Red Moon, Red Lake: Stories

by Sheila Ascher, Dennis Straus

These seven interlocking stories follow the lives of four friends into a locus of nightmare -- the elusive boundary that separates TV from the real world of shady streets, withering suburbs, anxious children, random murder and bizarre mutilation. It is a zone invaded by the private dialogue of impossibly cruel sitcoms, the zone known also as the American neighborhood. Here, in an unnamed coastal community, we meet the expatriated Californian, Pam; her strange brother, Rudi (dark genius, or patsy for a serial killer?); Pam's inertial husband, Ted; Pam's deranged and extended family; and Rudi's best friend, Donald Green, highway drifter and compulsive freeloader. It's a long summer of lost jobs, asinine anniversaries, strange encouters, and garrulous gossip. A summer etched by the lucid delirium wich marks the frustration of untempered striving. In short, it's another creation of tremendous sensual immediacy, exploded familiarity, and haunting perversity from the authors of The Other Planet and The Menaced Assassin.

128 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1988

Reviews

[Daniel Polansky]

An oblique collection of interlocking tableaus exposing the explosive nihilism at the core of all human interaction, and possibly also a series of serial killings. Dark and nasty and funny and weird.

[Alika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super interesting stuff going on here. I love all the hyper-real colors and specific numbers and measurements that come out of nowhere. Lots of character names that don't necessarily come up again. References to film, TV, suburbia, sci-fi, etc. Almost David Lynchian, but not quite.