In this Book
- The Quick-Change Artist: Stories
- Book
- 2012
- Published by: Ohio University Press
summary
In these stories of magic and memory, clustered around a resort hotel in a small Virginia community, Cary Holladay takes the reader on an excursion through the changes wrought by time on the community and its visitors. From the quiet of a rural forest to the rhythms of rock and roll, The Quick-Change Artist is at once whimsical and hard-edged, dizzying in its matter-of-fact delivery of the fantastic.
Romance, a sense of place and belonging, and the supernatural—especially in the lives of children coming of age—offer windows into worlds beyond the ordinary throughout The Quick-Change Artist. In the title story, a young chambermaid is in love with a foreign magician who performs at the hotel where she works. In “Heaven,” set during the 1918 flu epidemic, a struggling mother and son rely on the support of their fortune-telling plow horse. The narrator of “Jane's Hat” recalls a childhood enlivened by an unusual school principal and a friend who starts finding beauty everywhere.
Horses and the people who love them, wanderers and those who feed them, creatures that disappear and those who search for them: these are stories with a constant heart.
Romance, a sense of place and belonging, and the supernatural—especially in the lives of children coming of age—offer windows into worlds beyond the ordinary throughout The Quick-Change Artist. In the title story, a young chambermaid is in love with a foreign magician who performs at the hotel where she works. In “Heaven,” set during the 1918 flu epidemic, a struggling mother and son rely on the support of their fortune-telling plow horse. The narrator of “Jane's Hat” recalls a childhood enlivened by an unusual school principal and a friend who starts finding beauty everywhere.
Horses and the people who love them, wanderers and those who feed them, creatures that disappear and those who search for them: these are stories with a constant heart.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- The Quick-Change Artist
- pp. 1-25
- The Peacock
- pp. 26-37
- The Biggest and the Best
- pp. 38-53
- The Blue Monkey
- pp. 65-74
- The Broken Lake
- pp. 75-100
- The Iron Road
- pp. 101-117
- Syrup and Feather
- pp. 118-134
- Jane's Hat
- pp. 135-148
- Sailor's Valentine
- pp. 149-164
- The Interview
- pp. 165-180
- The Lost Pony
- pp. 181-201
Additional Information
ISBN
9780804040273
Related ISBN(s)
9780804010924
MARC Record
OCLC
191936430
Launched on MUSE
2012-11-16
Language
English
Open Access
No