{"product_id":"the-innocent-party-9781934414866","title":"The Innocent Party","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Parkinson's prose flows with a subtle, musical rhythm that only prose can achieve, and then rarely... Every sentence, \u003ci\u003eevery\u003c\/i\u003e sentence, is exquisite.\"--Debrah Lechner, \u003ci\u003eHayden's Ferry Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Aimee Parkison most often begins softly, slowly stripping away each layer of social interaction to get at what is numinous and frightening and necessary about living in the real world. These are stories both about the difficulty and the intense suddenness of human connection, about the profound link that exists between being in love and being alone.\"--Brian Evenson \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Parkison is a storyteller, conjuring characters who harbor festering secrets, lurid urgencies, and violent compulsions. Like Joyce Carol Oates, Parkison deftly works the caricatures of Southern Gothicism into terrifying clarity.\"--Joseph Dewey, \u003ci\u003eThe Review of Contemporary Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom \"The Glass Girl\": \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eOn certain evenings in dark motels, she could transform her lip into the edge of the bottle, imagining her face was made of amber glass and the men paused above her only to take a drink of breath. Over the years, men drank and drank until there were only two sips left inside. They began sucking the air out of the glass that grew warm in the wrong places because of heat radiating off their hands. The men's breath along with white feathers fell over autumn winds drifting through open windows.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this collection, Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize-winner Aimee Parkison's characters struggle to understand what happens when the innocent party becomes the guilty party. With magical realist flair, secrets are aired with dirty laundry, but the stains never come clean. Carol Anshaw writes, \"Aimee Parkison offers a distinct new voice to contemporary fiction. Her seductive stories explore childhood as a realm of sorrows, and reveal the afflictions of adults who emerge from this private geography.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAimee Parkison \u003c\/b\u003ehas an MFA from Cornell University. She is associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she teaches creative writing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e BOA Editions\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/17\/2012\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781934414866\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 182\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.48lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 7.90h x 5.20w x 0.60d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/11\/2012\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Aimee Parkison","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39328922730677,"sku":"9781934414866","price":11.9,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_8a3bc5f0-d0a2-4d08-a105-4e138366a839.jpg?v=1614689710","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-innocent-party-9781934414866","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}