Lovely, Dark, Deep

Thirteen stories bring men and women face to face with illness, ageing and death. Women conceal medical procedures from the people closest to them, daughters wrestle with self-absorbed artist fathers, and marriages in decline find omens in every biopsy. In 'The Jesters' ageing suburbanites eavesdrop on neighbours beyond the woods whose seemingly perfect life is breaking apart, and in 'The Disappearing' a wife wonders why her husband is giving away his possessions. A brush with death is seen by a survivor in 'Mastiff' and by a victim in 'Forked River Roadside Shrine, South Jersey'. The title story imagines a young poet questioning Robert Frost in his last years, and 'Patricide' turns to the daughter and fiancée of an ageing literary lion.

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About the book

Form

Short stories

First published

2014

Author's age

76 when first published

ISBN

9780062356949 (Ecco, United States)

9780062356956 (Ecco, United States)

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