Praise
for The Traveling Woman
Short Short Stories
Published by Vehicle Editions
"Quicksilver dreams...Think of these stories
as koans, or comments on the human condition to which
the only response can be a deeper recognition of isolation."
--The
New York Times Book Review
"Allen's gift is for showing how things go sour
between people unexpectedly...A quick read full of
lightning-like emotional illuminations. Her evocation
of the feeling of foreign places and the erotic waywardness
they inspire is exactly right"
--Gary
Indiana, The Village Voice
"Existing somewhere between narrative fiction
and prose poetry, Allen's writings could be said to
stretch the boundaries of both or bridge the narrowing
gap between them."
--American
Book Review
"Unabashedly raw, vivid and poetic. The author
captures not only the turmoil but the wonder."
--Small
Press
"In these short, often poignant fictions that
disclose an adumbrated "self", otherness
becomes the measure of life -- the unexpected. Written
in the tradition of Robert Walser, the emotionally
compressed texts present apartness as an irrevocable
detail of everyday life. THE TRAVELING WOMAN is a splendid beginning for Roberta Allen."
--Walter
Abish
Excerpt from "Noted With
Pleasure," The New York Times Book Review
On
board the freighter, the woman sits on deck, a book
in her lap. "How can a trip reverse the damage
already done," she wonders. The sea, as smooth
as glass, looks as hard as ice. There is no land
in sight: the horizon is so clearly defined, neither
a ripple nor a cloud disturb the clean divide. The
ship moves -- silent -- somewhere near the Canary
Islands she is told; still two more days before
they dock in Casablanca. Below in his cabin, her
husband ponders maps. In the glaring light, the
woman searches for a sign, an omen that will offer
her a shred of hope, when suddenly a school of dolphins
relieves the stillness. She clings to the image
as the ship passes through a stretch of water swarming
with millions of Portuguese man-of-war; her hope
survives despite the creatures whose slimy bladder-like
sacs float on the surface as far as the eye can
see.
