Stone Thrower - Softcover

Marek, Adam

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1905583508 ISBN 13: 9781905583508

Publisher: Comma Press, 2012

Synopsis

A bold voice in absurdist short fiction Intelligent clothing, superhero dictators, contagion-carrying computer games, cross-species reproduction. Welcome to the strange and startling world of Adam Marek; a menagerie of futuristic technology, sinister traditions, and scientifically grounded superpowers a place where the absurd and the mundane are not merely bedfellows, but interbreed. At the core of Adam Marek’s much-anticipated second short story collection is a single, unifying theme: a parent’s instinct to protect a particularly vulnerable child. Whether set amid unnerving visions of the near-future or grounded in the domestic here-and-now, these stories demonstrate that, sometimes, only outright surrealism can do justice to the merciless strangeness of reality, that only the fantastically illogical can steel us against what ordinary life threatens. Bonus BackLit materials will include an interview and a list of Marek’s recommended books.

About this title

About the Author:

Adam Marek is an award-winning short story writer. He won the 2011 Arts Foundation Short Story Fellowship and was shortlisted for the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. He is the author of "Instruction Manual for Swallowing," which was nominated for the Frank O'Connor Prize.

From Booklist:

Marek’s second short story collection offers views of simple lives framed by abruptly discordant, unsettling events. Most of the stories link together through the sometimes desperate love parents have for their children as they try to save them in a world rendered careless and brutal by the mere fact of its existence. With many set in a not-too-distant future, the tales carry an anything-goes sense of foreboding technological mayhem, startling diseases, or general terrors fueled by humanity’s sometimes suspicious ideas about the years to come. In “An Industrial Evolution,” genetically modified orangutans are used as fruit pickers in Indonesia, creating a fascinating tableau with an impressively chilling premise. A man and his six-year-old son enjoy the vicarious thrill of chasing tornadoes in “The Stormchasers,” while a darker pressure wrests the story line from the mundane into a horrifying grittiness at the very end. The arresting opening line of one tale draws immediate interest: “My son’s Tamagotchi had AIDS.” Strongly entertaining and tautly written, these are for the literary reader who enjoys a sudden twist away from the ordinary. --Julie Trevelyan

About this edition

• Publisher: Comma Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1905583508
• ISBN 13: 9781905583508
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 170