Drowning Lessons: Stories

Drowning Lessons: Stories - Paperback

$29.11
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Drowning Lessons: Stories
  • Drowning Lessons: Stories
Drowning Lessons: Stories - Paperback

Drowning Lessons: Stories - Paperback

by Peter Selgin
$29.11
$29.11

Book Overview

by Peter Selgin (Author)

The stories in Drowning Lessons engage water as both a vital and a potentially hazardous presence in our lives. "You can touch water," says Peter Selgin, "you can taste it and feel its temperature, you can even hold it in your hands. Still it remains elusive, ill-defined, shaped only by what surrounds or contains it."

With empathy and wit Selgin introduces us to characters navigating the choppy waters of human relationships. In "Swimming" an avid swimmer fights the stasis in his marriage by prodding his out-of-shape but contented wife to take up the sport--with near-disastrous results. A pond is the setting of "The Wolf House," which tells of the reunion and dissolution of a group of high school friends brought together for a funeral. "The Sinking Ship Man" chronicles a day in the life of an African American caretaker in charge of the only remaining survivor of the Titanic disaster. In "El Malecón" a toothless old Dominican tries to recapture his lost dignity by "borrowing" a shiny Cadillac convertible and aiming it down the coastal highway toward his childhood village. In "The Sea Cure" two travelers in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula confront death in the form of a mysterious woman living in an abandoned beachfront apartment complex.

In all thirteen tales in Drowning Lessons, Selgin exhibits a keen eye for the forces that push people toward--and sometimes beyond--their very human limits, forces as intrinsic, elemental, and elusive as the liquid that makes up two-thirds of their bodies. These stories remind us that of all bodies of water, none is deeper or more dangerous than our own.

Author Biography

Peter Selgin's recently published novel, "Life Goes to the Movies," was a finalist for both the AWP Award and the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. He is the author of two books on the writing craft, "By Cunning and Craft: Sound Advice and Practical Wisdom for Fiction Writers" and "179 Ways to Save a Novel: Matters of Vital Concern to Fiction Writers."

Number of Pages: 250
Dimensions: 0.8 x 7.6 x 5 IN
Publication Date: March 01, 2011
ISBN9780820338194
Author Peter Selgin
PublisherUniversity of Georgia Press
GenreLiterature
FormatPaperback
PublishedMarch 2011
LanguageENG- English
Pages250
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Fiction Short Stories

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More by Peter Selgin

By Cunning & Craft: Practical Wisdom for Fiction Writers

By Cunning & Craft: Practical Wisdom for Fiction Writers - Paperback

By Cunning & Craft: Practical Wisdom for Fiction Writers - Paperback

By Peter Selgin

About Peter Selgin

Peter Selgin is the author of Drowning Lessons, winner of the 2007 Flannery O'Connor Award for Fiction, Life Goes to the Movies, a novel, and several children's books. His memoir, Confessions of a Left-Handed Man: An Artist's Memoir, was short-listed for the 2012 William Saroyan International Prize. His most recent novel, The Water Master, was awarded the Pirate's Alley/William Faulkner Society Prize for best novel. Other honors include the Missouri Review Editors' Prize, a Dana Award for the Essay, and a Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights' Conference Award for his full-length play, A God in the House, based on Dr. Kevorkian and his suicide machine. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Georgia College and State University and teaches at Antioch University's MFA Creative Writing Program.

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