Speed-Walk and Other Stories

The characters in Speed-Walk and Other Stories often find themselves dislocated, living in places that do not resemble or feel like home. Their lives have somehow been turned on their axes, and often they cannot comprehend why. The stories in this stunning debut collection are united by their protagonists’ common quest to make sense of the world, to bring it into focus, to set it right, to adapt.

In selecting Suzanne Greenberg’s fiction for the 2003 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, Rick Moody wrote, ＂A charge sometimes leveled against contemporary fiction these days is that it has abrogated its responsibility to depict civilization as it actually exists. . . . Speed-Walk replies forcefully to this aesthetic error by locating its protagonists in completely recognizable environments. . . . [They] are ever engaged by the routines of American life: walking the dog, eating at the sushi bar, doing the laundry.＂ Tightly written yet realistically spare, these stories provide a blueprint for survival when the unexpected is thrust into an ordinary life.

Suzanne Greenberg is the coauthor of Everyday Creative Writing: Panning for Gold in the Kitchen Sink. Her fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in numerous publications including Mississippi Review, the Washington Post Magazine, and West Branch. She is an associate professor of English at California State University, Long Beach.