Russian Lover and Other Stories

An apprentice dominatrix suddenly loses her grip, a spurned wife attempts to explain her husband's flaws to his mother, a stripper turns the tables on a jeering customer . . . Jana Martin's smart, vulnerable heroines respond to life's curveballs with guts and flair. In luminous prose she deftly plumbs the depths of their troubles-and shows the often startling ways in which they dig themselves out.¿ Russian Lover and Other Stories is a dazzling collection of fifteen stories by an author who revels in playing with form but never loses the heartbeat, whose writing "packs a powerful punch, combining the brilliance of T.C. Boyle and the icy clarity of Margaret Atwood" (Tucson Weekly).