SallieBingham.com - Books

Red Car: Stories

Fri, 30 May 2008 12:12:00 -0700

Forty-year veteran of the novel, noted feminist, and author of over ten books, Sallie Bingham returns with Red Car, a collection written in her signature style--discreet, sly prose circling taboo subjects. Her new offering is about love enjoyed, whether alone or with lovers, sensual or familial, comedic or tragic, often with a wry twist. In these twelve stories, Bingham travels from the beaches of Normandy shortly after the second World War, to modern-day Brittany, Santa Fe, Florida, and Southern Colorado to situate her wide range of characters. Her protagonists blunder through relationships, no matter where they happen to live. But somehow we know they'll survive and be wiser for it. Bingham's new collection, with its honed aesthetic of subtlety and honesty is an adventurous read. Red Car: Stories by Sallie Bingham
Published by Sarabande Books
$21.95 (192p) ISBN 978-1-932511-59-8
$15.95 (Paper) ISBN 978-1-932511-60-4

Book Review - Red Car: Stories

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:36:00 -0700

Red Car: Stories

Hardened but not compromised by adult life, these 12 luminous stories from former National Book Critics Circle director Bingham (Transgressions) feature narrators who find mature, often solitary forms of reckoning, and even happiness. The four-time married mother of a successful novelist in "A Gift for Burning" justifies to an interviewer everything from her selections for stand-in fathers to enabling her son's substance abuse -- all, she admits, because she was too distracted at the time to pay much attention to him. "That Winter" imagines a lone woman writer "of no particular age" braving it out in isolated southern Colorado until an emergency brings the welcome warmth, and gradual love, of an undemanding stranger. Several of the stories are set in France, such as "Sagesse," which involves an American family vacationing in Normandy at the close of the WWII. Yet the most exotic locale remains the quiet neighborhood in sunny Florida of the title story, where the eponymous red '65 Pontiac convertible rests at the curb after innumerable changes in ownership over the years, telling the story of the end of a marriage. There is not a false note in Bingham's striking collection. (Reprinted from Publisher's Weekly, January 2008) Red Car: Stories by Sallie Bingham
Published by Sarabande Books
$21.95 (192p) ISBN 978-1-932511-59-8
$15.95 (Paper) ISBN 978-1-932511-60-4

Red Car (April 2008)

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:08:00 -0700

My next collection of short stories, Red Car, will be published by Sarabande Press is April, 2008. Schedule of readings and signings to follow, as well as an excerpt from the collection. From Booklist: "Bingham has been writing fiction for decades, and her newest short stories evince the tangy fruits of her labors i their graceful balance, refined composition, telling details, and the probity of their emotions. Polished and sexy."

Nick of Time

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 13:10:00 -0700

Book Description:
Melanie is a dancer--the most unlikely dancer in the world, a woman who has had a hard life, waitressing, raising a son alone, putting up with an abusive husband. Late in life, she decides to pursue one dream, a dream she can't afford, which her husband opposes: she will become a skilled ballroom dancer, moving to the old love songs that have never applied to her life. And she wants to learn to lead! As she takes lessons, scrapes up the money to pay for costumes, and prepares for her first competition, she faces increasing opposition. But she persists, entering the glamorous, demanding world of professional dancing with an innocence and a determination that will change her life. [More]

Cory's Feast

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 14:02:00 -0700

Synopsis:
Cory is a middle-aged Easterner, long-divorced, energetic and fearlessly sensual. Pursuing a dream she has nursed for years, she moves to Taos, New Mexico and buys a famous old house and, in the tradition of its previous owner, turns it into a crucible for the transformation of her guests. Eccentric and charming, with a lover from the Pueblo and lots of turquoise and broomstick skirts, Cory finds her guests, mainly skiers and tourists, bewildered by her particular philosophy, which she calls "The School of As-If." [More]

Transgressions

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:04:00 -0700

Synopsis:
In her wise and sexy new collection, Sallie Bingham examines modern-day "transgressions" in affairs of the heart. She offers up a minage trois, an older woman's affair with a student, a painter who uses his age as an excuse to behave indecorously. But the reader quickly discovers the real transgressions are those of the self against the self. [More]

Matron of Honor

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:07:00 -0700

As in her previous novels, Bingham concerns herself with family relationships, and in many ways revisits the tensions of her own well-known Kentucky clan, which she chronicled in the nonfiction Passion and Prejudice . This muted yet powerful narrative is her best yet, as she captures a prominent Kentucky family, the Masons, at their most vulnerable. [More]

Upstate

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:08:00 -0700

A woman's obsession drives an affair out of control, violating social contracts and devastating the people in its path. For years, Ann and David shared weekends and holidays with country friends Flora and Edwin, even after womanizing Edwin took Ann away to pick grapes and started a year-long affair. The ground rules were clear from the start: Flora accepted what she called Edwin's meaningless "things," and Edwin stipulated no divorces. But Ann's empty marriage (to which David was providing neither money nor sex) and growing need for Edwin cause her to ask for more, leading to estrangement and a startling climax. [More]

Small Victories

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:09:00 -0700

Southern gothic touches lace this dark, portentous story of family lies revealed and grievances redressed. In Passion & Prejudice, Bingham described the bitter conflicts that beset several generations of her own family, which owned the Louisville Courier-Journal . She sets this, her second novel, in a small North Carolina town circa 1958. Louise, the elder of two middle-aged sisters, quietly cares for childlike Shelby, who suffers unpredictable seizures and emotional storms. Baffled and embarrassed by Louise's refusal to put Shelby in an institution, their beloved cousin Big Tom, a state senator, forces her hand. While casting about for ways to free Shelby, Louise tries mightily to strip emotional blinders from the eyes of Big Tom's tormented son, a Harvard sophomore heading for a nervous breakdown. [More]

Passion and Prejudice: A Family Memoir

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:09:00 -0700

Beware of imitations. There are many accounts of the Bingham family saga, but no other by someone who was there. For the first time, a gifted writer born into a family of inherited wealth and power takes us with her behind the doors of that patriarchal hothouse.