Research Catalog

Title

If the heart is lean : stories / Margaret Luongo.

Author

Luongo, Margaret, 1967-

Publication

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2008], ©2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

156 pages; 22 cm.

Summary

"The sixteen stories in Margaret Luongo's If the Heart Is Lean etch sharp portraits of people in odd and sometimes surreal situations who thus have the opportunity to view their lives from a unique perspective. In "Chestnut Season," a young woman stalled in traffic sees her future self parked beside her; in "Boyfriends," the recently deceased protagonist endures eulogies by her ex-beaus and husbands. Other stories touch upon issues of identity, following characters who find themselves in the wrong places, or who find themselves too late. At the advice of their marriage counselor, the couple in "What Nina Wants" take on the personas of Charles Mingus and Nina Simone, speeding down the Pacific Coast Highway in a rented MG, with a loaded gun and an electric bass. Through compact, tightly woven prose, vivid imagery, and a variety of arresting narrative techniques, If the Heart Is Lean zeroes in on the humorous and painful lives of people who are mysteries to themselves."--BOOK JACKET.

Series Statement

Yellow shoe fiction

Uniform Title

Yellow shoe fiction.

Note

• "LSU Press paperback original"--T.p. verso.

Contents

Pretty -- Every Year the Baby Dies -- Chestnut Season -- What Nina Wants -- Tiger -- Glen Echo -- Mrs. Fargo -- Pedagogy -- A Message from the Water -- Cake -- Boyfriends -- Do That Everywhere -- Tea Set -- Buoyant -- If the Heart Is Lean -- Embankment.

ISBN

• 9780807133767 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 0807133760 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

• 2008010719
• 40015873527

OCLC

• ocn213358234
• 213358234
• SCSB-5432160

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries