| |
|
Read two sample stories. Click "Time, An Other" or "Are You EVER Going to be Thin?" (below). Enjoy! If you cannot access these stories through this site, go to wwww.jennifersemplesiegel.com/
|
|
|
|
SAMANTHA ANNE MALLORY, an artist and psychology professor, struggles with weight, abuse, love, marriage, sexuality, the Catholic church, traumatic cultural events, family, passage of time, and death.
A 1990 family reunion awakens the nagging voices of Samantha's relatives, dead and alive. The title story interweaves fat-obsessed letters from an aunt with a grandmother's dire warnings of illicit preteen sexuality.
"Time, An Other," the opening story, describes Samantha's first memory; other stories move backward and forward and forward in time. "In the Name of God" introduces Samantha to 9/11 New York and her feisty granddaughter Kaitlyn. "Psychedelic Bingo" moves forward to 2035, where teenagers are wired--literally--and Samantha is an elderly woman who wages a generational war with her aging daughter Nicole. "Hurry Up, Please, It's Time" depicts Samantha's increasing obsession with death and dying.
Throughout this collection of 24 stories, this spirited middle-aged overweight woman seeks significant meaning in her life as she faces 40 and beyond.
|
|
|
|
"Time, Suspended," the final story (set in 1990), delivers a bombshell, a shocking family secret.
A February 15, 1929, obituary, revealed in the story "For the Glory of God," offers a clue:
__________________________________________________
LOCAL WOMAN KILLED IN AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT
SIOUX CITY--A local woman died late last night in an automobile accident at West 7th and Otoe Streets.
Veronica LaRue, 30, died of severe burns, after her Ford flipped several times and exploded into flames.
"I never saw anything like it," said George Steiner, an Otoe St. resident. "It was almost as if someone had poured gasoline on that automobile."
Steiner said he had not witnessed the actual incident.
"We don't know why the car flipped," said James McClelland, the investigating officer. "No ice on the road, and no precipitation or fog."
Police are continuing their investigation.
__________________________________________________
|
|
|
