Sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, this short-story collection is always startlingly original. Dazzlingly inventive and devastatingly true to life, The Weight of a Human Heart turns the rules of storytelling on their head. A series of graphs illustrates the disintegration of a marriage, step by excruciating step. A literary stoush - and an affair - play out in the book review section of a national newspaper. The heartbreaking story of a Rwandan boy is hidden in the pages of his English exam paper. A young girl learns her mother's disturbing secrets through the broken key on a typewriter. Ranging from Australia to Africa to China and back again, The Weight of a Human Heart heralds a fresh new voice in Australian literature.
Author Biography: Ryan O'Neill's fiction has appeared in The Best Australian Stories, The Sleepers Almanac, Meanjin, New Australian Stories, Wet Ink, Etchings and Westerly.
Robert Eggle finds himself standing one day in a hole in the sidewalk, rain plastering his clothes to his body, with no memory of who he is, his former life as a food critic, how he got there, or where he should go next. Trying desperately not to be unknowing to people who seem to recognize him including his wife Margaret, he has to survive by holding on to what he tastes. He finds his preoccupations narrowed down to his loss of taste, and the puzzling gastronomic tales people regale him with. Why is it important not to be too gourmetA"? And what is the real purpose behind red sea salt? There is his ex-wife Margaret, who becomes the unwilling obsession of a man from Papa New Guinea with an unusual appetite, and Emma, his neurotic fan who sees a conspiracy in creme brulees. In this world where love is celebrated with peppered, slow-cooked menudo, and where friendships are forged over fat-free muffins, Edible StoriesA" serves up a delectable tale of quirky individuals whose lives intersect in amusing, poignant, and surprisingly thrilling with a man who remembers nothing but the texture of the food he has eaten.
Review: 'Wit and charm... humor everywhere.' New York Times
Author Biography: Mark Kurlansky is a highly-acclaimed Canadian writer and journalist with an all absorbing passion for food. He is the author of international bestsellers Cod, Salt. Edible Stories is his first novel to be published in Britain.
In The Angel Esmeralda, DeLillo finds the freedom to represent the wide range of human experience in contemporary America and forces us to confront the uncomfortable shadows lurking in the background. His characters are exposed to their own deep, often unconscious, longings: one man exploits the vulnerability of a woman he's just met, following her home to her apartment and pushing her too far; another finds himself deceiving his wife and beginning an affair. They are subjected to shocking violations, unexpected acts of terror: a woman lives in constant fear of the earthquakes happening all around her; people bear witness to the mysterious abduction of a child from a small park by a stranger. No matter whether he is focused upon the slums of New York or astronauts in orbit around the Earth, DeLillo chooses not to turn away from the unsettling manner in which humans are often brought together, or the disquieting truth behind their emotional interactions. DeLillo's world is a timeless present, eerily perceptive and prophetic, in which he creates powerful stories of lust and obsession, of loss and remorse, of grief and ecstasy. For those unfamiliar with his work, this intense and articulate collection offers a wonderful introduction to one of America's greatest living writers. For those already acquainted, it will be a thrilling and significant addition.
Author Biography: Don DeLillo, the author of fifteen novels, including Point Omega, Falling Man, White Noise and Libra, has won many honours in America and abroad, including the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize for his complete body of work and the William Dean Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for his novel Underworld. In 2010, he received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award. He has also written three plays.
