Pleasant Drugs: Stories (First Series: Short Fiction) - Softcover

Kathryn Kulpa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0922811628 ISBN 13: 9780922811625

Publisher: Mid List Press, 2005

Synopsis

Book by Kathryn Kulpa

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Kulpa, a Rhode Island librarian, has crafted the 15 stories of her debut collection with an archivist's keen eye and a native New Englander's emotional thrift. There are several youthful misadventure tales: a college-age woman takes a spontaneous road trip across Mexico with an older man; another runs over a dog two days before Christmas; while a third, a teen-ager, makes the ill-conceived decision to wear hot pants and a tube top to assembly on the last day of school. These lighter stories are gently entertaining, if familiar. When Kulpa tackles adult complications, those familiarities broaden problematically. In "Maintaining," 25-ish Elizabeth drunkenly announces to her date, whom she met at the rehab clinic where she temps, that she's "stopped sleeping with men who are on their way somewhere else." A bereaved Eddy, one of the few male protagonists, goes into a numb but functional shutdown at the death of his best friend and business partner, Matthew. Kulpa captures these emotions accurately, but doesn't then drive the stories beyond them into uncharted territory. That may be a choice, but it's one that makes the whole project feel something like a highway one has driven repeatedly: every exit's possibilities are already imaginable, if not unpleasant. (Aug.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Mid List Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0922811628
• ISBN 13: 9780922811625
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 219