Greetings from the Vodka Sea

by Gudgeon, Chris

• ISBN13: 9780864923837
• ISBN10: 086492383X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-10-04
• Publisher: Utp Distribution

Summary

Greetings from the off-kilter world of Chris Gudgeon. In his first-ever book of fiction, the bestselling author of The Naked Truth: The Untold History of Sex in Canada offers postcard glimpses into the quirky private lives of unusually twisted characters. A prim English bride honeymooning near the so-called Vodka Sea learns the hard way why it's better not to drink the water in foreign parts. A chess-playing doctor loses his wife to a charismatic psychologist during a sensuous group sex session masquerading as therapy. A social climbing adulterer contemplates the seduction of a middle-aged woman he once loved but who may now expose him. Personal histories rub up against present relationships. Paths cross, whether by accident or design. Polished veneers hide deeper truths. Bitterly funny and filled with lusty, rueful, comical, calculating, and even affectionate sex, Gudgeon's eleven cosmopolitan stories explore the chasm between loving and being loved in return. Life's randomness is offset by dark comedy and by an eerily familiar synchronicity.

Table of Contents

Liberation	9	(18)
A Collection of Suicide Notes	27	(10)
Greetings from the Vodka Sea	37	(28)
The Klingon Opera	65	(26)
Secret Friends	91	(12)
The Raindrops, Not Unlike Her Tears	103	(8)
The Shulman Manoeuvre	111	(18)
The Death of Carver	129	(10)
Gris-Gris Gumbo and Mrs. Charles Bukowski at the Mardi Gras Detox Centre	139	(30)
Sunshine Sketches of a Rat-Infested Shitbox	169	(26)
The Man with a Thousand Wives	195	(8)
Mitzou	203	(8)
The Medusa Project	211