This 113-page novella is the centerpiece of Caponegro’s book of stories. As in the first stories (articles here, here and here), it again presents a family, but a family fragmented by misconceptions and hatred. After a prelude, most of the work takes place on New Year’s Eve and gives off the air of Long Day’s [...]
Posts Tagged ‘The Complexities of Intimacy’
Reading Caponegro’s The Complexities of Intimacy: “The Son’s Burden”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Mary Caponegro, The Complexities of Intimacy, The Son's Burden on February 28, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Reading Caponegro’s The Complexities of Intimacy: “The Father’s Blessing”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged “The Father’s Blessing”, Big Other, John Madera, Mary Caponegro, The Complexities of Intimacy on February 18, 2011 | 10 Comments »
“The Father’s Blessing” is the longest story in The Complexities of Intimacy so far, and it’s a major comedic turn, albeit a dark one. Whereas the first two stories are told from the point of view of a daughter and a mother, respectively, the third (told from the perspective of a priest, an unreliable narrator [...]
Reading Caponegro: “The Mother’s Mirror”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Mary Caponegro, The Complexities of Intimacy on February 12, 2011 | 15 Comments »
The more I delve into Caponegro’s art, the more I see an anthropologist at work–a Joycean scientist who curls bright, unexpected words (like “obnubilating”) around common and uncommon questions of heritage, soul and civilization. Anthropologist but also philosopher–a Plato with the vocabulary of Keats. Consider this sentence of “The Mother’s Mirror,” a story of a [...]
Reading Caponegro: “The Daughter’s Lamentation”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Giotto, Lamenatation, Mary Caponegro, The Complexities of Intimacy on February 10, 2011 | 19 Comments »
The first story in Mary Caponegro’s book we are reading for February is “The Daughter’s Lamentation.” Caponegro follows the word to its root, as this “story” is more lamentation; that is a song, poem or piece of music that laments–expresses grief or regret. The daughter, unnamed, is a women who has returned to her family [...]
February’s Big Other Book Club – Mary Caponegro
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Mary Caponegro, The Complexities of Intimacy on February 2, 2011 | 9 Comments »
This month we will be reading The Complexities of Intimacy by Mary Caponegro. It’s a book of 4 short stories and a novella. I will be posting on each story. Let’s try to do the first three short stories in the next ten days. The 120-page novella we can examine in the second half of [...]
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Authors
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John Madera
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John Dermot Woods
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Ryan W. Bradley
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Michael Leong
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Greg Gerke
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Stacy Muszynski
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A D Jameson
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Tim Jones-Yelvington
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Rachel Swirsky
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Edward Mullany
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Aya Karpinska
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Paul Kincaid
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davis schneiderman
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Amber Sparks
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Tim Horvath
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John Domini
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Elaine Castillo
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Curtis White
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Paula Bomer
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James Tadd Adcox
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Nick Francis Potter
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Brian Kubarycz
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Gabriel Blackwell
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Janey Smith
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Matty Byloos
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J/J Hastain
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Greg Hunter
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Jeff Bursey
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Paul Griffin
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Chris Lites
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Announcing the Book Club Schedule!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, Big Breasts and Wide Hips, Big Other, C, Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries, Djuna Barnes, Gilgamesh, Gordon Lish, Helen Vendler, John Barth, John Gardner, John Hawkes, John Maier, Lyn Hejinian, Manuel Puig, Mary Caponegro, Mo Yan, My Life, Nightwood, Peru, Searches and Seizures: 3 Novellas, Stanley Elkin, The Complexities of Intimacy, The Sotweed Factor, Tom McCarthy, Travesty on December 26, 2010 | 9 Comments »
The votes are in, and the winner of the poll for the first book to be discussed in the Big Other Book Club is Tom McCarthy’s C. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, hailed by many and knocked by maybe even more, McCarthy describes the book as dealing with technology and mourning. I’m excited to have, as [...]
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