Description
The Calamity of Desire and Other Stories
by Judith Dancoff
Full-length, Paper
List: $23.99
The literary critic Walter Benjamin once said that, “There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” The Calamity of Desire and Other Stories, speaks to this truth in a debut collection that combines the personal dramas of sometimes real, sometimes fictional artists and protagonists with the life and death conflicts that surround them. In “The Beautiful Gaze,” the American Impressionist John Singer Sargent overcomes the scandal of his painting “Madame X” against the backdrop of 19th century homophobia; in the novella “Women Bathing,” a young woman comes to Paris to study painting and becomes involved with the Dreyfus Affair; in the “Calamity of Desire,” Gustav Klimt paints the death portrait of a young Jewish woman who committed suicide over a broken heart–a painting stolen by the Nazis. In vivid, lyrical prose, the seven short stories and one novella explore the intersection of history, ambition, heartbreak, and desire, to illuminate the human heart. All of the stories in this collection have been published and “The Calamity of Desire” (the Southern Humanities Review, 2020), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
A well-published writer and Pushcart Prize nominee, Judith Dancoff’s short stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications including The Georgia Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Shanghai Literary Review and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in fiction from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers as well as an MFA from the UCLA Film School. Her documentary on the feminist artist Judy Chicago has screened at and is owned by universities and museums around the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
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