‘Twin Study’ by Stacy Richter

In a parallel world where horny cavemen lurk in the hedges and the Land of Pain is an exit off the highway, the characters in this short story collection share the same loneliness and hunger for connection

By Jen Girdish
Published: March 27th, 2007 | 11:24am

There is a moment in Twin Study when one of Stacy Richter’s protagonists muses to the reader, after making out with a mid-thirties stoner who lives in a shack behind his parent’s house, “There is no sanctuary like the sanctuary of oddballs taking refuge in one another.”

This is the fiber that connects the 12 short stories in the Pushcart Prize winner’s new collection. In Richter’s parallel world where horny cavemen lurk in the hedges and the Land of Pain is an exit off the highway, her characters share the same loneliness and hunger for connection.

Richter’s “oddballs” range from rebellious teens, indentical twins, the prince of darkness, to a rock star mother whose disposition resembles a mash-up of Cher and Anna Nicole. Richter is able to get into each character’s head plausibly, always coming out with a piercing truth. Says a suffering woman who is raising a clone in order to harvest its body, “There, tethered to you with a piece of coiled plastic, is your lost youth and vitality: a pretty ballerina, arm raised, back arched, foot aiming toward the sky.” Richter’s characters charm you, break your heart, and then try to win you back with their volatile energy.

Chronicling loneliness can be a sketchy and dangerous territory — with many detours into sentimentality and melodrama — but Richter’s pithy prose and caustic imagination make them resonate. And it is her spot-on perception of the human condition that keeps these stories from being simply whimsical and surreal.

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ABOUT THE BOOK:
Twin Study (Counterpoint)
272 pages
By Stacey Richter
List Price: $24