Cream of Kohlrabi

by Floyd Skloot

Fiction. Floyd Skloot's new book gathers sixteen stories that combine unsentimental comedy and forceful emotion. As in his award-winning poetry and memoirs, Skloot's fiction shows how individual people, families, and communities face the starkest of challenges, including bodily maladies, the most harrowing of which often come with aging. Yet alienating experience can lead to moments of powerful intimacy, as dark times are lit by sudden incursions of love and hope, and a yearning for community summons poignant expression. "This is a brave, luminous, searingly unswerving vision of the life that exists so powerfully in those persistent dreams we have for ourselves, good and bad—those secret passions that seem strong enough to survive us, and that endure all the way out to the end of our lives.... These stories are not only brilliant, they are necessary"—Richard Bausch.

Genres: Fiction

174 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2011

About the author

Floyd was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1947, and moved to Long Beach, NY, ten years later. He graduated from Franklin & Marshall College with a B.A. in English, and completed an M.A. in English at Southern Illinois University, where he studied with the Irish poet Thomas Kinsella. From 1972 until becoming disabled by viral-borne brain damage in 1988, Floyd worked in the field of public policy in Illinois, Washington, and Oregon. He began publishing poetry in 1970, fiction in 1975, and essays in 1990. His work has appeared in many major literary journals in the US and abroad. His seventeen books have won wide acclaim and numerous awards, and are included in many high school and college curricula. In May, 2006 he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Franklin & Marshall College.


An Oregonian since 1984, Floyd moved from Portland to rural Amity when he married Beverly Hallberg in 1993. They lived in a cedar yurt in the middle of twenty hilly acres of woods for 13 years before moving back to Portland.


Floyd's daughter, the nonfiction writer Rebecca Skloot, lives in Memphis, TN, where she teaches creative writing at the University of Memphis and works as a freelance writer. Her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, was published by Crown Books in February, 2010 and became an immediate NY Times and Indie Bound bestseller. Her work has been included in the Best Creative Nonfiction, Best Food Writing and Women’s Best Friend anthologies as well as appearing regularly in the New York Times Magazine, Popular Science, O: Oprah’s Magazine and elsewhere. Her boyfriend, writer and actor David Prete, author of Say That to My Face (Norton, 2003), recently completed his second book of fiction and teaches writers how to improve their public reading skills. Floyd's stepson, Matthew Coale, lives with his wife and two children in Vancouver, Washington.


Floyd's current projects include new poems and essays that are slowly shaping into a new book.

Reviews

[Karima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Randomly picked up this book at the library. Was not familiar with the author but I liked the title and the cover design. Didn't know that I was in for a treat.
In January 2010, Skloot was named "one of fifty of the most inspiring authors in the world." by Poets & Writers, Inc. and if you read his work you will see why he is deserving of this distinction.
This is a collection of 16 short stories which center around aging, the deterioration of the body and mind and family ties floating around in all their fragility and strength.
All told with tenderness and hope.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish Goodreads had percentages between the star ratings, because I would give this a 4.5. I learned about this book because I read his daughter's now-famous "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," which if you haven't read I highly recommend. This book is a collection of short stories. Many of them, but not all, take place in nursing home settings, where people are struggling with memory, which is why I checked it out because that is one of my part-time jobs. He is spot-on with his portrayal of those people and their thoughts and lives. Skloot is an excellent writer, and funny. Poignant vignettes of people's lives and dreams. This is a book that I'll be happy to re-read once a year. I look forward to reading his other books. Skloot suffered an illness where he lost a bunch of his memory and fought his way back, and he has written two memoirs about that.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I absolutely loved the first portion of this collection of stories. The author takes us hauntingly into the experience of aging in a series of wonderful story/vignettes. Alzheimer's noir, The Tour, and The Wanderer were particular favorites. The first 7 stories of this were 4.5 very close to 5 stars for me. Unfortunately I just wasn't as taken by the rest of the book which largely focuses on younger protagonists and just don't have the same resonance.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I eeview Floyd Skloot’s “Cream of Kohlrabi” in the Oct. 7 Boston Globe.

Skloot’s best stories are about the elderly. They take place in retirement homes or under hospice care, where the characters face death sometimes with bravery and pragmatism, sometimes with delusion and optimism.

Go to my website:

http://josephpeschel.com/HaveWords/?p...

and then to the Boston Globe.

--Joe

[Sheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a downer!

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book. What a unique gift Floyd Skloot has to give us these incredible perspectives on life, loss, love, death, and sports. Highly recommended.