Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life,
every quality of his mind is written large in his works.
- Virginia Woolf
- ©2010 Kelcey Parker, Uh-oh. Daughter, Dead Bee.
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For Sale By Owner, Kore Press 2011
Winner, 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Award in Short Fiction
“Lent” nominated for a 2012 Pushcart Prize. Excerpt:
LENT SHOULD BE in the summer that she might make use of the hotel pool, bandaged up outside like an open wound. She never had a pool. She had a cat but her cat is dead. Buried in leftover snow behind the garage until the ground softens. It would be nice to swim in a pool. But then she remembers: I am Jesus in the desert! No swimming allowed.
I am giving you up, she told her family. For Lent.
What was hers anymore that she could give up? That no one else could use without permission, take without asking, even wear, now that the oldest was a teen and her size? Answer: the cat. The found feral cat from college, from before all of them and during all of them, tucked into the right angle of her armpit every night. But after they started arriving every couple of years, the cat (may she rest in peace) was no longer her greatest joy. They were.
You are my greatest joy, she said. And so, she addressed the question marks around the dinner table, you see what a sacrifice this is.
About the Book
In Kelcey Parker’s tales of twisted domesticity, a woman gives her family up for Lent; a mother finds redemption at Chuck E. Cheese; a former best-friend-forever wreaks baby shower havoc; a bride swallows a housefly at the altar; and a suburbanite’s obsession with memory books puts her family in jeopardy.
These stories offer a contemporary and dryly funny view of marriage, parenting and loss. Fans of Lorrie Moore and Aimee Bender will find kinship in Parker’s wit, her generosity of spirit and the confidence of her voice. This debut collection marks the appearance of a writer with a blunt and beautiful perspective on family, home, and an evolving American subculture.
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Web page
For more info on events and reviews, please visit: http://kelceyparker.com
A few story links
Story: “Falling”
Story: “I Heard a Fly Buzz”
Artist of the Month and link to Story: “Lent”
Novella Excerpt: Liliane’s Balcony, Interview at Talking Writing
Forthcoming Book: Liliane’s Balcony (Rose Metal Press 2013)
A novella set at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, starring its former owner, Liliane Kaufmann, and a four current tourists, whose individual crises culminate on Liliane’s famous balcony. (Finalist for 2010 New American Press Fiction Prize)
Read an interview about it here
Also in the Works
Prague Spring – a novel, a tour, a defenestration, an existential crisis. Angela is lost in her thirties, a tourist in need of a guide. In Prague she meets a tour guide, then she becomes one.
