Spirit Seizures (Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction) - Softcover

Melissa Pritchard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0820341053 ISBN 13: 9780820341057

Publisher: The University of Georgia Press, 2011

Synopsis

In these stories by Melissa Pritchard, the past brushes up against the present, the voices of both the sane and the obsessed are heard, and the spirits speaking unbidden through the mouths of some spurn others who desire them most. Written with humour but often poignant when they reveal the veins of longing that run through men and women, these stories follow the elusive currents that link us to the eternal, the fluid boundaries that wash between love and mourning.

About this title

Review:

All are set apart, a Diane Arbus-like gallery whose personalities remain elusive, receding more completely as their deformities are more cunningly displayed.

--New York Times Book Review

These are powerful, jolting stories. Melissa Pritchard is one of our finest writers.

--Annie Dillard

It is a rare and gifted writer whose far flung imagination deftly conjures the bizarre and unreal into stories and then, through compelling prose, completely immerses the reader in the world of her creation. Melissa Pritchard is such a writer.

--Roanoke Times

An impressive collection of short stories dealing with the confusion, dislocation, and pain of loss. . . . This book is rich in spirit.

--Belles Lettres

Pritchard shows a descriptive ability that is uncannily original.

--Chicago Tribune

Her stories are generously, excitingly creative. They take hold.--North American Review

The characters in this remarkable first collection . . . are adventurers, explorers of an uncharted interior wilderness of dreams and visions, possessed by spirits, premonitions of death. . . . A welcome antidote to the minimalist perspective of recent years, she makes her characters come alive.

--Providence Sunday Journal

Restless souls and wrestling spirits are motivating combinations in the characters perceived with uncommon acuity in these stories, set in varying locales.--Publishers Weekly

Pritchard possesses a gift for depicting diverse characters, times, and locales.--Ms. Magazine

Pritchard's writing, at its best, is the kind that creates legitimate space for the eccentric without crowding out the ordinary; a writer who can do this well is trustworthy and worth reading again and again.--Harriet Leach "Chicago magazine "

About the Author:

Melissa Pritchard is the award-winning author of three additional story collections, "The Odditorium," "The Instinct for"" Bliss," and "Disappearing Ingenue: The Misadventures of Eleanor Stoddard," and three novels, "Late Bloomer," "Selene of the Spirits," and "Phoenix."

About this edition

• Publisher: The University of Georgia Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0820341053
• ISBN 13: 9780820341057
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192