Rules of the Lake: Stories by Irene Ziegler - Hardcover

Ziegler, I.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 087074447X ISBN 13: 9780870744471

Publisher: Southern Methodist University Press,U.S., 1999

Synopsis

"Rules of the Lake" is Ziegler s fiction debut, a collection of linked stories about growing up on a lake in pre-Disney central Florida in the 1960s, before orange groves were bulldozed to make way for shopping plazas and bushes were trimmed to look like Mouseketeers. The stories trace the maturation of smart, funny Annie Bartlett, who recounts her adventurous childhood on Widow Lake. She s obsessed with the desire to learn to breathe underwater so she can become a mermaid. In her reckless pursuit of this fantasy, Annie grapples with the constraints imposed by her father s lake rules (No Swimming Alone, No Swimming After Dark, No Diving in Unknown Waters) and is forced to confront, among other things, her own mortality. The title story introduces us to the Bartlett family: nine-year-old Annie; rebellious and sullen Leigh, her older sister; their philandering father, Ed; and their mother, Helen, whose drowning is the central mystery of the collection. In The Treasure Hunter s Daughter Annie accompanies her feckless father to an abandoned dump on one of his many get-rich-quick schemes. When she s badly cut on a potentially valuable bottle during the dig, she learns to her dismay that her father s first thought is to retrieve the bottle before taking care of his daughter s wound. In The Waiting List Annie s intense desire to belong to something larger than herselfto Teresa Hatcher s Girl Scout troopcauses her to allow herself to be exploited and, in turn, callously to use an outsider for her own purposes. In Cliffs Notes Annie accompanies Leigh to a gay bar where Leigh judges a drag queen contest and baits her English teacher who happens to be there. When events get out of hand, it is up to Annie to get herself and her sister out of harm s way. "Rules of the Lake" celebrates the power and endurance of myth and childhood imagination in the midst of loss, love, and change. What Annie learns in humid and tropical central Florida when she rolls her canoeagainst her father s rulesis that life is both exhilarating and dangerous. From these stories Ziegler fashioned a one-woman play of the same name that won the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award in Drama in 1997. It was first produced by Theatre IV in Richmond, Virginia."

About this title

About the Author:

IRENE ZIEGLER grew up on a lake in Volusia County, Florida. In 1996 she received a fellowship in fiction from the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Her stories have appeared in the "Missouri Review," the "Tampa Review," "Other Voices," and other literary venues. An actor and award-winning playwright, Ziegler lives in Richmond, Virginia, where she says she plays mostly evil people on stage, television, and film.

Synopsis:

Stories on growing up in Florida, centered on a girl who wants to be a mermaid. When not partying and chasing boys, Annie Bartlett practices holding her breath underwater in the same lake in which her mother drowned. A look at the dreams of youth.

About this edition

• Publisher: Southern Methodist University Press,U.S.
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 087074447X
• ISBN 13: 9780870744471
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 184