Private property : [electronic resource] stories / Debra Jo Immergut.

River Road -- Tension -- Frozen Niagara -- Lady Liberty -- Lots -- The number of my heart -- Try hard to be good -- Avoiding Darla -- Payables -- The skirt.

In this powerful debut collection, Debra Jo Immergut conjures up an instantly recognizable world peopled by men and women who are bound by their own hidden longings, in thrall to secret - and often inappropriate - emotions. A young woman at war with her self-destructive impulses allows herself to be seduced by a devious acquaintance of her father in "River Road." In "Frozen Niagara," the desperate love of a sister for her older brother cannot circumvent his desire for.

self-obliteration. And in "Tension," a middle-aged man suddenly snaps, strikes his wife for the first time in their marriage, and then must live with the startling transformation he has brought about in his spouse. Private Property explores the force fields that surge between husband and wife, brother and sister, friend and lover. Animated by a surprising vitality and an incisive, ironic wisdom, these are the latest links in the tradition of short fiction that unites.

Anton Chekhov, Katherine Anne Porter, and Alice Munro.