These stories are about doing the right thing and regretting it. About making bets and dancing naked. They play out in rain-soaked Seattle and drought-stricken California. In the front seat of Mum's Malibu and a vacation cabin on Cape Cod. On a tiny island and in a desert filled with light and heat and sand that slips through your fingers like friendships you once had. In these fifteen stories you will meet a boy trying to make it through that summer between the end of high school and the start of something else. A woman attracted to a man with muscles, because it makes her feel safe ...until it doesn't. A man who can only imagine what it's like to sleep with many different women, but that's OK - he has a good imagination. In prose that is by turns spare and lyrical, the stories of "Precarious" capture the feeling of late summer. A never-ending game of Kick the Can. All sense of time lost among the stars.
Precarious: Stories of Love, Sex, and Misunderstanding
and over 1.5 million other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Certificate, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more. |
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
"Riske's characters brim with the fears, desires, and idiosyncracies of real, complex human beings. In the collision of spiritual and sexual concerns that plague them, we find a truth that makes us believers in the power of his fiction."--Laura Matter, Blue Mesa Review
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By Maria Savva
Format:Paperback
A collection of fifteen modern short stories with various themes, including regret, loyalty, guilt, relationships, betrayal, love. Al Riske's talent lies in understanding human nature and creating very real and believable characters and dialogue within his entertaining stories. I enjoyed all of the stories, although some were definitely more polished than others.
The first story 'Sleeping With Smiley' is ,in my opinion, probably the best in the collection. A very well written story about misplaced loyalty and regret. Some other stand-out stories were Your Eyes Only and Hold On.
All of the stories are fun and interesting to read, the only issue I had was that many of the endings seemed too abrupt or just not satisfying. This is a pity because with a bit of work on the endings this would have been an outstanding collection. The writer is obviously talented because he knows how to hold a readers attention, and the prose flows well. An example of a great ending is the end of 'Sleeping With Smiley', where the reader is left with a thought-provoking sentence which brings to mind the events of the story in a poignant manner.
As a short story writer myself, I believe that the hardest part of writing a short story is writing a good ending. Because there are a limited amount of words in short fiction, it's more important that an effort should be made to write an ending that will satisfy the reader and tie up any loose ends. A bad ending can make or break a short story, in the same way that a good ending can turn a mediocre story into a great one. Indeed, it's much harder to write a good short story than a good novel.
In conclusion, I would say that Al Riske has done a brilliant job writing these stories, all of them containing insightful prose and true to life characters.... Read more ›
The first story 'Sleeping With Smiley' is ,in my opinion, probably the best in the collection. A very well written story about misplaced loyalty and regret. Some other stand-out stories were Your Eyes Only and Hold On.
All of the stories are fun and interesting to read, the only issue I had was that many of the endings seemed too abrupt or just not satisfying. This is a pity because with a bit of work on the endings this would have been an outstanding collection. The writer is obviously talented because he knows how to hold a readers attention, and the prose flows well. An example of a great ending is the end of 'Sleeping With Smiley', where the reader is left with a thought-provoking sentence which brings to mind the events of the story in a poignant manner.
As a short story writer myself, I believe that the hardest part of writing a short story is writing a good ending. Because there are a limited amount of words in short fiction, it's more important that an effort should be made to write an ending that will satisfy the reader and tie up any loose ends. A bad ending can make or break a short story, in the same way that a good ending can turn a mediocre story into a great one. Indeed, it's much harder to write a good short story than a good novel.
In conclusion, I would say that Al Riske has done a brilliant job writing these stories, all of them containing insightful prose and true to life characters.... Read more ›
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars
11 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thought-provoking stories by a talented writer
4 Mar 2010
By J. Reed
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
"Precarious" is an intriguing collection of true-to-life stories about the often complicated relationships between men and women. These life-like characters will immediately evoke people you know; your friends, neighbors, and maybe even yourself. Their anxieties, doubts, joys, and delights are the same ones all of us - or at least all men - have felt in one way or another. In my favorite story, "Your Eyes Only," Riske adds a bit of a sci-fi twist to probe our view of masculinity in a fascinating and unexpected way.
Riske is a skilled craftsman of language, providing just enough detail of the settings and characters to form them clearly without cluttering things and distracting from the story. His dialogue is tight and focused, and right on the mark. These are stories utterly familiar yet thought-provoking at the same time.
Riske is a skilled craftsman of language, providing just enough detail of the settings and characters to form them clearly without cluttering things and distracting from the story. His dialogue is tight and focused, and right on the mark. These are stories utterly familiar yet thought-provoking at the same time.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Scandalous with a light touch
5 April 2010
By G. Bardsley
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
These stories are beautiful -- elegant without trying, revealing without really showing why, brief in a satisfying way, scandalous with a light touch -- and they stick with you, key images and dialogue etching themselves into your subconscious.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
I love this book
21 Feb 2010
By R. S. Canon
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
"Precarious" is a gem. A hugely talented writer, Al Riske beautifully captures the nuanced behavior of relationships and the universal struggle to understand why we do what we do. I defy anyone not to recognize him or herself in one of these stories.
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 11 reviews
4.5 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Fiction > Contemporary Fiction
- Books > Fiction > Literary Fiction
- Books > Fiction > Short Stories
- Books > Fiction > Women Writers & Fiction > Short Stories
- Books > Fiction > Women Writers & Fiction > Women's Literary Fiction
- Books > Fiction > Women Writers & Fiction > Women's Popular Fiction
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
