Hotel Eden

Prepare to be amused, moved, disturbed. These stories by a master of idiosyncrasy visit a world where wit has heft, charm has shadow, and human beings act out all the complicated nuances of love. In the title story, a young man waiting in the Hotel Eden discovers as others have that Eden is not a permanent domicile. In 'Zanduce at Second,' a baseball player turned killer-by-accident undergoes a surprising transformation. We root for escaped felon Ray ('A Note on the Type') as he carves his name on a culvert wall. We drive the sweltering summer streets of Phoenix as a nineteen-year-old narrator goes through an unsettling sexual awakening ('Oxygen'). In these and other stories, whether his characters are getting sabotaged by nightcaps or encountering nudists on a rafting trip, Carlson takes us to new places in a new way.