INSTINCT FOR BLISS: SHORT STORIES
JANET HEIDINGER KAFKA PRIZE
PUSHCART PRIZE WINNER
From the young cook in “Sweet Feed,” who prepares a gourmet last supper for a prisoner on death row; to the neglected, anorexic girl in “Eating for Theodora,” who discovers spiritual nourishment in the faith of her elderly Hispanic neighbor; to the world famous horticulturalist in “The Erotic Life of Luther Burbank,” who remains perplexed by the desires of the women in his family–all of these stories demonstrate a longing to travel beyond safe boundaries and outside easy assumptions.
PRAISE & REVIEWS
“Vitality passes like a torch through such stories….”
–The New York Times Book Review
“Melissa Pritchard’s prose, that darkly lyrical firmament, is brightened by the dizzy luminous arrangement of her stars and satellites, her great gifts to us: humor, irony, kindness, brilliance. The Instinct for Bliss is a natural wonder.”
-Antonya Nelson
“Melissa Pritchard writes with a moral authority and lyrical dexterity that propels her fiction into those places closest to the human heart.”
-Richard Currey
“In The Instinct for Bliss Melissa Pritchard seems to have located the sub-atom of passionate love and split it, putting a fearsome lot of heat and love at the heart of our sorry affairs. The book both abrades and uplifts, slays and saves me.”
-Sharon Sheehe Stark