Radical Empathy (1986)

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In this new collection of short stories that Ben Fountain declares "all marvels," Robin Romm (author of The Mercy Papers ) revels in the mess behind the slick veneer of modern life. A financially-strapped college student sells her sought after "Ivy League eggs" to a movie star, then wrestles with her feelings as the child grows up in the public eye. A long-married wife in the midst of a bungled kitchen remodel imagines the excitement of her neighbor's unstable erotic life. Isolated by quarantine, a young widow contends with a talking daffodil that panders to her in therapy-speak. Disquieting, original and strangely reassuring, these ten new stories make quick work of the easy truths and thoughtless salvos that keep us from seeing the wildness of our irreducible lives