{"product_id":"9780268075644","title":"The Incurables","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn his latest collection of literary fiction, Mark Brazaitis evokes with sympathy, insight, and humor the lives of characters in a small Ohio town. The ten short stories of \u003ci\u003eThe Incurables\u003c\/i\u003e limn the mental landscape of people facing conditions they believe are insolvable, from the oppressive horrors of mental illness to the beguiling and baffling complexities of romantic and familial love.\u003c\/p\u003e In the book’s opening story, “The Bridge,” a new sheriff must confront a suicide epidemic as well as his own deteriorating mental health. In “Classmates,” a man sets off to visit the wife of a classmate who has killed himself. Is he hoping to write a story about his classmate or to observe the aftermath of what his own suicide attempt, if successful, would have been like? In the title story, a down-on-his-luck porn actor returns to his hometown and winds up in the mental health ward of the local hospital, where he meets a captivating woman. Other stories in the collection include “A Map of the Forbidden,” about a straight-laced man who is tempted to cheat on his wife after his adulterous father dies, and “The Boy behind the Tree,” about a problematic father-son relationship made more so by the arrival on the scene of a young man the son’s age. In “I Return,” a father narrates a story from the afterlife, discovering as he does so that he is not as indispensable to his family as he had believed.   “The beautiful stories in \u003ci\u003eThe Incurables,\u003c\/i\u003e like the walking wounded who inhabit them, haunt the borderline between the land of the dead and the land of the living, where the bridge and remedy, as Mark Brazaitis knows well, is love. The lives within are urgently affecting, yielded up with strength and wit, with power earned the hard way, and most of all with wisdom.” —\u003cb\u003eJanet Peery, author of \u003ci\u003eAlligator Dance, The River Beyond the World,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWhat the Thunder Said\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e   \"\u003ci\u003eThe Incurables\u003c\/i\u003e is a wonderful collection of stories about life, mental illness, and the human condition. The stories are wry, compassionate, and provide a deep understanding of the strengths and frailties of human nature and the ways in which individuals play out the hard cards they are dealt. Or don't.\" —\u003cb\u003eKay Redfield Jamison, author of \u003ci\u003eAn Unquiet Mind\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"University of Notre Dame Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47115063787760,"sku":"9780268075644","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780268075644_p0.jpg?v=1769916870","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780268075644","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}