The Hotel Eden: Stories

Ron Carlson

Language: English

USA

Published: May 17, 1997

Description:

Prepare to be amused, moved, disturbed. These dozen stories by a master of idiosyncrasy visit a world where wit has heft, charm has shadow, and human beings act out all the complicated nuances of love.

In the title story a young man waiting in the Hotel Eden discovers, as others have, that Eden is not a permanent domicile. 

In "Zanduce at Second," a baseball player turned killer-by-accident undergoes a surprising transformation. 

We root for escaped felon Ray ("A Note on the Type") as he carves his name on a culvert wall. 

We drive the sweltering summer streets of Phoenix as a nineteen-year-old narrator goes through an unsettling sexual awakening ("Oxygen"). 

In these and other stories, whether his characters are getting sabotaged by nightcaps or encountering nudists on a rafting trip, Carlson takes us to a generous array of places in a new way. 

Finally, in "The Chromium Hook," he takes us to a lovers' lane where he solves an ancient mystery.