ALTMANN'S TONGUE. Stories and a Novella

New York: Knopf, 1994. First edition. Paperback. A near fine copy in printed wrappers (sticker ghost to front cover). Proof of the author's first book. 25 stories and a detective novella. Stories that compel and disturb. We see bystanders slaughtered for offering the wrong directions; people hiring their friends to kill them, fathers burying daughters when mothers aren't looking, children stalking parents across continents, social relations of every order dissolving without notice and with mayhem, regularly, in hideous evidence. Evenson exhibits a cool morbidity (truncated) not often present in American fiction. The result is strange-and strangely fascinating. (Inventory #: ESB01040)