Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories

Winner of the H.L. Davis Award for Short Fiction
Winner of the GLCA's 2005 New Writers Award

This collection of interrelated short stories are graceful, vivid narratives that bring into sudden focus the spirit and the stubborn resilience of the Brickmans, a Jewish family of four living in suburban New Jersey

Daniel Brickman forges obstinately through his own plots and desires as he struggles to balance his sense of identity with his longing to gain acceptance from his family and peers. In "Kosher," Daniel's disdain for his parents' values and lifestyle, for their materialism and need for security, leads him to take a job as a telemarketer for the Robowski Fund for the Disabled, a charity benefiting two people only: Daniel and Helen Robowski. And in "Young Radicals," Daniel gathers research for a thesis on early Soviet history by interviewing his grandfather, now a retiree in Florida, who painted factories and sang Communist work songs in 1920s Leningrad before immigrating to America. This fierce collection provides an unblinking examination of family life and the human instinct for attachment.

About the Author :
SCOTT NADELSON is the author of three story collections published by Hawthorne, including Aftermath and The Cantor's Daughter. A winner of the Oregon Book Award for short fiction, the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize, and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award, he teaches creative writing at Willamette University and in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA Program at Pacific Lutheran University. He lives in Salem, Oregon.

Review :
"These extremely well-written and elegantly wrought stories are rigorous, nuanced explorations of emotional and cultural limbo-states. Saving Stanley is a substantial, serious, and intelligent contribution to contemporary Jewish American writing." —David Shields, author of Enough About You: Adventures in Autobiography and A Handbook for Drowning

"There's a certain thrill in reading a young writer coming into his own. The nuances of style, the interplay of theme and narrative, the keen and sympathetic eye for character—all rendered new by a fresh voice and talent. Scott Nadelson's stories are bracing, lively, humorous, honest. A splendid debut." —Ehud Havazelet, author of Like Never Before and What Is It Then Between Us

"Scott Nadelson's fine first story collection achieves a rare balance between compassionate comedy and an unswerving attention to the dark trials of family life. Watching Daniel Brickman come of age was like watching a high-wire act: I held my breath for him, but felt the sure and steady net of Nadelson's vision all along, keeping this boy, and his whole family, wildly alive." —Marjorie Sandor, author of Portrait of My Mother, Who Posed Nude in Wartime and The Night Gardener

"The Tortuous Knots of Scott Nadelson's Brickman family make my toes curl and my breath quicken. Equally powerful with narrative and dialogue, he is a writer in full possession of both his material and his craft." —Susan Thames, author of I'll Be Home Late Tonight