Abstract

This collection of short stories explores the effect of place on the lives of various characters striving to define themselves within their geographical, social, and biological realities. The stories' central characters are predominantly young; the environments they encounter are impersonal, isolated, or unfamiliar. On an alternate level, the places inhabited by the protagonists can be seen as psychological ones, giving the stories a sense of fugue in their play between the tangible, the puzzling, and the hyperconscious. Whether looking at the interaction between child and parent, man and nature, siblings, strangers, or fellow citizens, each of the six stories tests the phenomenon of adaptation in distinct and unavoidable predicaments.