{"product_id":"paper-lantern-9780374535384","title":"Paper Lantern","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA new collection of short stories by a master of the form with a common focus on the turmoils of romantic love\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eReady!\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAim!\u003cbr\u003eOn command the firing squad aims at the man backed against a full-length mirror. The mirror once hung in a bedroom, but now it's cracked and propped against a dumpster in an alley. The condemned man has refused the customary last cigarette but accepted as a hood the black slip that was carelessly tossed over a corner of the mirror's frame. The slip still smells faintly of a familiar fragrance.\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSo begins \"Tosca,\" the first in this vivid collection of Stuart Dybek's love stories. Operatically dramatic and intimately lyrical, grittily urban and impressionistically natural, the varied fictions in \u003ci\u003ePaper Lantern\u003c\/i\u003e all focus on the turmoil of love as only Dybek can portray it. An execution triggers the recollection of a theatrical romance; then a social worker falls for his own client; and lovers part as giddily, perhaps as hopelessly, as a kid trying to hang on to a boisterous kite. A flaming laboratory evokes a steamy midnight drive across terrain both familiar and strange, and an eerily ringing phone becomes the telltale signature of a dark betrayal. Each story is marked with contagious desire, spontaneous revelation, and, ultimately, resigned courage. As one woman whispers when she sets a notebook filled with her sketches drifting out to sea, \"Someone will find you.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSome of Dybek's characters recur in these stories, while others appear only briefly. Throughout, they--and we--are confronted with vaguely familiar scents and images, reminiscent of love but strangely disconcerting, so that we might wonder whether we are looking in a mirror or down the barrel of a gun. \"After the ragged discharge,\" Dybek writes, \"when the smoke has cleared, who will be left standing and who will be shattered into shards?\" \u003ci\u003ePaper Lantern\u003c\/i\u003e brims with the intoxicating elixirs known to every love-struck, lovelorn heart, and it marks the magnificent return of one of America's most important fiction writers at the height of his powers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eStuart Dybek\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of four other books of fiction, \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eincluding \u003ci\u003eEcstatic Cahoots\u003c\/i\u003e, published simultaneously with this volume, as well as two collections of poetry. The recipient of many prizes and awards--including the PEN\/Malamud Award, an Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Whiting Writers' Award, and four O. Henry Awards--he is the Distinguished Writer in Residence at Northwestern University. He divides his time between Evanston, Illinois, Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the Florida Keys.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50410795532562,"sku":"9780374535384","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_da27e4a1-6e26-41f4-9df9-602638ab0ee0.jpg?v=1729307395","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/paper-lantern-9780374535384","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}