrator who, we figure, must have survived to tell the tale. How he outwits the bear makes for a powerful and very funny yarn. Several of the other entries in the collection, widely varied in setting and tone, have as a common theme the binding ties of friendship between men, one of whom resents or envies the other. The title story exemplifies this concern in a wistful narrative about two lobster fishermen, one of whom seems to be stealing lobsters from the other's pots. The characters in all of these stories are distinguished by an ability to persevere in the face of potential chaos. Abel is a tremendously skilled writer and a first-rate storyteller in the timeless tradition of John Hersey.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.