All Aberration
Copyright © 1986
by Terese Svoboda
U of Georgia P
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All Aberration is an excellent first
volume. It is refreshingly unfashionable,
strikingly written, and suffused
with toughness and integrity. — Prairie Schooner
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Cannibal
Copyright © 1995
by Terese Svoboda
New York UP
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Cannibal is Africa from the inside — inside the head of a woman
who fears that the man she loves is CIA, that the film they're supposed to
make is his cover, that she might be pregnant. A haunting story of survival,
Cannibal lays bare a woman's greatest hungers. Known as Good-for-Nothing
by the Africans — unfit for the climate, the work, or friendship, she
struggles for recognition, and for her life. What she finds, wandering the
savannah for months, are the "blue people," those with AIDS who have been
left to die in an abandoned British outpost. But this is only counterpoint
to her own predicament. "Trust hasn't enough syllables," she says, regarding
her lover walking ahead of her. "He doesn't look at it. I can't not look, but
he won't look." In Cannibal, nobody wants to look — the differences are
too frightening, the truth too stark, the love too little. A step beyond
Heart of Darkness, Cannibal is the virtual reality of exotic
paranoia where, when the images break apart, Death grins out. — from the jacket
I am still hung over from reading this book, the images that linger
because they appeal to the primordial cortex. Most writers
cannot sustain their
premises but Svoboda does and even strengthens hers....I am very excited about
this book being put into the world — Mark Richard
Like another poet-turned-novelist, Denis Johnson, Svoboda turns a shrewd and
lucid gaze on sights that make others turn away. Her diction is as precise as
her territory is vast. What happens in Africa haunts her; it inhabits every
word. — Amy Hempel
A harrowing first novel....A woman's Heart of Darkness....An
obsessive monologue told in a measured whisper,
desperate, chilling, seductive. — Vogue
Stark imagery paints a visceral, powerful portrait of a milieu beset by
mistrust and pain. — Publishers Weekly
Profound and lyrical....Svoboda's reflective first-person narrative wades
through deep currents of emotion. Sharp-boned writing that echoes for
hours. — Kirkus Reviews
Cannibal has what many novels lack:
guts, grist, balls, heart, lungs, and a worldview
horrifically, uniquely its own. — Mark Richard for Spin's Best Books
of the year
All too often American writers depict Africans
as the "Other." Svoboda realistically portrays her
central character as the "Other" whose ways seem
strange to the Africans she encounters. — Library Journal
Cannibal is very powerful. — Houston Chronicle
Terese Svoboda's Cannibal can
best be described as haunting. Its terse prose is well written.
Cannibal tells the story
of a woman's trek through Africa; following the man she loves. As their
journey unravels she begins to suspect
that he is not what he appears to be, and in fact he may be
starving her. The story is told
from inside the woman's head. It is all reflective dialogue; in this case it
works, and keeps the reader's attention.
If you are interested in Africa, and like dark psychological
discourse in literature; then this book is for you. — Amazon.com
A women's "Heart of Darkness" — Vogue
Cannibal is fiction, but its horrors are real and somewhat similar to
what Ms. Svoboda experienced when she spent 1975 in the Sudan traveling with a
filmmaker. — Gerald Wade, Omaha World-Herald
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A Drink Called Paradise
Copyright © 1999
by Terese Svoboda
Counterpoint P
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"Ah, sex" begins A Drink Called Paradise. Sex and death haunt this new novel
by Terese Svoboda.
Clare, an LA ad executive, finds herself stranded on a remote South Pacific island
and slowly discovers that life there is not what it
seems. Barclay, the enigmatic leader, cannot tell her when the next boat is coming, nor
will he unravel the disturbing mysteries that pervade
this so-called paradise. Her hostess Ngarima appears indifferent to the incident in which
Clare is nearly raped. Ngarima's son braves the
sea in a homemade boat in a desperate attempt to escape the island — but why?
Stranded and spooked, Clare looks to Harry, a fellow castaway, for solace, but he has no
patience for her growing fears and prefers the
attentions of his newfound harem. It is the island women — Breasts for Three, Clam
Hold, and Mouse Touch — who draw her
into their circle, revealing the island's terrifying secrets and shedding light on Clare's
own past.
Based on Tahitian, Pukapukan, and Marshall Islander experiences, the understated prose of
A Drink Called Paradise tells of the wet,
lush decay of an island inhabited by living ghosts, islanders moving in the shadow of a
bomb that detonated fifty years ago. —
from the jacket
Terese Svoboda has captured a "paradise" that few people want to know about —
an isolated, cruelly abused Pacific island haunted by ghosts, castaways, and lost children.
