These stories provide a look at a Philadelphia family over decades.

These are twenty-four exercises in personal writing that observe an anonymous self in the apartment, who is writing, or reading, or looking at mundane things. The exercises are collected in four sections registering different iterations in self-recognition, as the anonymous, closely observed, changes from a shared commonplace to the particular and personal state. The exercises use prose paragraphs, lineation, and figures as a private methodology into the problem of writing: learning to see the self, thinking on the page, as a thing made from words.

We find ourselves at a unique place in American history: language is losing its value; decency--or "political correctness"--is becoming taboo; and our future is legislated by those who feel they have been left behind. The stories in Animals Coupling don't attempt to explain contemporary America, but they do attempt to demonstrate (through language, character, style, and circumstance) an expressive rendering of what it looks and feels like to live in the here and now. There is a sense of detachment threading through these works, along with absurdity, loneliness, humor and anomie. But though a minor key may ring loudest, Animals Coupling ultimately, is an exploration of humanity, and hope.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1987. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [411]-435.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-210). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Doktorexamen--Uppsala universitet, 2006. / Bibliogr. p. 553-590. Résumé en anglais.

Inaug.-Diss.--Munich. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 94-97.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1935. / Microfilm copy of typescript, Positive. "Private edition, distributed by the University of Chicago libraries." Bibliography: p. 49-76.

Inuag.-diss.--Greifswald. / Lebenslauf. "Literatur": p. [7]-9.