The pink institution : a novel / by Selah Saterstrom
Material type: TextSeries: San Miguel de Allende (Mexico)--AuthorPublication details: Minneapolis : Coffee House Press ; Saint Paul : Consortium Book Sales & Distribution , 2004.Edition: 1st edDescription: 134 p. : ill. ; 19 cmISBN:- 9781566891554
- FIC SAT
- PS3619.A818 P56 2004
Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fiction / Ficción | Biblioteca Pública de San Miguel de Allende, A.C. Sala Ingles | General | FIC SAT (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 024704 |
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FIC SAR Seeing | FIC SAR All the names | FIC SAR Skylight ; a novel | FIC SAT The pink institution : a novel / by Selah Saterstrom | FIC SAU Tenth of December : stories | FIC SAU And the birds rained down | FIC SAU Pastoralia : stories |
Located in Gloria Grant Room - special collection of San Miguel de Allende authors.
Saterstrom's remarkably daring debut is not so much a novel as a catalog of events that eventually gives shape to four generations of Mississippi women in the post-Confederate South. In Part 1, we meet Abella, who marries Micajah, an abusive alcoholic. Their emotionally scarred daughter, Azalea, grows up to marry a drinker and has four children of her own Faryn, Aza, Trulie, and Ginger whose horrifying childhoods are recounted in Part 2. Of them, Aza's daughter, Penelope, dominates, relating the pain of her mother's substance abuse and suicide attempts as well as her own vexatious childhood. Imbued with madness, violence, and strong familial connections, Saterstrom's characters recall those of almost any Southern novel following Faulkner; the family's slide into alcoholism, poverty, and despair embodies the overall decay of the region. However, Saterstrom takes a fresh approach to the South's most beloved genre, framing the action with historical black-and-white photos and employing quotes from The Confederate Ball Program Guide (circa 1938) and other unidentified sources. More tellingly, she moves the plot forward through terse, aphoristic paragraphs sometimes just one to a page that give her novel the feel of a fable.
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