Who I Was Supposed to Be: Short Stories

Susan Perabo

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"Both sardonic and moving...Perabo clearly recalls how to hit home runs." --The New York Times Book Review

"A stunning collection of short gems, revealing a world both foreign and familiar." --Chicago Tribune

Behind every face in Who I Was Supposed to Be is a singular quirk to explore, a peculiarity to celebrate. In Susan Perabo's world, nothing can be taken for granted: here, a retired grocer takes up jewel theft in his twilight years; a data processor squanders her inheritance on one of Princess Diana's gowns; a mugging victim feigns amnesia to win back his wife.

In the tradition of Lorrie Moore, Susan Perabo's slightly off-center lens looks hard at the banal and the bizarre, and at the human condition, where she finds extraordinary magic within the smallest of gestures. Sharply written and overlaid with a mischievous wit, Who I Was Supposed to Be is an unforgettable homage to laughter, love, and wonder.

Book Details

Publisher: S&s/ Marysue Rucci Books
Publish Date: Jul 1st, 2006
Pages: 192
Language: English
Edition: Reissue - undefined
Dimensions: 7.90in - 5.20in - 0.50in - 0.50lb
EAN: 9780743290371
Categories: • Short Stories (single author)• Literary

About the Author

Perabo, Susan: - Susan Perabo is the author of the collections of short stories, Who I Was Supposed to Be and Why They Run the Way They Do, and the novels The Broken Places and The Fall of Lisa Bellow. Her fiction has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize Stories, and New Stories from the South, and has appeared in numerous magazines, including One Story, Glimmer Train, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, and The Sun. She is Writer in Residence and professor of English at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and on the faculty of the low-residency MFA Program at Queens University. She holds an MFA from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

Praise for this book

"Both sardonic and moving...[Perabo] clearly recalls how to hit home runs."
-- Dana Kennedy, The New York Times Book Review

"In this deft collection, Perabo explores the weight of disappointment in our lives and how we try to avoid it by assuming new faces."
-- The New Yorker

"There's only one way to read Susan Perabo, and that's breathlessly. Each story in Who I Was Supposed to Be crackles with narrative electricity, and every one made me want to stand and cheer."
-- Richard Russo, author of Nobody's Fool and Straight Man

"Cleverly mixes the ordinary and the odd...a stunning collection of short gems, revealing a world both foreign and familiar."
-- Cassandra West, Chicago Tribune