Troglodyte

by Tracy DeBrincat

Fiction. TROGLODYTE by Tracy DeBrincat is the winner of the 2012 Elixir Press Fiction Award. It is a collection of short stories that ranges from infancy to adulthood, from illness to love to Bigfoot."These stories, over and over, are smart, funny, deeply human, and teeming with vibrancy. If the collection had any more life to it, it'd walk right off the bookshelf."--Aimee Bender"Tracy DeBrincat's extraordinary collection presents a myriad of narrators with an intensely engaging voice, all created by a writer who makes me want to pop out my front door and dive deeper into the private lives of people all around me. I am certain this is just the beginning of a stunning romance for fiction lovers everywhere."--Melissa Chadburn

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Tracy DeBrincat’s new story collection, Troglodyte, was awarded the 2012 Elixir Prize from Elixir Press and was released in January 2014. Her novel Hollywood Buckaroo received the 2011 Big Moose Prize and was published in 2012 by Black Lawrence Press. The short story collection Moon Is Cotton & She Laugh All Night received the Innovative Prize for Fiction and was published by Subito Press. Her short stories and poetry have appeared in journals from Another Chicago Magazine to Zyzzyva. San Francisco is her hometown, but she loves living in Los Angeles. She is currently working on a YA novel titled How to Kill Your Coyote.

Reviews

[ST · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smart, funny and insightful as to the contemporary woman's experience.

[Melanie Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tracy DeBrincat's characters are people of the earth, the kind who will comment not on ideas, but appreciate bodily processes as something to which one should pay attention. Her stories take readers to a perhaps uncomfortable place we thought we left behind when we became "adults." I still remember a joke my uncle told me when I was a kid: two woman are hoeing potatoes in the field when one woman pulls a potato from the ground, looks at it, and says, "This looks like my Issac's taters." The other woman responds, "That big?" and the first says, "No, that dirty." Ha ha ha, right? Where did this "low-brow" humor go, and why did we once like it so much? I loved that joke. DeBrincat reminds me why.

Read the rest of this review at Grab the Lapels

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories that all cemter around a main female character, and not a strong lead, either.
I had to read this for class. I kept an open mind, and after the first story I thought I would enjoy it, but sadly I was wrong.
Every story followed a main character, and other than the first and the last story, and a couple eehhs, in between, I really didn't like them. The leads were all pretty whiny and stupid, some seeming ti have absolutely no motivation for their actions. Many were just ignorant. The entire point of the stories, all of them, flew roght over my head. I really don't understand why these stories were written or published. Though I must say no matter what, give the first story, Superbaby Saves Slugville, a read. By far the best story in the book and only worth reading. I enjoyed that one very much! Otherwise steer clear of this one, there are so many other better things to spend time on.