Inherited disorders : stories, parables & problems /
Adam Ehrlich Sachs.
- First Regan Arts hardcover edition.
- 262 pages ; 22 cm
The nature poet -- Above and beyond -- The chimney sweep -- The worker's fist -- Diving record -- Progress -- Unlike Sofia Coppola -- Our system -- Turin, 1962 -- Concerto for a corpse -- The Flemish engraver's son -- The children's book -- Obligation -- Hostage situation -- The sweeper -- Herb's place -- No -- The death of Inspector Pirenne -- The sulfer baths -- Last line -- In equilibrium -- Hand-me-downs -- Accepted donations -- The furniture owner's son -- Two hats -- Dead language -- The clock tower -- Commentary -- Explanation -- Vindicated -- In the house of the cryptoporticus -- In a vat -- Divergence from Lescanne -- Ice climbers -- Practical joke -- The Tallinn Holocaust Memorial Museum -- Reproduction -- Footsteps -- Nematodes -- Verb inflections in an Algonquin dialect -- Controll -- Siegel's shoes -- Breathing problems -- The conversationalist -- The stipulation -- Resemblance -- Correspondence -- A bad Modigliani -- Find and replace -- The family Rivulidae -- The Uppsala school of meteorology -- The Konigsberg building -- Talent -- Exploitation -- Peace plan -- The inverted pyramid -- Figments -- The constitutional law scholar's traits -- Salvageable -- Masters -- Something to genetics -- Assisted living -- Vengeance -- A nightmare -- Vanished -- The family shiraz -- Abuse -- Legacy -- Crush -- The Ottoman historian's head -- The labor historian's head -- Improvement -- Printing error -- The end of Evans -- Utterly inscrutable -- The madman's time machine -- Fleischman's predicament -- The Balkan historian -- Grief -- Two museums -- Order matters -- Determinism -- Betrayal -- Disagreement -- Shimura's robot -- Human consumption -- Stunt -- The performing arts -- In sympathy -- The fourth sonata -- Partial temples -- Capital -- Strassberg & Strassberg -- Doubts -- Regret -- Poignant -- Middle ground -- The Brentano tales -- The Bosnia project -- The flying contraption -- Normalcy -- Tone -- Patrilineal -- Decision-making -- Philanthropy -- Precision -- An asymmetry -- Groomed -- Unfinished things -- Sanctuary -- Groundwork -- Parrot care -- Exhaustion -- Last wishes -- Last words -- A memorial on the River Havel -- Unrest.
Adam Ehrlich Sachs's Inherited Disorders is a rueful, absurd, and endlessly entertaining look at a most serious subject--the eternally vexed relations between fathers and sons. In a hundred and seventeen shrewd, surreal vignettes, Sachs lays bare the petty rivalries, thwarted affection, and mutual bafflement that have characterized the filial bond since the days of Davidic kings. A philosopher's son kills his father and explains his aphorisms to death. A father bequeaths to his son his jacket, deodorant, and political beliefs. England's most famous medium becomes possessed by the spirit of his skeptical father--who questions, in front of the nation, his son's choice of career. A Czech pianist amputates his fingers one by one to thwart his father, who will not stop composing concertos for him. A nineteenth-century Italian nobleman wills his ill-conceived flying contraption--incapable of actual flight--to his newborn son. In West Hollywood, an aspiring screenwriter must contend with the judgmental visage of his father, a respected public intellectual whose frozen head, clearly disappointed in him, he keeps in his freezer. Keenly inventive, but painfully familiar, these surprisingly tender stories signal the arrival of a brilliant new comic voice--and fresh hope for fathers and sons the world over.
9781682450154 1682450155
2015958511
Fathers and sons. Short stories, American.
Class of Fall 2019 Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow in Fiction Fellow