A Relative Stranger: Stories Summary and Reviews

A Relative Stranger: Stories
by Charles Baxter

A Relative Stranger: Stories
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Book Summary Information

Author: Charles Baxter
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-09
ISBN: 0393322203
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Book Reviews of A Relative Stranger: Stories

Book Review: Alienation in the Upper Midwest
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a wonderful book of stories. Fenstad skates on his way home from church because he is happy. Harry Fenstad writes brochures for a computer company. He teaches an extension course on composition. His hopefulness and didacticism has been picked up from his mother. Fenstad invites his mother to attend the class. Harry likes skating in the dark with a pharmicist friend, Susan, and he likes having his mother in the back of the writing class. His mother appears at the skating rink and things change, her frailty is exposed.

Detroit has four shopping centers at its cardinal points. The state of Michigan is like Holland. In another story a long lost brother finds a man whose monstrous behavior has just driven his wife and baby out of his house. He hits the brother in a bar following a baseball game. His hobby is building ships in bottles. It turns out that the men have nothing in common but they continue to see each other.

One of the characters, Cooper, decides that he must do something for the street people. Bringing someone home he offends his wife who works as a prosecutor. When he is hit up for money on the street by an old man his young son is offended. The little boy starts to hide his money from his father. A woman of the street misunderstands his interest and believes that he seeks a romantic encounter. He is told to do sweeping at the shelter to overcome his sense of guilt. The collection includes the silence of an Ezra Pound-like poet.

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