Writing in a slant, poetic style that mirrors the
poison rain
falling on the picture-perfect palms, she takes us on a quest for one woman's psychological,
sexual, and spiritual espcape. A brilliant and
beautiful book. — Molly Giles
This book is simple exhilarating. There is so much to praise: that it's an original voice,
that the voice is poetic and heartbreaking, yet taut,
that this is a tensely paced story, that this story matters in a larger sense. — Jane
Vandenburgh
It's sexy, powerful, and surprising. It ought to be sung, not read, and in a low, harsh voice.
— Frederick Busch
Postmodernism's heady potential to reinvent language, unclog the
doors of perception, and reconceptualize thoughts, feelings, selves
and reality is on vibrant display in this demanding, worthy novel. —
Booklist
Svoboda's stunning novel, frighteningly mysterious and complex,
deals with many themes. ... Fast-paced, intense, deeply moving ...
Svoboda uses stark imagery and the protagonist's interior dialogue
to craft a most compelling and fluent narrative. — Publishers Weekly
All tourists think
their islands far, but this island's really far. So far off the beaten path,
in fact, that our narrator Clare isn't altogether sure that she'll ever be
able to find her way home again. ... Wonderfully written. ... — Kirkus Reviews
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Laughing Africa
Copyright © 1990
by Terese Svoboda
U of Iowa P
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Svoboda delicately balances a harsh,
yet convincing indictment of Western
culture with an equally ardent belief
in the possibility of human
compassion and responsibility. — Publishers Weekly
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Mere Mortals
Copyright © 1995
by Terese Svoboda
U of Georgia P
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All of the medical, technological, and
psychological advances of the twentieth
century struggle against mankind's
being made up of "mere mortals" in Terese
Svoboda's third book of poetry. In
"Faust," a deconstructive mini-epic in
five acts, the eponymous character of
literary legend appears in the form of a
woman, redefining what being mortal
means in light of the politics of the Third
World, as well as those of gender.
"Faust" is a foil to the other long poem
in the book, "Ptolemy's Rules for High
School Reunions," which, Svoboda says,
explores what happens when you don't
have a pact with the devil. The gods —
Greek and otherwise — also make
appearances as a TV announcer in "Philomela,"
in the basement with the plumber in
"The Smell of Burning Pennies," and
in the dyslexic confusion of "Dog/God."
Many of the poems in Mere Mortals
show how our sexual nature suffuses
and reinvents every relationship.
Readers of such wittily probing poems as "The
Root of Father Is Fat" and "Brassiere:
Prison or Showcase?" will know why
Philip Levine has described Svoboda as
"one light-year from being the polite,
loverly, workshop poet." — from the jacket
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Tin God
Copyright © 2006
by Terese Svoboda
U of Nebraska P
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Celebrated by the New York Times Book Review for its "genuine grace and beauty,"
Terese Svoboda’s work has been called "desperate, chilling, seductive" (Vogue)
and "haunting and profound" (AM Homes), while Vanity Fair warned that it
"detonates on contact." In Tin God, her writing can only be called ... divine.
"This is God," the novel begins, helpfully spelling G-O-D for the reader, and we are
spinning on our way into the heart of a Midwest that spans spirits and centuries and
forever redefines the middle of nowhere.
Whispers plague a desperate conquistador lost in tall prairie grass. Four hundred
years later, a male go-go dancer flings a bag of dope into the same field. God, in the
person of a perm-giving, sheetcake-baking Nebraska farm woman, casts a jaundiced yet
merciful eye over the unfolding chaos. Fire and a pair of judiciously applied pantyhose
bring the two stories together. A contemplation of divinity and drugs on the ground,
Tin God is a funny yet poignant story of the plains that transcends its interstate
spine and exposes us to a whole new level of Svoboda’s fiery prose. — from the publisher
Terese Svoboda's God—serenely positioned somewhere "out of time, broadcasting whenever,
a pretend imposter with no megaphones or ziggurats" — is as irreverent and
off-handedly smart as only a deity can be. This is a funny, and moving, and dazzlingly
written book. — Jim Shepard
Tin God is a brutal and beautiful book about being lost in new worlds and old ones,
too. Terese Svoboda has once again proven herself a writer of real power and mystery.
