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Plan B for the Middle Class: Stories
In The News of the World, Carlson's celebrated previous collection, it was widely noted that the news was good. Here, as everybody goes to Plan B, the news is stronger, edgy, and bittersweet. In this collection of quirky stories, Carlson observes the men and women of the middle class, people who find themselves settling uneasily into lives they never envisioned for themselves. Carlson uncannily captures the complexity of his characters' inner lives. From the title story, about lust and marriage and dancing near large bodies of water, to the tough Alaskan trip made in "Blazo", these stories are braced by honesty and lifted by affection for the world.
Plan B for the Middle Class
W.W. Norton 1992
Penguin paperback 1993