City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

An ordinary ecstasy, stories, Luke Carman

eng

no index present

fiction

An ordinary ecstasy

Luke Carman

stories

The seven stories that make up An Ordinary Ecstasy explore the lives of people whose days are marked by anxiety and tenderness and exaltation: the musician who rides the winding railway up into the mountains at dusk, the retiree walking the streets of his suburb at dawn, the lovers on the balcony of their hotel room watching surfers cut across the waves, the mates who travel north to Byron Bay in search of healing and revenge. In the panoramic reach of his sentences, the exuberance of his language, the flamboyant gestures and obsessions of his characters, Carman captures the scale of emotion as it grows in intensity, often comically, from the smallest and most ordinary things. His stories may be said to embody a principle observed by the novelist Joseph Conrad: â There is not a place of splendour or a dark corner of the earth that does not deserve, if only in passing, a glance of wonder

A beckoning candle -- An ordinary ecstasy -- Tears on Main Street -- A woman to her lover clings -- Sit down young stranger -- An article of faith -- A night at the house -- Acknowledgments