— Sam Lipsyte
Tin God takes us on a wonderfully phantasmagoric and hilarious trip through the
weird heart of the Midwest, a journey that passes across centuries and burrows into the
unexplainable mysteries of what it means to be alive on this very strange planet. Terese
Svoboda is a true American original: she writes with an angelic beauty and a devilish
sense of humor. — Dan Chaon
Fabulous fabulist Svoboda (Trailer Girl) checks in to indulge a talent for wild,
sketchy comedy. Laid in Willa Cather country, this quick take has some of Thomas Pynchon's
quirky Americana crossed with the Indian tales of Jaime de Angulo. ... Back and forth the
narrative moves, with Steinian The Making of Americans logic gluing together this eccentric
vision of a God-driven Middle America. Svoboda loves her red-state mopes, and that warmth
both illuminates and animates her eccentric prose. — Publishers Weekly
In this book, god is not a solemn, dignified deity but a wisecracking woman with attention
deficit disorder — the intentionally lower-case, working-class version of a supreme
being. ... Readers will find Svoboda’s perspective on God, faith, and the impulses that
drive human behavior original and quirky. Her characters are self-absorbed buffoons at
times but totally believable. This funny romp is very highly recommended for public
libraries. — Library Journal
Svoboda's fiercely symbolic and brashly audacious allegory is a fanciful yet cautionary
tale. — Booklist
It's hard to spell out dreams — to rein them in, to make the story under our lives
rise to the surface. Terese Svoboda brings a light hand, a pinch of humor and a lot of
irreverence to this weighty task with her new novel, Tin God. ... [T]he wisdom of
Tin God lies in the idea that, in dreams, some people get within spitting distance
of God, while others sleep the sleep of forgetting. — Los Angeles Times
This new title from the University of Nebraska Press shimmers with crisp writing, an
out-of-the ordinary story and unique characters. — Lincoln Journal Star
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Trailer Girl
Copyright © 2001
by Terese Svoboda
Counterpoint P
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In piercing, unprettified prose, Terese Svoboda navigates
the terrain of alienation and loss. "I talk like a lady who
knows what she wants" is how the vagrant begins her story
in "Trailer Girl." As she struggles to rescue what she says
is a wild girl hiding in the gully, the neighbors become more
certain than ever that the child is imaginary — until there's a
murder. Stark and disturbing, "Trailer Girl" is the story of
cycles of child abuse and the dream to escape them. In
"Psychic," a clairvoyant knows she's been hired by a
murderer, in "Leadership" a tiny spaceship lands between
a boy and his parents, in "Venice," a woman performs the
Heimlich maneuver on an ex-husband, then flees by
gondola, and in "White," a grandfather explains to his
grandson how a family is like a collection of chicken parts.
Frequently violent, always passionate, these often short
short stories are full-strength, as strong and precise as
poetry. — from the jacket
Terese Svoboda's stories are haunting and profound. — AM HOmes
Positively nuclear. — Molly Giles
Potent and oblique ... a cross between William S Burroughs and Dorothy Allison
— Publishers Weekly
Powerful cutting-edge literary fiction. — Library Journal
Svoboda's subject is human suffering, and she
bends language to her will in spare and oblique prose. ... Pain, distilled, on every page. — Booklist
Unnerve thyself: the violent and enthralling stories in Trailer Girl detonate on contact. —
Vanity Fair
Disturbing, edgy and provocative, this collection will appeal to lovers on nontraditional prose. —
Book Magazine
We see the ordinary anew through her cracked lens: It's always breaking up, shifting shape and surprising us.
— Hartford Courant
You'll be grateful that someone has something new to say — and a perfectly realized voice to say it in. —
Mademoiselle
One closes the book more shaken than one realizes by the disturbing structures of her prose. —
San Francisco Chronicle
Terese Svoboda's new book — a novella and 16 very short stories
— has the surreal poetry of a nightmare. ... Svoboda has written
a book of genuine grace and beauty. — New York Times Book Review
Svoboda dazzles her readers with colors, calls, and gestures in scenes that we don't
immediately understand. But each time, without fail, she is true to her poetic calling and
wipes away the initial cloudiness of the story's slate, revealing disturbing truths whose
images will insinuate themselves during our real lives — as we order a cappuccino
at a coffee shop or step into our orderly, secure homes at night. Her creations will
never rest quietly in our minds, but will remind us of the breadth of the world and
the smallness of the piece that each of us samples from it. —
Bookreporter
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Treason
Copyright © 2002
by Terese Svoboda
Zoo Press
How to Buy
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Terese Svoboda publishes both fiction and poetry and is one of the best in both genres.
A writer of great genius, she is at the height of her powers in Treason, her fourth
collection of verse. These poems are political, highly poised, grand, and intensely
lyrical. — from the jacket
Depth charge of cry, of outrage — language at the edge of utterance, utterly original, black-bordered,
indelible as we are not. — Eleanor Wilner
Svoboda exhibits a remarkable range and command of her subject matter. ... This poet creates
moments that are stronger than everday experience. — Publishers Weekly
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What the Critics Say
Bibliography
