Published: Aug. 07, 2011
Words: 41,231 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9780983821113

Short description

Scientist storyteller J.J.Brown's fourteen short stories explore death and dreams. From tragic moments in childhood up to crises of conscience in the research labs of New York City, the stories illuminate the beauty and the horror of ordinary lives. Mothers, daughters, scientists and murderers explore the fine line drawn between sanity and insanity, reality and dream, life and death.

Extended description

Scientist storyteller J.J.Brown's fourteen short stories set in New York explore death and dreams. From scenes of tragic childhood abandonment in the mountains, up to crises of conscience in the research labs of New York City, the stories illuminate the beauty and the horror of ordinary lives.

Mothers, daughters, scientists and murderers explore the fine line drawn between sanity and insanity, reality and dream, life and death. In the story Mouse Chimera, a young woman scientist is locked in the laboratory with the HIV-infected chimeric mice she created in an experiment turned nightmare. A student searches for love in the bars of the East Village, in Hills of Rabbits, but finds a lost dream of family. In the story Underground, a mother with PTSD tries to guess a victim’s identity after witnessing a haunting subway suicide that she cannot shake, in New York City. In Rain Dream, an alcoholic biologist discovers parallels between the lives of captive lobsters in a glass tank and her.. (Read more) Scientist storyteller J.J.Brown's fourteen short stories set in New York explore death and dreams. From scenes of tragic childhood abandonment in the mountains, up to crises of conscience in the research labs of New York City, the stories illuminate the beauty and the horror of ordinary lives.

Mothers, daughters, scientists and murderers explore the fine line drawn between sanity and insanity, reality and dream, life and death. In the story Mouse Chimera, a young woman scientist is locked in the laboratory with the HIV-infected chimeric mice she created in an experiment turned nightmare. A student searches for love in the bars of the East Village, in Hills of Rabbits, but finds a lost dream of family. In the story Underground, a mother with PTSD tries to guess a victim’s identity after witnessing a haunting subway suicide that she cannot shake, in New York City. In Rain Dream, an alcoholic biologist discovers parallels between the lives of captive lobsters in a glass tank and her own isolated life. A schizophrenic daughter coming of age in the Catskill Mountains fights for a dream of regaining her parents’ affection in the story Mother's Love. A scientist finds her experiments with radiation and toxic chemicals touch workers around her in the story Lab after Dark. And in Shepherds’ Night, a city couple traveling to visit the family for the holidays unexpectedly runs into an accident they are not equipped to handle, deep in the wilderness.

The stories follow the choices that realistic characters must make when they face deaths around them as inescapable, natural parts of life. Author J.J.Brown brings the authenticity of a modern science background to these stories of psychological struggle with creative tenderness. Be entertained, be horrified, and be inspired by the collection.
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Tags

fiction, love, horror, women, death, family, short story, dreams, science, mother, daughter, new york city, scientist, literary fiction, grandmother, experiment, contemporary fiction, mountains, catskills, laboratory

Available ebook reading formats

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Videos

Death and the Dream, from J.J.Brown
Scientist Author J.J.Brown here to tell you about the first of my new fiction books, Death and the Dream, available in paperback and ebook editions. The 14 short stories in this book are realistic fiction set in New York City where I live, and the Catskill Mountains where I grew up. Reviewers call the book psychological horror. Be entertained, be horrified, be inspired. Let me know what you think.

Reviews

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Review by: Malla Duncan on March 19, 2012 :
Beautifully written, perfectly balanced and paced, each story is different and completely compelling; poignant, disturbing, shocking and subtly underpinned with touches of pure horror. All fourteen stories are of equal calibre – so it’s hard to choose a favourite. I think I would go for Rabbit Nightmare for its creepy off-centre feeling of vulnerability, loneliness and sense of loss. Mouse Chimera is way up there for the truly horrific told in a rather matter-of-fact manner by a scientist slowly losing her mind in the pitiless nature of her work. But then I loved Rain Dance – a clever, unsettling story with the feeling of imminent disaster and the gentle sway of one too many glasses of red wine!

This is top class professional work from a writer who has mastered the delicate and difficult art of the short story. Highly recommend.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: Lillian Rodriguez on Oct. 13, 2011 :
I had the pleasure of interviewing J.J.Brown on her collection of short stories. I mention it in the video, but it's worth repeating my favorite story is 'Mouse Chimera'. It's a dark tale (as many of these stories are) of a scientist who gets locked in a lab after dark. It's haunting to see the experimenter become the subject of some bizarre human experiment of existential questioning and reckoning with the past. This existential probing existent throughout the length of the book, made me question if it isn't life that is the frightening bit, and death perhaps not all that terrifying.
(reviewed long after purchase)

Review by: Andrew McBurnie on Sep. 30, 2011 :
This  is a collection of short stories  about womens' experience of death and loneliness. There is an intriguing use of scientific themes. One story, about a female laboratory worker, is partially in the form of an experimental report. The final story, "Rain Dream", introduces marine biology in its depiction of a female scientist struggling with loneliness and a drinking problem. (The description of her bad behavior in a restaurant as that of an apparently different character is effective.)
I'm not sure if "Rain Dream" is successful in its use of lobster biology as a means of delineating the woman's fears - lobsters spend much of their lives hiding away, amongst other things. But maybe it's just that this is a novel approach. There is a suggestion via the obsessing on lobster biology that the woman is pregnant and is frightened of a male who may be violent to her.
I'd call the collection interesting, however it didn't engage my emotions. But then, neither does Chekov, though I love his stories.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

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