ISBN: 0-88739-124-9
184 pp.
Size: 5.5 x 8.5
Paperback Original
Price: $13.50
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Theaters of the Heart and Mind
Alice Barter
From a staid widower coming back to life in placing a personals ad, through a subtle, cowardly betrayal in the college friendship of two young men, or the bemused experiences of an American woman teaching in China, Alice Barter weaves tales straight from the heart of men and women at quietly critical times in their lives. This witty, charming first collection of stories centers around the simple, deceptively ordinary crises that color contemporary life and love, and shape us into what we are always becoming.
Archie's eyes filled with tears drawn from years of repressed grief and rage. He wanted to shout after this woman, "Look, lady, whoever you are, you don't have to show me how a mother grieves. I have lived with its memory for more than twenty years. Hear my story now. My, son, my only son, so eager to show his father he had 'the right stuff,' went off to a misbegotten war and never came back. The pain of it killed his mother, but I won't let it kill me." But what good would it do? It could not diminish his memories nor his pain. And he realized after a moment how much, in the telling, his stoicism resembled hers. -From "Of Hamburgers and Tears"
Review: "...Emotional swings are Barter's stock and trade...Barter proves...that she can create realistic characters who reveal deep dramas. She deliberately allows many mysteries to remain unsolved, leading readers to search for their own conclusions."
-Publishers Weekly
Bio: Alice Barter, a retired professor of English, was born in Sivas, Turkish Armenia. She emigrated to the United States with her family when she was two. She taught at both the public school and university level before her retirement in 1989. Her teaching career also included a stint at Nanjing University, People's Republic of China in the 1980s. She is the author of Saroyan's Armenians as well as two textbooks and several scholarly articles.
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