What Burns, Paperback/Dale Peck

Description What Burns is the first collection of short fiction from Lambda Award-winning novelist Dale Peck; these stories in this career-spanning volume have won two O. Henry awards and a Pushcart Prize Written over the course of twenty-five years, the stories in What Burns examine the extremes of desire against a backdrop of family, class, and mortality. In "Bliss," a young man befriends the convicted felon who murdered his mother when he was only a child. In "Not Even Camping Is Like Camping Anymore," a teenaged boy fends off the advances of a five-year-old his mother babysits. And in "Dues," a man discovers that everything he owns is borrowed from someone else--including his time on earth. Walking the tightrope between tenderness and violence that has defined Peck's work since the publication of his first novel, Martin and John , through his most recent, Night Soil , What Burns reveals Peck's mastery of the short form as well as the novel. About the Author Dale Peck is the author of fourteen books in a variety of genres, including Visions and Revisions , Martin and John , Hatchet Jobs , and Sprout . His fiction and criticism have appeared in dozens of publications, and have earned him two O. Henry Awards, a Pushcart Prize, a Lambda Literary Award, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. He lives in New York City, where he has taught in the New School's Graduate Writing Program since 1999.