Prodigals: Stories

Prodigals: Stories

<p>“People are bullets, fired,” the narrator declares in one of the wild, searching stories that make up Greg Jackson's <i>Prodigals. </i>A filmmaker escapes New York, accompanied by a woman who may be his therapist, as a violent storm bears down. A lawyer in the throes of divorce seeks refuge at her seaside cottage only to find a vagrant girl living in it. A dilettantish banker sees his ambitions laid bare when he comes under the influence of two strange sisters. A group of friends gathers in the California desert for one last bacchanal, and a journalist finds his visit to the French country home of a former tennis star taking a deeply unnerving turn.</p><p>Strivers, misfits, and children of privilege, the restless, sympathetic characters in Jackson's astonishing debut hew to passion and perversity through life's tempests. Theirs is a quest for meaning and authenticity in lives spoiled by self­-knowledge and haunted by spiritual longing. Lyrical and unflinching, cerebral and surreal, <i>Prodigals </i>maps the degradations of contemporary life with insight and grace, from the comedy of our foibles, to the granular dignity of experience, to the pathos of our yearning for home.</p>