Adam’s Chair and Other Waltham Stories, by Barbara de la Cuesta
Adam’s Chair is a narrative of one day in 1981 in Waltham Massachusetts. The shuttle, Columbia, orbits above.
An elderly French Canadian escapes his sleeping wife and makes his way to Mt. Feake Cemetery before dawn, whose neighborhoods reflect the city’s own, its waves of immigration. Priscilla, a home health aide, college dropout, and socialist since she turned sixteen, rides her bicycle to work at dawn. She gives baths, gives an English lesson, and reflects on the city whose founders included her ancestors, on her divorce, a hickey on her daughter’s neck… The mayor visits The Sunshine Club. The shuttle sends down messages…
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“…shakes up any conceived notion of what a contemporary work should be… challenging me to step outside of my comfort zone… I found beneath the surface a whole new world…The way their individual strands stick out, and yet, at the same time, blend together, created such a beautiful work of tapestry of literary elegance.
You must have an open mind and a ready heart for this … contemporary novel of the ages and a soon-to-be classic…”
— Lauren Stafford, The Manhattan Review of Books
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