"Pulaski has a gift for combining the lyrical with the earthy."--The
New York Times Book Review
As Jack Pulaski is returned to the fiction of his life in the novel
Chekhov was a Doctor, he's more than surprised, but not shocked to
recognize that an essential aspect of a returning obsession has pulled
him back--or propelled him forward. He is only interested in the
"creative process" inasmuch as it is a story. A love story.
A protagonist discovering the terms of his life, which are the
always-to-be-discovered requirements of his art: a peculiar virginal
state, more promising than Candide's dogmatic optimism; he is humbled
before something that feels like fate; his helplessly attentive self,
like the story about to unfold, a thing in itself.
Pulaski is of necessity a slow learner, incapable of trusting
illustrative thematic questions; his only option is to travel with the
protagonists--Davy and Elena--to see what he can see. They bear
unmistakable affinities with Laura and Isaac, the lovers in his previous
novel, Courting Laura Providencia. Still, the souls of Elena and Davy
are their own, as is their adventure and what they enact hopefully will
provide the author with further education and the reader with a tale of
significant ambition.
Jack Pulaski grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New
York. His stories have appeared in journals such as The Iowa Review,
Ohio Review and Ploughshares, as well as in two anthologies: The
Pushcart Prize I and The Ploughshares Reader. He is the recipient of
a fiction award from the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines, and
his stories have twice been singled out for high praise in the Nelson
Algren Short Fiction Contest. Pulaski currently lives in Vermont.
