Eccentric Circles: Stories

by Larry Duberstein

At a young man’s funeral, the undertaker offers his thoughts on lifestyle, along with a hot tip on the big stakes race that afternoon. In another bizarre burial twist, two feuding misfit brothers speed across America in a battered Chevy, trying to fulfill their mother’s dying wish.

Meanwhile, the second craziest person in Casper, Wyoming, contemplates infidelity with the first, a young beauty who climbs through his window; a chance meeting with a nine-year-old boy on a bicycle finishes off a marriage; and a nude dancer in New Orleans, mistaken for a prostitute, is asked to take a check. (“The check is good, Catherine. Absolutely.”)

These are just a few of the compelling people and situations you will encounter in this wide-ranging selection of short fiction from Larry Duberstein. Some of Duberstein’s characters do move in eccentric social circles and the patterns of his literary art make larger and even more eccentric circles. No one is exempted, however, from the clear truth of consequence: “The lizard’s egg will hatch, and out will come the lizard.”

Humming with irony, humor, and an infectious enthusiasm for life at every level, these tales feature the same crystalline diction, the unique mix of sympathy, wit, and insight, that distinguish Larry Duberstein’s highly acclaimed novels.

172 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 1992

About the author

There will be more here soon on Larry Duberstein's extraordinary new novel Five Bullets, forthcoming in November. Mr. Duberstein is the author of 9 previous volumes of fiction, including The Marriage Hearse (New York Times New & Noteworthy), Carnovsky's Retreat (New American Writing Award), The Alibi Breakfast (Publishers Weekly starred notice), The Handsome Sailor (New York Times Notable Book) and The Day The Bozarts Died (BookSense Notable Book).

In his other incarnation as a human being, Larry is the father of three beautiful daughters, an accomplished woodworker and builder, an avid tennis and basketball player, and the person who walks Alice Brownstein, the wonder dog.

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On November 20, FIVE BULLETS will be published by Brimstone Corner Press. This novel about one man's experience of the Holocaust and its lifelong aftermath, has been called a "daring, elegant, introspective masterpiece" (Theodore Rosengarten) and "haunting as it is compelling" (Small Press Reviews). The protagonist Karel Bondy is "a memorable, complex character in a powerful story of war, survival, and healing" (Kirkus Reviews). Foreword Reviews adds that "each vignette of this one man's two lives is balanced on a foundation of masterful writing."

But don't settle for blurbs. Please visit the Brimstone Corner Press website to read these glowing notices in their entirety.