Feeding Strays: Short Stories

By Stefanie Freele

A woman hides from her husband in a fish tank and another absently bakes sponges inside her tarts. Appliances drop from the sky, men grapple with chainsaws, women struggle with hormonal violence, and abandoned boys beg on doorsteps. Enter into the territory of broken people and the folks that love them. Sensitive and unruly, sincere and absurd, Stefanie Freele's Feeding Strays is a collection of fifty short stories, both slipstream and modern, about children, family, relationships, and oysters.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0980028957
• ISBN13: 9780980028959
• Release Date: September 2011
• Publisher: Lost Horse Press
• Length: 148 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 16 years and up

Customer Reviews

A choice pick for any fan of literary short stories

So many people find themselves at some point in their lives broken. "Feeding Strays" is a collection of short stories Stefanie Freele focusing on humanity at its lowest points. The stories are honest and poignant and will offer much insight into the human psyche. "Feeding Strays" is a choice pick for any fan of literary short stories, highly recommended.

Who wouldn't love someone who feeds strays?

Author Stefanie Freele welcomes the the stray, the forlorn, the lost, with open arms. You know it beyond a shadow of a doubt as you read her delightful stories. "Because Condoms Seem So Desperate, She Also Buys A Fern"; "You Are the Raisin, I am the Loaf"; "Priests and Balloons"; "Penile Bone." The titles alone are a thing of beauty, the stories spectacular. "Feeding Strays" covers a wide variety of topics, but all have in common that rare quality of wit and spirit that makes me, as the reader, want to hold on tight and never let go. Bravo, Ms. Freele.

quirky in the best possible sense

Elegant. Winsome. True in the truest sense. Magical. FEEDING STRAYS is the province of women. There are men characters--husbands, brothers, friend, lovers. But Freele's women suck the air out of all the men's lungs. The woman---and often their children-- occupy the emotional space of every story. She turns every premise on its head. Every story does an elegant back flip that most times knocks the wind right out of this reader. Try YOU ARE THE RAISON, I AM THE LOAF; try FOUNDLING. I dare you to not be amazed.

A complete and lovely world

Some books leave the reader regretful to leave the world the author has created. Feeding Strays somehow envelopes the reader and remakes the world to which the reader returns. The characters Stefanie Freele has revealed in her short story collection are part of my world now, and my world is a richer place.

Daring and joyous

Alive and doing laundry with James Brown in South Lake Tahoe, this collection delights in its exploration of altered states of humanity. Stefanie Freele blends the snappy economy of language so important to the short short form with a warmth and sincerity that invites the forming of complex relationships between the characters and the reader. Events from the common to the supernatural surprise, enchant and draw the reader into worlds of amplified feeling and waking dreams. Freele's unique voice and way of crafting a story dance on your literary palate. A very tasty selection, indeed.