Read by Strangers
SKU:
9781590216781
$15.00
$15.00
per item
by Philip Dean Walker
Read by Strangers is a collection of sixteen stories exploring the complexities of the human experience. From weary men seeking a ride back from a club but find themselves trapped to a woman addicted to a virtual reality game who is neglecting her child to a man whose fantasies about of his neighbor's wife have begun to take over his life, the characters in each of these stories are enveloped in their commitment to their own personal desires.
"Unicorn"
"Revolution"
"There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"
"Brad’s Head Revisited, ’94"
"Hester Prynne Got an A"
"A Goddess Lying Breathless in Carnage"
"Tree-Sink Sink"
"Ten Seconds"
"A Cup of Fur"
"The Gargoyles"
"The Star"
"Habitat"
"Women of a Certain Age"
"Why Burden a Baby with a Body?"
"Verisimilitude"
"Caravan"
Philip Dean Walker holds a M.F.A. in Creative Writing from American University. His fiction has appeared in Big Lucks, Collective Fallout, Jonathan, Callisto, Glitterwolf Magazine, theNewerYork, Anak Sastra, Carbon Culture Review, Lunch Review andDriftwood Press. His debut collection of short stories, At Danceteria and Other Stories, was published by Squares & Rebels. He hails from Great Falls, Virginia and currently resides in Washington, D.C.
Paperback, 228 pages
Read by Strangers is a collection of sixteen stories exploring the complexities of the human experience. From weary men seeking a ride back from a club but find themselves trapped to a woman addicted to a virtual reality game who is neglecting her child to a man whose fantasies about of his neighbor's wife have begun to take over his life, the characters in each of these stories are enveloped in their commitment to their own personal desires.
"Unicorn"
"Revolution"
"There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"
"Brad’s Head Revisited, ’94"
"Hester Prynne Got an A"
"A Goddess Lying Breathless in Carnage"
"Tree-Sink Sink"
"Ten Seconds"
"A Cup of Fur"
"The Gargoyles"
"The Star"
"Habitat"
"Women of a Certain Age"
"Why Burden a Baby with a Body?"
"Verisimilitude"
"Caravan"
Philip Dean Walker holds a M.F.A. in Creative Writing from American University. His fiction has appeared in Big Lucks, Collective Fallout, Jonathan, Callisto, Glitterwolf Magazine, theNewerYork, Anak Sastra, Carbon Culture Review, Lunch Review andDriftwood Press. His debut collection of short stories, At Danceteria and Other Stories, was published by Squares & Rebels. He hails from Great Falls, Virginia and currently resides in Washington, D.C.
Paperback, 228 pages
Read an interview with Walker about the collection by clicking here.
“Philip Dean Walker’s Read by Strangers is a nightmare wrapped in a riddle dipped in epiphany. His attention to detail, especially in his characters, makes living, breathing, complicated people heft themselves out of the page, fully-formed creatures from his madcap lagoon. Particularly the way he sees inside women and their oft en secret, darkest views on motherhood, on aging, on desire, on the aging of their once desirable husbands…he embodies the night-vines of our own admissions, those that sneak up our chests and wind around our throats.” —Julia Whelan, author of My Oxford Year
“The stories that comprise Philip Dean Walker’s Read by Strangers are sexually frank, intriguingly open-ended, and nuanced in their depictions of fl awed human nature. Walker is a talented and observant storyteller whose plots and characterizations engage and unnerve in equal measures.” —Wally Lamb, author of I Know Th is Much Is True
“Vividly and bitingly rendered, these stories oft en made me morally and even politically uncomfortable, which might well be the point. Highly reminiscent of John Cheever, Richard Yates, Bret Easton Ellis and others who excelled at writing people, especially women, at their lowest, Read by Strangers seems confident in its sometimes surreal cruelties, perhaps to try to shake us out of our own worst instincts.” —Tim Murphy, author of Christodora
“The stories that comprise Philip Dean Walker’s Read by Strangers are sexually frank, intriguingly open-ended, and nuanced in their depictions of fl awed human nature. Walker is a talented and observant storyteller whose plots and characterizations engage and unnerve in equal measures.” —Wally Lamb, author of I Know Th is Much Is True
“Vividly and bitingly rendered, these stories oft en made me morally and even politically uncomfortable, which might well be the point. Highly reminiscent of John Cheever, Richard Yates, Bret Easton Ellis and others who excelled at writing people, especially women, at their lowest, Read by Strangers seems confident in its sometimes surreal cruelties, perhaps to try to shake us out of our own worst instincts.” —Tim Murphy, author of Christodora