A Robber in the House

Stories by Jessica Treat

May 1, 1993 • 4 x 7 • 128 pages • 978-1-56689-007-6

Treat’s fiction debut bristles with sudden surprises and sharp splinters. Her stories become tiny slivers of disturbing lives that wedge in the reader’s mind.

Jessica Treat’s debut collection of short-short stories bristles with sudden surprises and sharp splinters. Although each story is short enough to be read in a few moments time, they wedge in the reader’s mind, and the questions and emotions they raise aren’t quickly forgotten. Like urban fables or fairy tales, Treat’s stories are tightly woven and layered with meaning. She winds the same intriguing theme throughout her collection: that happy endings are hard to come by in a world full of mistrust, confusion, and fear. This collection is part of the Coffee-To-Go Short-Short Stories Series.

Reviews

“Virtually no one does the short-short story with more precision and narrative power than Jessica Treat. . . . This is a genuine discovery, the work of a new writer who uses words as if the language itself were her private invention.” —Jonathan Baumbach

“Rigorous and sensual, dream-like and resolutely cerebral, these stories are wry magic.” —Mary Gaitskill

“These little stories are gems, exactly as long as they should be. There’s a surreal quality about them that lends them power, but the real strength comes from the economical observance of people in conflict.” —John M. Daniel