Jim Metzger

The Tub & Other Strange Tales Jim Metzger

A blend of absurdist and traditional realist fiction, these twelve tales offer an extended meditation on suffering and the loss of meaning in our modern world ? a world in which characters often find themselves subject to forces over which they have little control. In ?The Tub,? for instance, a young community college instructor wakes to discover that his fate is tied to the fluctuating water level of a tub in his backyard. In ?The Target,? nature suddenly turns against a quiet tax advisor, and the simple life he once enjoyed rapidly dissolves. In ?We Really Do Have a Hell of a Dean,? an anthropology professor feels compelled to fly in cannibals, a woman who breastfeeds animals, and boys who snack on tarantulas to keep his students from texting during class. And in ?Goad?s First Visit,? God turns up in the form of a wildebeest to inform poor Irk that he will be the first of his creatures to receive a soul.