{"product_id":"9780820343587","title":"The Piano Tuner","description":"In \u003ci\u003eThe Piano Tuner\u003c\/i\u003e, Peter Meinke writes of the foreignness that awaits us when we go abroad and when we answer our own front door to admit a stranger, that confronts us in unfamiliar cities and villages and in the equally disquieting surroundings of our memories and regrets.\u003cp\u003eOften in these stories, what seems a safe, comfortable environment turns suddenly threatening. In the title story, a writer's quiet existence amid his antiques and books is dismantled, piece by piece, by a demonic, beer-bellied piano tuner. In \"The Ponoes,\" a man recalls how, as a young boy living in Brooklyn during World War II, he became a collaborationist in the brutal pranks of two Irish bullies. In \"The Twisted River,\" the sedate collegiality of a Polish university is disrupted when an American on a Fulbright grant attempts to blackmail two faculty members. And in \"The Bracelet,\" a young anthropology student doing field work in Africa finds herself drawn further and further into the role of a priestess of Oshun, into a life dictated by the configuration of cowry shells cast upon the floor.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMeinke writes of a world where our control over our lives seldom exists across a border, and often extends no further than our fingertips. Attempts to bridge two cultures, two lives are sometimes successful, as when an actor finds love in the arms of a tough-talking barmaid, but more usually lead to disillusionment, as when a hard-drinking salesman's career is shattered after he is drunk under the table one night by a Polish engineer, or when an English father struggles to find common ground with his American son. Riveting, almost terrifying, the stories in \u003ci\u003eThe Piano Tuner\u003c\/i\u003e tell of decent men and women caught in events that they could never have predicted, would never have chosen.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Georgia Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47111037780208,"sku":"9780820343587","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780820343587_p0.jpg?v=1763751324","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780820343587","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}