Seconds of Pleasure

by NeilLaBute (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.28

  A provocative collection of short fiction by award-winning writer, director and playwright Neil LaBute, whose work 'continues to probe the fascinating dark side of individualism' (New Yorker). In this, his debut prose collection, he once more exhibits his compelling take on the shadowy terrain of the human heart. Seductive and disturbing, the stories in Seconds of Pleasure are not for the faint of heart. Each potent and pithy tale finds men and women exploiting - or at the mercy of - the hidden fault lines that separate them. In 'Time Share', a woman leaves her family at their vacation home after discovering her husband in a compromising situation; in 'Open All Night', a generous dancer rescues a man stranded in the parking lot of a strip club; in 'Boo-Boo', a middle-aged man obsesses over a scab on the calf of a pretty young girl; and in 'Soft Target', a vain Hollywood actor gets his come-uppance. Infused with LaBute's trademark pitch-black humour, these stories vivisect human relations in a way that is at once intimate, brutal, and unsettlingly familiar.

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $3.28

  'Seconds of Pleasure occupies the same disturbing, deceitful territory as Neil LaBute's plays: acts of murder, adultery and incest are recounted in casually cruel prose that is deeply unsettling to the soul.' Glasgow Herald 'There's no doubting LaBute's gift for creating compelling characters.' Marie Claire 'LaBute has an intuitive ear for character and voice, a surgical eye for detail and a dramatic sense of how to affect the kind of twist that can make the reader physically gasp.' Observer 'The power of LaBute's stories lies in the sense that they could be about anyone - indeed, your friends and neighbours.' Independent