The Writers' Block
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KQED's weekly reading series featuring writers and performers of all stripes reading the latest short fiction, non-fiction, theater and poetry.
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Eric Puchner reads "Animals Here Below," a selection from his short story collection Music Through the Floor.
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About "Animals Here Below"
"Animals Here Below" was inspired by a true story a friend told me about someone so in love with her dog that she sent its head to a renderer after it died. The idea was that she could keep the polished skull as a remembrance. I became fascinated by the idea and hopped on the Internet, only to discover a whole skull-doctoring industry. Who would do such a thing? I began to imagine a man so devastated by his wife's departure that he begins a "romance" with the family dog; somehow, it became a story about the kids, who have to compete with a dead pet for their father's love, and about the perilous ways we deify missing parents. It's also about animals, and our troubled relationship to them here on Earth.
Purchase Music Through the Floor online (at amazon.com).
About the Author
Eric Puchner teaches at Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. His short stories have appeared in Chicago Tribune, Zoetrope: All Story, The Missouri Review, and Best New American Voices 2005. He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and a 2006 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. His first collection of stories, Music Through the Floor, was published by Scribner in 2005. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, novelist Katharine Noel, and their seven-month-old daughter.
Visit Eric Puchner's web site (at ericpuchner.com).
Suggestions? Comments? Experiencing technical problems with The Writers' Block? Please email us at arts@kqed.org
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