Mother Rocket is a collection of seven stories peopled with characters who walk the fault line between assured self-knowledge and dangerous self-deception. Many of Rita Ciresi's stories are centered on momentous occasions: children are conceived or planned for, teenagers reach maturity, marriages are contemplated and broken, parents are mourned. In "The End of the Season, " Janie is forced to examine the boredom and uncertainty of her marriage as she sorts through mementos from her past. She fears that she and her husband ...
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Mother Rocket is a collection of seven stories peopled with characters who walk the fault line between assured self-knowledge and dangerous self-deception. Many of Rita Ciresi's stories are centered on momentous occasions: children are conceived or planned for, teenagers reach maturity, marriages are contemplated and broken, parents are mourned. In "The End of the Season, " Janie is forced to examine the boredom and uncertainty of her marriage as she sorts through mementos from her past. She fears that she and her husband married "not as lovers but as pals, as two people who had sown their oats and were ready to settle for second best, ready to sit back and let their children take a stab at finding passion." In the title story, Jude Silverman, a "bargain basement of neuroses, " is the principal dancer in a "politically aware, " avant-garde dance troupe. Although she finds a tenuous happiness with Rob Jones, a photographer as earnest and sane as his name suggests, Jude longs for the drama of her past and the chance to be a martyr for an undefined cause. Two stories in the collection concern Karl, a man raised in a Catholic family and under the shadow of his older brother, Lorenz. "Resurrection" is a coming-of-age story in which fifteen-year-old Karl faces the bitter realization that the life he imagines with his worldly piano teacher, Madame Novitski, will not free him from his insecurities. "Second Coming, " set thirty-five years later, finds a middle-aged, divorced Karl optimistically telling Lorenz (now a successful if jaded urologist) of his plans to marry the young church organist who carries his child. As the two men converse in Lorenz's office, a "shrine that celebrated the pains a pleasures of masculinity, " Karl concludes that the "roar of the vacuum cleaner and the buzz of the lawn mower are preferable to the "silence of a solitary life." In "Dutch Wife, " Tom Zogg flees Miami and the sameness of sunshine, sand, and proliferating fast-food restaurants in s
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Seller's Description:
Very Good. Hardcover with DJ. SIGNED BY AUTHOR (name only...no inscription). Pages are clean and unmarked. Covers show very minor shelf wear. Binding is tight, hinges strong. Dust jacket shows light edge wear.; 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! Ships same or next business day!
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Seller's Description:
Fine in Fine jacket. Book 0820315087 First edition, First printing. Not inscribed clipped or otherwise marked. Shipped in a box. Complete # line 10987654321. F/F.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good with no dust jacket. 0820315087. Missing dustjacket. Gently read copy.; Inscribed by Rita Ciresi on the title page. Full number line.; Flannery O'connor Award For Short Fiction Ser.; 160 pages; Signed by Author.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good jacket. 144 pages. First edition (first printing). Small sticker scar on the front free endpaper, and previous sellers security sticker on the rear pastedown, thus a near fine copy; in a jacket with a faint, round sticker scar on the cover and a few other light stains to the spine and rear cover, thus very good. Signed by the author on the title page.
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Seller's Description:
As New in As New jacket. Book. Signed by Author(s) 1st. Edition, 1st. Printing 1993, Hardcover in the dust jacket 160 page book signed by the author. Ciresi was the 1993 winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Also included with this hardcover signed book is the Uncorrected Proof soft cover also signed by Ciresi. Both copies are in as New condition. A scarce set of true first edition of this author's debut book. Size: 8vo-over 7¾-9¾" tall.