fiction

Crane Flies and Other Domestic Terrors
Teresa DiFalco
ISO Publisher
97,000 words / 320 pages

Ellen and Howard Jenks are a young, ostensibly thriving couple living with their two children in a prosperous Oregon suburb in the late ’90s.  However, their self-assured exterior masks a creeping frustration at their inability to feel fulfilled in relationships or careers.  Howard is mired in a dull but well-paying job, and Ellen has abandoned a respectable career to care for their home and children, and nurture futile dreams of greatness. 

They flirt with self-medication and infidelity, they try valiantly to escape the ruthless grip of monotony.  Ellen plays the same Mozart sonata, one she’d learned as a small-town prodigy, over and over, she starts petty feuds with their neighbors.  Howard bottles his disappointments up tight, like port wine.  As their relationship deteriorates, their hopes of self-fulfillment and dreams of love are thrown into jeopardy.   

This is almost word-for-word the jacket copy for Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates.  Crane Flies and Other Domestic Terrors is Revolutionary Road with sight gags.  It’s a dark comedy, it’s lousy with bugs, a fair number of strangers come to the door.  I think you’ll be pleased.   It’s essentially a long tirade about confinement and sex.  It’s also a love story. 

They had the greatest marriage in the world.  They were unhappy.  They couldn’t live with each other.  They did. 

 Full excerpt to come.  

(Additionally, synopses + excerpts of Hustling Woody Allen and The Better Wives’ Club, are available by request.  Request here.)