Publisher's Synopsis
The 37 stories in The 1774 House and Other Stories are almost as diverse as human experience itself. Here we have tales of eighteen century houses, one rich with the grandeur of the past and another equally historic, but mysterious at the same time. And scarcely a page away is a brief but telling story of twenty-first century dwellings. ("A Tale of Two Condos.") There are stories of parents and their children, of the joy of sex and of gossip about sex in unconventional places like a church confessional, of unexpected encounters in an old country store, of music, magic, Chaucer, travel, food, animals, Mozart, "honey-dippers," fleas, harpooned ducks, of religious folks and not-so-religious folks, of the ordinary and the inexplicable, of the city, the suburbs, and the rural countryside, of cooks and kooks. Two dominant themes of the stories are humor and satire, undoubtedly inspired by the many ironies of life. Surely her sense of humor and irony were helpful in the valiant attempt of the young woman to save a beautiful old house from destruction in "The 1774 House." And once the situation of the plot is established "Chinese Boxes" moves about nimbly on tiny ironic feet. The importance of being fully dressed on a public highway is demonstrated in "What is So Rare as a Day in June with No Pants On?" A woman's visitor in her bathtub ("I'm Here Too, You Know"), another woman--this one about 90 pounds and 90 years old--with Gaelic wit and the ability to sell a piano on the streets of Hoboken ("The Player Piano") and the paradox of a Catholic condom in the story of the same name generously provide humor and satire. In "Corrine and the Magic Wand" an eccentric young woman looking for a little love in her mundane life encounters an angry leprechaun in her living room after waving a wand she bought on sale from a mail-order house. In "The Good Earth Revisited: Doggy Style" a terminally ill dog is snatched from death's door after rolling in his backyard grass.
