Inappropriate Behaviour

Author:

Width:  5.5  Inches
Height:  8.5  Inches
Pages:  121
Format:  Paperback
Publication Date:  January 4, 1997
Illustrations:  None
Publisher:  Dundurn Press

Description

Inappropriate Behaviour has a magnetism as alluring as the sirens, summoning readers to revel in the coy seduction that preludes desire, the truths women deny and the longing they supress, unleashed in startling moments of betrayal, loss, and reclamation. Mock widens the threshold--exposing a desire not only for touch, but for understanding, for family, for a love which satiates more than the physical appetite. With wry humour and tender intensity Mock unveils heroic acts of domestic courage which transform and confront modern marriages, divided loyalties and sexual politics as few contemporary writers have dared. Each of these 11 stories, whether haunting or heartbreaking, alights on the tongue ripe with the bittersweet perfection Eve enjoyed in sampling the forbidden fruit. Mock pushes the limits of emotional intimacy, tempting us to admit what we have guarded with precious secrecy--we want it all. In this collection, we may have found it.

Author

Inappropriate Behaviour has a magnetism as alluring as the sirens, summoning readers to revel in the coy seduction that preludes desire; the truths women deny and the longing they suppress are unleashed here in startling moments of betrayal, loss and reclamation. Irene Mock widens the threshold -exposing a desire not only for touch, but for understanding, for family, for a love which satiates more than the physical appetite. With wry humour and tender intensity Mock unveils heroic acts of domestic courage which transform and confront modern marriages, divided loyalties and sexual politics in a way few contemporary writers have dared. For Mock, as for Denise, the heroine of Satellite Worlds, writing places her “outside the gates of Eden.” No moment is pure, nothing is immune. Each of these 11 stories, whether haunting or heartbreaking, alight on the tongue ripe with the bittersweet perfection Eve enjoyed in sampling the forbidden fruit. From a psychiatric ward in her trilogy The Age of Analysis to affairs in the bedroom of Lovers and Other Strangers and Les Amants, Mock pushes the limits of emotional intimacy, tempting us to admit what we have guarded with precious secrecy - we want it all. In this collection, we may have found it. “Irene Mock‘s stories are a jab to the solar plexis. No one else has ever evoked the moral quagmires of our time the way Mock does.” - Tom Wayman “Mock‘s touch sets equivocations vibrating... deft, troubling and elusive.” -Don McKay “Her characters confront elements of themselves and of the world that they - we all - attempt to deny. She writes with dazzling precision.” - Queen‘s Quarterly “‘Inappropriate Behaviour‘ overturns expectation...fiction worth a close read.” - Capilano Review Irene Mock‘s fiction has been published in Grain, Matrix, Queen‘s Quarterly, The Capilano Review, Descant and Fiddlehead as well as other prestigious Canadian literary magazines. Her story “Inappropriate Behaviour” has been nominated for the 1996 Journey Prize. She is the co-editor, with Paulette Jiles and Luanne Armstrong, of Journey to the Interior: An Anthology of Kootenay Women Writers. Mock lived in New York and Ohio prior to moving to Canada in 1972 where she held jobs as varied as unloading coal from boxcars to attending the ill as a nurse on the streets of Vancouver. She is a founding member of the Kootenay School of Writing in Nelson, BC. She lives there with her husband and two children, currently completing a novel.

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