Refund

Name: Refund
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Author: Karen E. Bender
ISBN: 9781501919435

Author: Karen E. Bender

Narrator: Susan Bennett, Carine Montbertrand, Eliza Foss, Meredith Orlow

Unabridged: 9 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 01/29/2016

Categories: Fiction

Synopsis

We think about it every day, sometimes every hour: Money. Who has it. Who doesn't. How you get it. How you don't. In Refund, Bender creates an award-winning collection of stories that deeply explore the ways in which money and the estimation of value affect the lives of her characters. The stories in Refund reflect our contemporary world-swindlers, reality show creators, desperate artists, siblings, parents - who try to answer the question: What is the real definition of worth? In "Theft," an eighty-year-old swindler, accustomed to tricking people for their money, boards a cruise ship to see if she can find something of true value-a human connection. In "Anything for Money," the creator of a reality show is thrown into the real world when his estranged granddaughter reenters his life in need of a new heart; and in the title story, young artist parents in downtown Manhattan escape the attack on 9/11 only to face a battle over their subletted apartment with a stranger who might have lost more than only her deposit. Set in contemporary America, these stories herald a work of singular literary merit by an important writer at the height of her power.

About Karen E. Bender

Karen E. Bender is the author of Refund, a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction, short-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and long-listed for the Story Prize. She is also the author of the novels Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. She is the Visiting Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Hollins University.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Katie on September 24, 2015

The only word to describe this particular set of short stories is dour. They were all so similar in theme that is was difficult to infer anything new from one to the other, and generally unmemorable as a whole. I was left with a very bitter taste in my mouth and was happy to have arrived at the end.......more

Goodreads review by Suzanne on July 21, 2019

She was a small, tense girl who burrowed firmly into any ideas that came to her and then refused to come out. She moved, swiftly, to Malaysia to teach English and hear any language but her own. I was left here, with no plan for myself: I knew that I was supposed to live. I felt like I was made of......more

Goodreads review by David on November 12, 2018

Overall, a rather satisfying collection of (13) short stories. In most of these stories, the author uses what I consider a classic structure for short story writing: blending something very basic about the human condition with two seemingly opposing storylines, building both to a point that matters......more

Goodreads review by Sue on October 28, 2015

Like nothing else I've read. These stories are mostly about the edge we all live on financially, and how it affects everything else in our lives. They are stories of the middle class in a time of downward mobility and downsizing. They are funny and precise, and the social commentary is subtly presen......more

Goodreads review by Beverly on April 21, 2015

Wonderful stories. Bender has amazing range and unique slants on the people we may pass by in the street, in the halls, on a cruise ship to Alaska. No matter where, surprising things (not impossible things) happen and the writing sparkles.......more