Babylon and Other Stories by Alix Ohlin
By Alix Ohlin
Following The lacking Person, her hugely praised debut—“A heavily pleasing and probing novel,” wrote The Washington publish ebook World—Alix Ohlin offers us a suite of reports that demonstrates her striking range.
In their quite a few locales, from Montreal (where a prosthetic leg casts a livid spell on its beholders) to the Southwest (where a Soviet-era alternate pupil adjustments a family’s dynamic forever), the characters in Babylon are coming to phrases with life’s epiphanies, for stable or unwell. they vary from the very younger who, faced with their parents’ barriers, realize their very own get to the bottom of, to these dealing with heart age and its specific indignities, no much less made up our minds to say themselves and form their destinies. A tenacious eight-year-old practices piano on paper keys; an expectant mom, settling into an idyllic farmhouse, discovers the tragic tale of its past, rightful population; and a fictional haunted medical institution turns into an obsession for a ghostwriter grappling along with her empty nest.
In tales instantaneously clear-eyed and compassionate, brimming with the wit, humor, and heat for which she has been extensively acclaimed, Alix Ohlin offers us unforgettable characters enmeshed in occasions either widespread and absurd—all vitally engaged within the transfigurations that delineate any coming of age.
In brief, a amazing and warranted assortment from an extremely talented author.
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Extra resources for Babylon and Other Stories
Example text
He asked. Sighing, the Chief poured cognac and gave Viktor an inhibited, arrested sort of look. “Bowed his head did our brave young Red,” he crooned softly: “Cruelly shot through his Komsomol heart … “As a newspaper, we’ve had our losses. This one’s our seventh. Before long we’ll be unveiling a pantheon … Still, no skin off your nose! ” said the Chief. Then, in quite a different, somehow weary voice, and looking hard at him, he added “And it’s not your business any longer. Just that you know a bit more than others do … OK …” Viktor regretted his curiosity.
My daughter,” he said. ” He stooped to unbutton her little coat of reddish fur. “Sonya,” she said gazing up at him. “And I’m four. ” “You see? And she’s hardly been here a minute …” He removed her coat and helped her off with her little boots. They went through to the living room. ” she asked, looking round. “I’ll go and see,” said Viktor, but first he fetched Misha-non-penguin the two new obelisks from the kitchen. “Misha,” he called, looking behind the dark-green settee. Misha, standing in his hidey-hole on a treble thickness of camel-hair blanket, was staring at the wall.
A door banged. He waited patiently for the doorbell. A short while later, instead of a ring, there was a guarded knock. A red-eyed, sleepy-looking man of about 50 handed him a large brown envelope. “I’m down in the car. Hammer on the door if I’m asleep,” he said, without coming in. Sitting at his typewriter, Viktor drew from the envelope a sheet of paper and a theatre programme. Parkhomenko, Yuliya Andreyevna, b. 1955. Since 1988, singer Nat. Opera. Married, two children. he read. 1991, mastectomy.