{"product_id":"9780807153703","title":"Of Memory and Desire: Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003ehese eleven compelling stories reveal the interplay and varying hues of two basic elements of human experience -- memory and desire, Gladys Swan's characters are frequently forced to shed their illusions as they struggle to shape their lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe title story, like many of the others in the collection, has as its backdrop the beautiful but sometimes harsh landscape of the American Southwest. There a reclusive farmer known as Goat Man takes in a young Mexican boy as his companion. When the greed of a tax collector and the complicity of a community destroy Goat Man, the boy vanishes into the night but returns in the form of a legend, a reminder to the residents of the valley of their changing, crueler world. In another story a traveling carnival breaks down when a sandstorm does final damage to the dreams of the company, and a tired, almost defeated woman attempts to regroup and continue what has been so hopefully called \"Carnival for the Gods.\" An older couple, carrying their Jewish past to a \"Land of Promise.\" Discovers instead an alien territory and must struggle from day to day, one leaning to the past, the other inclining toward an unattainable vision of the future.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \"The Ink Feather\" a small, lonely girl, witness to endless quarrels between her mother and her much older brother, draws comfort from the world of her dolls and the prospect of adventure outside the mist-covered windows of her house. In \"Getting an Education\" a diffident young woman, \"trying to be a student and to discover what she ought to be learning,\" finds insight in the details of the lives around her, especially the secretive, eccentric existence of one of her professors. A widowed grandmother, in \"Black Hole,\" is impregnated during a chance encounter with a nameless stranger and shocks her family when she determines to give birth to and raise her child.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike that grandmother, all of the characters in these fictions -- whether from the comfortable middle class or the fringes of society -- are at odds with themselves and their world. It is Gladys Swan's special gift that she can so seamlessly depict the particular terrors and wonders of their lives. This is a mesmerizing collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Louisiana State University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47128189305072,"sku":"9780807153703","price":12.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780807153703_p0.jpg?v=1763725846","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780807153703","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}