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Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Shahrazad's Gift ~ Lone Star Book Blog Tours Notable Quotables & Giveaway!

SHAHRAZAD’S GIFT
by
Gretchen McCullough

Contemporary Fiction / Linked Short Stories / Humor
Publisher: Cune Press
Date of Publication: February 20, 2024
Number of Pages: 198 pages 

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Shahrazad’s Gift is a collection of linked short stories set in contemporary Cairo—magical, absurd and humorous. The author focuses on the off-beat, little-known stories, far from CNN news: a Swedish belly dancer who taps into the Oriental fantasies of her clientele; a Japanese woman studying Arabic, driven mad by the noise and chaos of the city; a frustrated Egyptian housewife who becomes obsessed by the activities of her Western gay neighbor; an American journalist who covered the civil war in Beirut who finds friendship with her Egyptian dentist. We also meet the two protagonists of McCullough's Confessions of a Knight Errant, before their escapades in that story.

These stories are told in the tradition of A Thousand and One Nights.






Notable Quotables
from Shahrazad’s Gift


From the “Empty Flat Upstairs”

“I know that salacious, immoral things are happening in that flat,” Keiko told the bawab, the porter. (This was a good chance to use the old-fashioned Arabic vocabulary she was learning in her Arabic Linguistics class.)

*****

From a “Little Honey and a Little Sunlight”

Give me the skinny, doc,” I said, as if I were a real swashbuckler. Not the moment of reckoning, the last hurrah, the final goodbye, the diminishing hourglass. He was shining a slender flashlight, the size of a cigarillo, into my eyes. For a moment, I saw a wondrous rainbow. But when I blinked again, Dr. Ivanov’s violet blue eyes were scrutinizing me. Instead of my ratty blue jeans with the Grateful Dead patch over the bum, I was wearing a crinkled paper gown.

******

From “Taken Hostage by the Ugly Duck”

The day after Hoda was hit in the ear with a rotten egg thrown by her British neighbor, she adopted a blue heron. Complaining to her friends had not been enough, complaining to the landlord and the bawab had not been enough, complaining to her husband had not been enough. She had never suffered such humiliation! She had marched to the Friday bird market and bought the bird with the harshest call.

*****

From “The Charm”

With the two of us, the carpet slid out from underneath the bed. And there was Shushu. The wound from her breast operation had never healed, where she had torn out the stitches. Tiny black things were crawling all over her. “My God,” Sheri said, “Shushu is being eaten.”


*****

From “Ice”

“What I didn’t tell you. I was on Hezbollah’s Most Wanted List. Along with Robert Fisk.”

*****

From “Tiger”

I closed my eyes for a minute—I really needed to crash. My eyes felt grainy and I had a headache. When I opened them, I realized our taxi driver didn’t have any legs.

*****

From “On the Run: Part I”

I became a WANTED MAN. The Chronicle of Higher Education ran an article on me: “Professor Tanks Career over Contaminated Fish. Creates Dangerous New Water Computer Virus. Still Missing.”

*****

From “On the Run: Part II”

“The demonstration against the BIG MAN and HIS MEN has become violent,” Kharalombos said. “Anyone who disobeys the curfew will be shot.”

*****


Gretchen McCullough was raised in Harlingen Texas. After graduating from Brown University in 1984, she taught in Egypt, Turkey, and Japan. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and was awarded a teaching Fulbright to Syria from 1997-1999. Her stories, essays and reviews have appeared in The Barcelona Review, Archipelago, National Public Radio, Story South, Guernica, The Common, The Millions, and the LA Review of Books. Translations in English and Arabic have been published in: Nizwa, Banipal, Brooklyn Rail in Translation, World Literature Today and Washington Square Review with Mohamed Metwalli. Her bi-lingual book of short stories in English and Arabic, Three Stories From Cairo, translated with Mohamed Metwalli, was published in July 2011 by AFAQ Publishing House, Cairo. A collection of short stories about expatriate life in Cairo, Shahrazad’s Tooth, was also published by AFAQ in 2013. Currently, she is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition at the American University in Cairo.

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GIVEAWAY!  GIVEAWAY!  GIVEAWAY!

THREE WINNERS:
Two winners receive paperbacks.
One winner receives the eBook of Shahrazad’s Gift.

(US only; ends midnight, CDT, 4/12/24)

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FOR DIRECT LINKS TO EACH POST ON THIS TOUR, UPDATED DAILY, 
or visit the blogs directly:

04/02/24

Rox Burkey Blog

Excerpt

04/02/24

Hall Ways Blog

Notable Quotables

04/03/24

StoreyBook Reviews

Guest Post

04/03/24

LSBBT Blog

BONUS Stop

04/04/24

Boys' Mom Reads

Review

04/05/24

Bibliotica

Review

04/06/24

Rebecca R. Cahill, Author

Author Interview

04/07/24

The Page Unbound

Review

04/08/24

The Plain-Spoken Pen

Review

04/09/24

It's Not All Gravy

Excerpt

04/10/24

Carpe Diem Chronicles

Review

04/11/24

The Real World According to Sam

Review


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