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Book Title

A Postcard Memoir

Author 1
Lawrence Sutin
Body
Drawing upon his collection of quirky antique postcards, Lawrence Sutin has penned a series of brief but intense reminiscences of his "ordinary" life. In the process, he creates an unrepentant, wholly unique account about learning to live with a consciousness all his own. Ranging from remembered events to inner states to full-blown fantasies, Sutin is at turns playful and somber, rhapsodic and mundane, funny and full of pathos. Here you'll find tales about science teachers and other horrors of adolescence, life in a comedy troupe, stepfathering--each illustrated with the postcard that triggered Sutin's muse--and presented in a mix so enticingly wayward as to prove that at least some of it really happened.

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List Price
$22.00
ISBN
ISBN
978-1-55597-304-9
Format
Format
Paperback
Publication Date
Publication Date
Subject
Pages
Pages
224
Trim Size
Trim Size
7 x 9
Keynote
“Like Kafka in a good mood.” —Judith Katz

About the Author

Lawrence  Sutin
Credit: Erik Saulitis
Lawrence Sutin was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on October 12, 1951. His parents, Jack and Rochelle Sutin, were Holocaust survivors who fought as Jewish partisans in Poland during World War Two. He graduated from St. Louis Park High School in Minnesota and then earned an undergraduate degree in psychology and English from the University of Michigan and a law degree from Harvard University. Since 1984 he has been a full-time writer and teacher, publishing books in multiple genres including biography, memoir, history and the novel. He is also currently working in the field of text-and-collage erasure books. He currently is a professor in the Creative Writing and Liberal Studies Programs of Hamline University and teaches in the low-residency program of the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has been married to Mab Nulty, a psychologist, since 1990. He has three children, Ceallaigh Anderson (stepdaughter), Brennan Vance (stepson), and Sarah Sutin (daughter). He also has a part-beagle part-German shepherd dog, Murphy.

 
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Praise

  • “The child of Holocaust survivors, Sutin is intimate with sorrow and fear, but he is also blessed with a supple sense of humor. As he sets out each enigmatic postcard like a personal tarot, he inventively reimagines the story of his fantasy-rich boyhood, at-sea adolescence, and slowly liberating adulthood. Rich in unexpected associations and genuine wisdom, Sutin’s episodic memoir is a travelogue though the growth of a mind and a journey to love.”—Booklist
  • A Postcard Memoir is the kind of book I’d secretly like to slip into my friends’ back pockets, marked READ ME.”—Rosellen Brown
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