02885cam a2200325 i 4500 1164599683 TxAuBib 20170807120000.0 161118s2017||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2016032867 9780451493071 hardcover 0451493079 hardcover (OCoLC)959535384 DLC eng rda DLC YDX BTCTA BDX OCLCQ VTL OCLCO LEB OCJ OCLCO TxAuBib rda Simpson, Helen, 1957-, author Berlin. Short stories Selections. Cockfosters : stories / Helen Simpson. First United States edition. New York : Knopf, 2017. 181 pages ; 20 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Cockfosters -- Torremolinos -- Erewhon -- Kentish Town -- Kythera -- Moscow -- Cheapside -- Arizona -- Berlin. "A wickedly wry, tender new collection from one of our finest internationally acclaimed short story writers. Nine virtuoso stories that take up the preoccupations and fixations of time's passing and of middle age and that take us from today's London and Berlin to the wild west of the USA and the wilder shores of Mother Russia; stories finely balanced between devastation and optimism. In the title story, long-ago school pals take the London Underground to the end of the Piccadilly line--Cockfosters Station--to retrieve a lost pair of newly prescribed bifocals ("The worst thing about needing glasses is the bumbling," says Julie. "I've turned into a bumbler overnight. Me! I run marathons!"); each station stop prompting reflections on their shared past, present, and possible futures. In "Erewhon," a gender-role flip: after having sex with his wife, who has turned over and instantly fallen asleep, a man lies awake fretting about his body shape, his dissatisfaction with sex, his children, his role in the marriage. In "Kythera," lemon drizzle cake is a mother's ritual preparation for her (now grown) daughter's birthday as she conjures up memories of all the birthday cakes she has made for her, each one more poignant than the last; this new cake becoming a memento mori, an act of love, and a symbol of transformation ... And in "Berlin," a fiftysomething couple on a "Ring package" to Germany spend four evenings watching Wagner's epic, recalling their life together, reckoning with the husband's infidelity, the wife noting the similarity between their marriage and the Ring Cycle itself: "I'm glad I stuck it out but I'd never want to sit through it again.""-- Provided by publisher. "Helen Simpson's sixth collection of short stories"-- Provided by publisher. 20170807. Short stories. TXKIP