Publisher about the book:
The collection of short stories The 10th of December touches on various themes and problems of modern (American) life. Their common basis is a kind of psychological realism, which draws its narratives from direct, often even seemingly banal empiricism, but is – as a reflection of reality – always somewhat suspicious. This reality acts as if the author were describing it in some other universe, infinitely close, but nevertheless so changed by a few essential physical constants, by a ›phase shift‹, that it shares a name and objective reality with ours, but its emotional, mental and moral self-evident truths seem to be somewhat ›beyond‹ (e.g. Escape from the Spider's Head, My Knight's Fiasco).
Another fundamental characteristic of all stories is their more or less sharp social note, which drives the narration into a caustic counterpoint, in which from behind their trenches, ›wealth‹ and ›misery‹ stare at each other. These are relative categories, dependent on the individual's perception and also reversible (e.g. Al Roosten, Semplike). The struggle to escape from the sphere of the poor and enter the social circle of the rich is an important motivation, but at the same time it also relentlessly shows the boundaries between castes, which are drawn in the tide of ultra-capitalist, futuristic, dehumanized, ultra-superficial relationships between people. The frequent fantasy in the stories is a skillful mixture of the author's imagination and a variety of experiential adventures under the influence of pharmaceutical or other psychoactive substances – again either real or futuristic.
In The Tenth of December, alongside the author's treatment of current life issues, there is neither a story about a traumatized veteran of the Iraqi ›war on terror‹ (Home) nor a psychothriller with a dangerous rapist (Victory Circle), but the overall impression on the reader is inspiring, filling them with gratitude for the author's relentless commentary on the destinies and abysses that lurk beneath the paths of human destiny in that late or early century... Well, let's not even talk about Slovenian readers. They will royally enjoy Andrej E. Skubic's sovereign, brilliant translation!
The publication was financially supported by the Public Book Agency of the Republic of Slovenia.
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