The Candles of Your Eyes Stories

A mysterious young man who disintegrates under the spell of an avaricious old lady's heirlooms; a romance between a "retired cannibal" and a Liberace-esque "songster"; and a violent orgy of pie-eating and fornication are among the topics of this remarkable collection. In Purdy's world a violent blood-letting is "like a gentle summer shower" and a domineering servant proclaims that "help like I can give is at a high bid today and scarcer than true love." Read alongside In the Hollow of His Hand, these stories confirm Purdy's true gift for fiction; he uses the short story form to work out the themes of sexual obsession, ecstatic love, and fathomless disillusionment familiar from his novels, but with a brusque, at times cartoonlike execution. A hearty antidote to the Yuppie boredom of most contemporary short fiction. - Library Journal

first paperback edition of Purdy's recent stories