Fabrications

<p>Pamela Painter's short stories have been praised by Margot Livesey for their wicked intelligence and ruthless humor. In<i> Fabrications</i> which brings together 7 new and 24 selected stories characters struggle to avoid the chaos in their lives but--driven by addictions and appetites--often bring on disaster. Nobody is ordinary in Painter's stories. A burglar can't believe what he is asked to do by the woman whose jewelry he is stealing. Hitchhikers hell-bent on murder are thwarted by the miracle of story-telling. A wife can make rooms--and her husband--disappear but saves the family dog. A young woman insists on the romance of being married in an Elvis Presley chapel but for the wrong reasons. </p><p><i>Fabrications</i> is a testament to Painter's lyric skill and psychological insight across her career.</p><p>Praise for Previous Books by Pamela Painter </p><p>These wonderful stories--about dogs and housewives scholars and teenagers--vividly demonstrate Painter's wicked intelligence and ruthless humor and her utterly democratic interest in all our faults and foibles.... [A] quirky sexy irresistible collection.--Margot Livesey <p/>Pamela Painter's stories are warm wise funny and ultimately true to the way we live now--trying to carry on in the face of things breaking down around us. Reading each story is a thrill--for the full-blown lives astute details exact metaphors and pitch-perfect dialogue. She's like a carpenter--nailing it again and again.--Bobbie Ann Mason</p><p>This is fiction of immense beauty full of wisdom and informed by rare grace.--Steve Yarbrough</p>