In Crazy Water: Six Fictions, Lori Baker pushes the boundaries between truth and reality with curious, tragi-comic results. The imagination is Baker's terrain, and in these stories, pleasant suburban childhoods, family drives, seaside vacations, and an academic's quest for tenure all are strangely warped, yet nonetheless still mirror a world we thought we knew. In these brief pages, boys become dogs, students hide in the molluscan places, and mothers do their best to rescind their unsatisfying children.
"I say things smugly as if I understand them, muses one of Baker's narrators. Indeed, characters and readers alike are undermined in these deft and quirky fictions. Exposing and imploding all of our expectations, Baker shows us how menacing (and funny) the apparently ordinary can be.
About the Author :
Lori Baker is a 1986 Trans Atlantic Review Award Winner who lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with her husband, the poet Gale Nelson, and their cat Carlotta. She is currently hard at work on her first novel.
Review :
"A valuable book that tells a story that is obscured amid the thunderous and simplifying voices that dominate public discussion of religion and gender politics."
-"Altar Magazine",
"Cochran intends her concrete analysis of the split among evangelical feminists to exemplify larger themes in the story of American religious life, including inclusivity, anti-institutionalism, individualism, voluntarism, and populism. This text would make a worthy addition to women"s studies collections and to theological libraries."
-"Choice",
"Finally! Cochran's Evangelical Feminism provides a detailed analysis of the articulation of egalitarianism and feminist ideas--and their opponents--in evangelical organizations, theological debates and leadership in the 1970s and 1980s. A welcome addition to the field."
-Sally K. Gallagher, author of "Evangelical Identity and Gendered Family Life"
"Pamela Cochran interweaves two engaging stories in this carefully researched study, both of which are vitally important to our understanding of American evangelicalism. One story is about the small cadre of feminist leaders within evangelicalism who struggled heroically against the tide of rising political conservatism and male dominance. The other is about evangelicalism's often unwitting embrace of biblical hermeneutics, therapeutic individualism, and consumerism, and its difficulties in adapting to an increasingly pluralistic culture. Scholars in religious studies, history, and the social sciences will benefit greatly from reading this book."
-Robert Wuthnow, author of "Saving America?: Faith-Based Services and the Future of Civil Society"
"This is a timely book about the tortuous journey of biblical feminism in our time. The book will sober its own constituencies while also contributing to the ongoing analysis of contemporary American religion and gender."
-Marie Griffith, author of "God's Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission"
