Year of the Rat Richardson, Marc Anthony
2016, 2016-09-27
eBook
Winner of the FC2 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize
In Year of the Rat, an artist returns to the dystopian city of his birth to tend to his invalid mother only to find himself torn apart ...by memories and longings. Narrated by this nameless figure whose rants, reveries, and Rabelaisian escapades take him on a Dantesque descent into himself, the story follows him and his mother as they share a one-bedroom apartment over the course of a year.
Despite his mother’s precarious health, the lingering memories of a lost love, an incarcerated sibling, a repressed sexuality, and an anarchic inability to support himself, he pursues his dream of becoming an avant-garde artist. His prospects grow dim until a devastating death provides a painful and unforeseeable opportunity. With a voice that is poetic and profane, ethereal and irreverent, cyclical and succinct, he roams from vignette to vignette, creating a polyphonic patchwork quilt of a family portrait.
Excessive alcohol consumption often appears as an issue of great concern for the friends and family members of drinkers in Uganda, where per capita consumption rates among drinkers are among the ...highest in the world. In many cases, these families seek care for their loved ones in small shops run by herbalists, in the shrines of spirit mediums, in the pews of churches, or in one of several newly established inpatient rehabilitation centres. Yet, acts of intervention come not only from living family members or friends, but also from an array of spiritual beings who may arrive uninvited and outside intentional therapeutic contexts. In this article, we consider a case in which a mother's spirit intervenes in the life of her son, first by possessing his body and then by continuing to dwell there in ways that make it impossible for him to drink. This case highlights the importance of forces experienced as non-self in life-transforming processes, and demands that we give attention to a moment in a person's life when the work of care is achieved through an act of physical force. Une consommation excessive d'alcool est souvent un sujet de préoccupation important pour l'entourage familial et amical des buveurs en Ouganda, où le taux de consommation d'alcool par habitant est l'un des plus élevés au monde. Dans de nombreux cas, ces familles cherchent des remèdes pour leurs proches dans des petites boutiques tenues par des herboristes, auprès des spirites, dans les églises ou dans l'un des centres de cure nouvellement créés. Cependant, les actes d'intervention ne viennent pas uniquement des parents ou amis vivants, mais aussi d'esprits divers susceptibles de se manifester sans y être invités et en dehors de contextes thérapeutiques intentionnels. Dans cet article, les auteurs étudient un cas dans lequel l'esprit d'une mère intervient dans la vie de son fils, d'abord en possédant son corps puis en continuant à l'habiter de manière à le rendre incapable de boire. Ce cas souligne l'importance des forces vécues comme non-soi dans les processus de transformation de la vie et exige qu'on prête attention à un moment, dans la vie d'une personne, où le travail de soin se fait par un acte de force physique.
A tragic affair blooms between a working-class orphan and a wealthy rake in this classic novel of Victorian England. Although Ruth Hilton is kind, life does not treat her kindly in return. An ...orphaned young seamstress, she works long hours at a sweatshop in a small English town. When she is sent to a fancy ball to repair the ladies' dresses, she catches the eye of a gentleman, Henry Bellingham. Falling for Henry leads to the loss of her job and her home, and Ruth quickly finds herself raising a child alone. Overcome with grief and shame, she must now make her way in a world where society has turned its back on her and all she can rely on is hope. A moving novel from the author of North and South and Mary Barton, Ruth offers a unique look at British life during the mid-nineteenth century.
How do combat veterans and their loved ones bridge the divide that war, by its very nature, creates between them? How does someone who has fought in a war come home, especially after a tour of duty ...marked by near-daily mortar attacks, enemy fire, and roadside bombs? With a journalist’s eye and a mother’s warmth, Sue Diaz asks these questions as she chronicles the two deployments to Iraq of her son, Sgt. Roman Diaz, from the perspective of the home front.
Sergeant Diaz’s second deployment put him south of Baghdad in the region aptly termed the Triangle of Death. There his platoon experienced extraordinarily heavy casualties during the height of the Iraqi insurgency. That unit has since become the focus of considerable media attention following events that made headlines in the summer of 2006: an insurgent attack at a remote outpost on three of their own—one killed at the scene, the other two kidnapped, their bodies found days later; and a terrible war crime committed against an Iraqi family by four soldiers from First Platoon.
Minefields of the Heart adds a very personal dimension to the larger story of this Bravo Company platoon from the 101st Airborne’s 502nd Infantry Regiment, a unit known since World War II as the “Black Heart Brigade.” Diaz recounts the emotional rollercoaster her family and other soldiers’ families experience during and after deployment. She explores this terrain not only through stories of her son’s and family’s experiences connected to the Iraq War, but also by insights she’s gained from other veterans’ accounts—from what she calls “the box” that soldiers returning from any war carry within. This added layer gives her narrative broader meaning, bringing home the impact of war in general on those who fight and on those who love them.
Minefields of the Heart is a story of innocence lost, understanding gained, and hope reaffirmed. In addition to veterans and their families, this book will appeal to anyone who wants to understand war’s impact on individuals as well as on the fabric of our society.
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