Obscure Corners and Crevices

What in the World! In this, her first book of short stories or fragments of life inspired by true events, Leven successfully applies her unique ability to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Customary events of life mutate into those that are bewildering, stupefying, erotic, and yet profound—events that diverge off the beaten path and baffle all ordinary description. A lover’s pact, a job interview, a student-teacher relationship, an audition, a visit to a new art gallery, a relationship between old high school chums, a neighbor’s dispute—all mushroom into the farcical, the grim, and the inconceivable. In Obscure Corners and Crevices, Leven offers her readers nine portraits of normal, intelligent, introspective individuals who end up enmeshed in usual life situations that unexpectedly warp into the incredible, into events that most of her readers will never have experienced . . . guaranteed! Her characters, along with her readers, are enveloped in a detailed anatomy of the human heart and mind through meticulously painted events, dialogue, and a unique philosophy that permeates all of Leven’s writings. The tales, whether dramatic, extravagant, or droll, all maintain a lofty profundity and soaring level of suspense until the unforeseen final denouement.