Death Is Not an Option
Death Is Not an Option
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Summary
A bold, dazzling debut collection about girls and women in a world where sexuality and self-delusion collide.
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Death Is Not an Option by Suzanne Rivecca
In these stories, a teacher obsesses over a student who comes to class with scratch marks on his face; a Catholic girl graduating high school finds a warped kind of redemption in her school’s contrived class rituals; and a woman looking to rent a house is sucked into a strangely inappropriate correspondence with one of the landlords. These are just a few of the powerful plotlines in Suzanne Rivecca’s gorgeously wrought collection. From a college student who adopts a false hippie persona to find love, to a young memoirist who bumps up against a sexually obsessed fan, the characters in these fiercely original tales grapple with what it means to be honest with themselves and the world. These stories explode “with piercing insight . . . illuminating the dangerous dance between victims and saviors. [They] deliver us to the edge of grief, that precarious place where the moral compass spins—where codes of love and law and religion fail. Mercy here depends on a tiger’s sublime grace, our capacity to resist deeper harm, and the right of every broken being to remain silent” (Melanie Rae Thon).
"Suzanne Rivecca is a wonderfully lively and fearless new writerI greatly admired the stories in Death Is Not an Option." -- Lorrie Moore, author of A Gate at the Stairs and Birds of America
"With exquisite patience and piercing insight, Suzanne Rivecca illuminates the dangerous dance between victims and saviors. Death Is Not an Option delivers us to the edge of grief, that precarious place where the moral compass spins—where codes of love and law and religion fail. Mercy here depends on a tiger's sublime grace, our capacity to resist deeper harm, and the right of every broken being to remain silent." -- Melanie Rae Thon, author of Sweet Hearts and First, Body
"The intensity of thought and feeling in Suzanne Rivecca's stories is remarkable.... The stories are brilliant, funny, and scary. This book is a major achievement." -- Charles Baxter, author of The Soul Thief and The Feast of Love
"I was astonished and transported by the stories in this collection which are simultaneously hilariously funny and sharply, sometimes painfully, perceptive. I stayed up reading them late into the night because I did not want to put them down and I thought about them for a long time after I finished the last one. I think about them still." -- Emily Mitchell, author of The Last Summer of the World
"Recalls early Gaitskill in its stark depiction of girls who lost their innocence long before they knew it was theirs to lose." -- Vogue
"With exquisite patience and piercing insight, Suzanne Rivecca illuminates the dangerous dance between victims and saviors. Death Is Not an Option delivers us to the edge of grief, that precarious place where the moral compass spins—where codes of love and law and religion fail. Mercy here depends on a tiger's sublime grace, our capacity to resist deeper harm, and the right of every broken being to remain silent." -- Melanie Rae Thon, author of Sweet Hearts and First, Body
"The intensity of thought and feeling in Suzanne Rivecca's stories is remarkable.... The stories are brilliant, funny, and scary. This book is a major achievement." -- Charles Baxter, author of The Soul Thief and The Feast of Love
"I was astonished and transported by the stories in this collection which are simultaneously hilariously funny and sharply, sometimes painfully, perceptive. I stayed up reading them late into the night because I did not want to put them down and I thought about them for a long time after I finished the last one. I think about them still." -- Emily Mitchell, author of The Last Summer of the World
"Recalls early Gaitskill in its stark depiction of girls who lost their innocence long before they knew it was theirs to lose." -- Vogue
Suzanne Rivecca’s fiction has appeared in Best New American Voices 2009, among other publications. A winner of the Pushcart Prize and a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she lives in San Francisco.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780393072563 |
| ISBN 10 | 0393072568 |
| Title | Death Is Not an Option |
| Author | Suzanne Rivecca |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Publisher | WW Norton & Co |
| Year published | 2010-07-29 |
| Number of pages | 222 |
| Prizes | Commended for Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award (First Fiction) 2011, Commended for Story Prize (Fiction Collection) 2010 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |