About this item
Highlights
- Meet the college graduate working in a whole body-donation clinic; a young woman obsessed with Benedictine monks; a middle-aged woman who becomes a stand-in talk-show guest; unlikely friends who meet in a domestic violence shelter; a young girl and the father who stole her away to escape his wife's mental illness; a graduate student from a suburban family who believes her physical connection to the world is deteriorating.
- Author(s): Maud Casey
- 224 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Short Stories (single author)
Description
Book Synopsis
Meet the college graduate working in a whole body-donation clinic; a young woman obsessed with Benedictine monks; a middle-aged woman who becomes a stand-in talk-show guest; unlikely friends who meet in a domestic violence shelter; a young girl and the father who stole her away to escape his wife's mental illness; a graduate student from a suburban family who believes her physical connection to the world is deteriorating. Maud Casey -- author of The Shape of Things to Come, a New York Times Notable Book -- explores how we survive modern crises of loss and love through the lives of emotional and geographic nomads. Each flirts with madness and self-destruction while reaching toward life. These simple gestures of optimism and vitality, gorgeously rendered, make drastic an unforgettable collection.
Review Quotes
"Well-written . . . novelistic, its theme of loss made palpable and powerful . . . such riches." -- New York Times Book Review
"Tak[ing] a dazzling narrative dare." -- New York Times Book Review on Notable Book of the Year THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
"Refreshingly unaffected. . . . There's a deliberate tenderness in Casey's handling of her characters." -- Washington Post Book World
"Striking . . . a gem." -- Elle
"A complex, mature, and compelling novel." -- Chicago Tribune
"Skillful, moving . . . A winning combination of emotional resonance, subtle humor and wisdom." -- Publishers Weekly
"Stories . . . that absolutely soar with illuminating little details that crack everything open and reach for hope." -- Hartford Courant
"Edgy, thought-provoking, charged with raw emotion, Drastic is an impressive collection from a rich and wonderfully unpredictable talent." -- John Searles, author of Boy Still Missing
"Sad and funny, Casey's warm-hearted, fine stories reach like a pair of outstretched arms for comfort and truth." -- Lily Tuck, author of Limbo, and Other Places I Have Lived: Stories
"[Drastic] is a treasure trove of jewels to live for--stories beautiful, multi-faceted, and fierce with light." -- Stuart Dybek, author of The Coast of Chicago
"Writing with power, beauty, and a searing vision, Maud Casey creates stories that change the world before our eyes." -- Erin McGraw, author of Lies of the Saints
"The characters in Drastic struggle to understand their lives...in prose that is quiet and illuminating." -- Jason Brown, author of Driving the Heart: And Other Stories
"Casey tells these stories with a compassionate voice that would give anyone of these people a reason to live." -- Mary Kay Zuravleff, The Frequency of Souls
"The characters in Casey's stories find their solace ... in the moments love cracks the rock face of the ordinary." -- Ann Darby, The Orphan Game
"Maud Casey snakes beneath our consciousness, one deft sentence at a time. Drastic is a wholehearted work of art." -- Nicholas Weinstock, author of As Long As She Needs Me