The mechanical men in these stories―Industrial Age holdovers, outsiders wanting for relevance and respect, or overwhelmed people who confuse the certainties of one reality with the doubts of another―are cut off in some way from contemporary culture.Sometimes in these stories, which Randy F. Nelson calls "thought experiments about values in conflict," the characters are like the Native American prison guard in "Escape": Rifkin thinks that atonement is possible even for fugitive killers. Others are less sanguine. In "Breakers," a corporate hitman arrives on a forgettable island off the African coast. His mission: to shut down a hellish, polluting, ship-demolition business. His nemesis: a lawyer, now gone Heart-of-Darkness crazy, who preceded him years earlier for the same purpose. The bottom drops out in other stories, rearranging all reference points to good and bad, true and false. In "Abduction," for instance, a distraught young woman summons a tabloid reporter to a grubby hotel room, where the now-lifeless alien who had invaded her body lies wrapped in a sheet.Nelson once explained his motivations by alluding to a line in a Gabriel García Márquez story. A crowd of villagers are gazing upon a man, "but even though they were looking at him, there was no room for him in their imagination." "Stories and characters and situations that ask the imagination to accommodate something bigger, further, deeper―that's what I'm after," said Nelson.

The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men: Stories (Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction Ser.)

Literature & Fiction

Nelson, Randy F.

Short Stories & Anthologies

University of Georgia Press

First Published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Martial Arts: An Annotated Bibliography

Religion & Spirituality

Routledge

Almanac of American Letters

Charts, lists, biographical profiles, quotations, chronologies, anecdotes, and compilations of facts and trivia explore all aspects of American literature

Humor & Satire

William Kaufmann

A fascinating compendium of amusing and startling information. Those interested in American literature will enjoy reading or leafing through in search of an anecdote or quip concerning their favorite authors.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nelson, Randy F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Nelson, Randy F.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nelson, Randy F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men: Stories (Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction Ser.)

The Martial Arts: An Annotated Bibliography

Almanac of American Letters

Almanac of American Letters