Monday, June 10, 2013

Bobcat and Other Stories

Bobcat and Other Stories
Author: Rebecca Lee
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Algonquin Books (June 11, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1616201738
ISBN-13: 978-1616201739

Book Description:
At turns witty, heartbreaking, and fiercely intelligent, Bobcat and Other Stories establishes Rebecca Lee as one of our most gifted and original short story writers. Using a range of landscapes and countries, Lee creates full worlds, so that each story reads like a short novel. A student plagiarizes a paper and holds fast to her alibi, finding 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 marriage match for the one true soulmate she’s ever found. In all, Rebecca Lee traverses the terrain of infidelity, obligation, sacrifice, jealousy, and finally, optimism. She creates characters so wonderfully flawed, so driven by their desire, so compelled the make sense of their human condition, that it’s impossible not to feel for them when their fragile beliefs of romantic love, domestic bliss, or academic seclusion fail to provide them wit the sort of force field they’d hoped for.

Idgie Says:
This is an interesting and different book.  The stories were all over the place and I liked it.  

The first short story involves a dinner party involving various people with various issues - mainly marriage issues - and interestingly enough a woman who claims to have lost an arm to a Bobcat.  

Another story I enjoyed was an American woman going to Hong Kong for the summer with her best friend and being talked into finding him a wife by his father.  

Different short stories, none related to the other, all interesting.  A perfect book for those times when you need a "story hit" but don't quite have the time for a novel.