Imagine a Woman and Other Tales

By Richard Selzer

Book Overview

A widow becomes obsessed with the desire to once again hear her dead husband's heart, which has been harvested and transplanted into the body of another man ("Whither Thou Goest"). A mother descends into a cave in search of her autistic son, who suffers the gift and curse of vespertilian powers of perception ("Pipistrel"). After the death of the wife he no longer loves, a retired professor of archeology tries to suffocate himself in a bog("Lindow Man"). A scavenger finds treasure--a radioactive disk he believes to be a fallen star even as it kills him ("Luis"). The doctor who attends the death of Edgar Allen Poe completes the story fragment the great author has left him, the tale of a young nobleman who, enslaved to the compulsive, ritualistic demands of Tourette's Syndrome, is stranded in a lighthouse with a stranger who may or may not be deaf ("Poe's Lighthouse"). A woman chronicles the last days of her death from AIDS in a small French village ("Imagine A Woman"). Stories of sweetness and light these are not; but those with a taste for the truly suspenseful and horrific need go no farther than these inventive, disturbing tales by a master of the genre. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394585356
• ISBN13: 9780394585352
• Release Date: October 1990
• Publisher: Random House
• Length: 229 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Poignant and Entirely Memorable

I read "Imagine a Woman" ten years ago. Its stories still haunt me today. I find myself pondering "Poe's Lighthouse" and "Linder Man" at the strangest times. Seltzer brings a depth of humanity and emotion to his stories that I am powerless to describe. Each story is so very original, so very intimate. I cannot recommend this collection highly enough. Read it. You won't regret it.

Imagine if this book had readers

This series of short stories literally sparkle and overflow with emotion, yet the writing is tempered, measured and always intelligent. What I liked best were the quirky plots and the still quirkier people. But quirky should not imply "funny" - these tales contain sadness, depth and heartbreak. "Lindow Man" is one of the best - an archeologist is studying a recovered body from the bogs, a prehistoric man, when he meets his...