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| Pulp and Paper
ISBN: 9781609380533
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of Iowa Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Language & Literature;
In a creditable first collection, Rolnick splits his time between New Jersey and New York. Each setting offers four tales and feature narrators who are often sensitive adolescents grappling with the pain of growing up. The picturesque prose in "Mainlanders," recalling that of Donald Hall's stories, finds Tubby Boyd and Nick Swan, high school pals, living on the Jersey Shore and making plays for the bored girls visiting from the mainland. Will Taft, 15, in "Innkeeping" is happy helping his widowed mother run a beachside B&B until a vascular surgeon from Chicago arrives and the resentful Will plots to sabotage the budding romance. In New York, life is no less complicated. In the most accomplished piece, "Big River," Finch, a basement waterproofing technician, argues with his restless longtime girlfriend about an abortion. "Big Lake" features Flip, 13, a boy from a provincial town who feels responsible for his teacher's drowning death until her husband assuages his guilt. Other tales, such as "The Carousel," featuring an old merry-go-round operator on Coney Island, add charm to this satisfying debut. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Josh Rolnick 's short stories have won the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize and the Florida Review Editor's Choice Prize. They have also been published in Harvard Review , Western Humanities Review , Bellingham Review , and Gulf Coast , and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best New American Voices. A reporter, editor, and journal publisher, he grew up in New Jersey, spent summers camping his way through Upstate New York, and has lived in Jerusalem, London, Philadelphia, Iowa City, Washington, D.C., and Menlo Park, California. He currently lives with his wife and three sons in Akron, Ohio. |
