Chattering Man: Stories and a Novella - Hardcover

Gerber, Merrill Joan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1563520117 ISBN 13: 9781563520112

Publisher: Longstreet Pr, 1991

Synopsis

Stories include "Chattering Man," "See Bonnie & Clyde Death Car," and "Hairdos"

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Eight stories and a novella that are slick, competent, and, at their most successful--in the novella, for instance, in which an elderly woman kvetches her way into a retirement home and happiness--full of antic, bittersweet detail. Some of these are sketches; of the rest, the title story is a deft slice-of-life about a daughter faced with a live-in lover who's a bit solicitous and a mother who sends unexplained mammograms to her; the daughter, reading Kafka, finally decides on independence. Such surrealism balloons in ``See Bonnie & Clyde Death Car,'' wherein Phil and Lynn decide to go to Las Vegas--a downbeat story that seems spliced together from half-digested notes. In ``Honest Mistakes,'' a daughter holds a series of summer jobs, the last of which becomes the vehicle whereby she traces down a man who swindled her father of the family's life savings. The novella, however, itself made up of stories, is the book's reason for being: in ``Rad, Man,'' an accident with a Hanukkah candle leads the almost 80-year-old Anna to a reconciliation not only with her VCR-generation grandsons but also with contemporary culture; in ``Leaf Lady,'' Anna mistakes a ``filthy old man who ate pizza'' in a grocery store for her long-dead husband; and ``The Blood Pressure Bunch and the Alzheimer's Gang,'' wherein Anna plays piano for seniors before sidestepping a possible romance, brings her as low as she can go. ``Starry Night,'' set at Christmas, celebrates the season and brings her via flashbacks to authentic grief, while ``The Next Meal is Lunch'' ends at the aforementioned nursing home, after an accident, with Anna happy, holding ``the clear impression she was getting younger.'' Prolific Gerber (King of the World, 1990, etc.) creates in the novella a character who rages eloquently against the coming of the night. By comparison, the stories are mere afterthoughts. Overall, a strong effort. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal:

Gerber's latest book is a collection of eight stories and a novella. Most of the stories have been published previously. In the novella, aging Anna Goldman curses the loss of husband and health, rails against neighbors, and criticizes sisters and grandchildren. She is "Miss Daisy" with a raised fist. When she is finally forced into a rest home, away from the tiny apartment she hates except when she's somewhere else, she wears her skirts too short and attracts Harvey, another survivor. Sadness and hardship are punctuated with humor, happiness, and glimpses of Anna's vulnerability. In a touching story, related to the novella, Anna convinces her dead father that she hasn't violated her Jewish faith by liking Christmas music. Gerber won the 1990 Pushcart Prize for The King of the World ( LJ 1/90) and contributes regularly to Red Book , The New Yorker , and other magazines. For public or academic libraries emphasizing contemporary American fiction.
- Nancy Shires, East Carolina Univ., Greenville,
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Longstreet Pr
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 1563520117
• ISBN 13: 9781563520112
• Binding: Hardcover