| Roughhouse Contributor(s): Rutkowski, Thaddeus (Author) |
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ISBN: 1885030266 ISBN-13: 9781885030269 Publisher: Kaya/Muae OUR PRICE: $9.86 Product Type: Paperback Published: May 1999 Annotation: This novel in short vignettes gives a harrowing, deadpan account of the tedium, casual violence and deviant sex of a rural American childhood. Told from the point of view of a troubled young man, the narrative mimics his traumatized perception of the world. His flashes of childhood memories are haunted by images of a shotgun-toting father, siblings rendered almost mute from the trauma of excessive environmental bleakness, and a mother whose invocation of half-remembered Chinese homilies breeds its own brand of inarticulation. And then there's the narrator himself, who responds to the torment of bullying neighborhood kids with increasingly abberant behavior including bondage and pyromania. In spare, unrelenting prose that has been deftly honed, Rutowski ferrets out the hard bone of absurdity and humor at the heart of emotional displacement. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Short Stories (single Author) |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 99071773 |
| Physical Information: 0.44" H x 5.04" W x 7.02" (0.43 lbs) 166 pages |
| Themes: - Demographic Orientation - Rural |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Roughhouse gives a harrowingly deadpan account of the tedium, casual violence and deviant sex that connect a surreal, semi-rural childhood with adult urban neurosis. Terse flashes of narrative, told from the point of view of a troubled youth, provide a stark sketch of an American family on the brink: a gun-toting father prone to inexplicable rages; a mother who speaks in ineffectual, half-remembered Chinese homilies; siblings rendered almost mute from excessive bleakness. And there's the narrator himself, who responds to the torment of home and neighborhood bullies with increasingly aberrant behavior, including sexual bondage and a form of pyromania that requires placing a paper bag over one's head and igniting it. In spare, unrelenting prose that has been honed to a point, Rutkowski ferrets out the hard bone of absurdity at the center of emotional displacement. Thaddeus Rutkowski grew up in central Pennsylvania and now lives in New York. His work has been published in numerous publications, including Fiction magazine and The New York Times. He is a winner of the Nuyorican Poets Caf 's Poetry Slam. " Rutkowski's] sulfuric tale of family breakdown and fetishism chronicles the confusion and opacity of traumatic childhood even as it criticizes the American society that tolerates such inhumanity."-- Publishers Weekly "Rutkowski gives us a novel in bites and slices: sharp, shocking, and certainly not for the faint-hearted. Here is gall with gusto, a voice of reckoning, and writing to be reckoned with." -- Molly Peacock |