
Impotent
A Novel
Matthew Roberson(Author)
Fiction Collective Two (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 30. March 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
112 pages
978-1-57366-148-5 (ISBN)
Description
M - is married with children, working a dead-end job solely for the insurance and meager income. He's in a financial and emotional trough, and asks his doctor for Paxil because he's worried he'll never stop worrying. Meanwhile, L - is a college dropout and construction worker. He self-medicates, starting with Ambien and moving, after he accidentally cuts off some fingers, to Darvocet, only to be led by his doctor to Zoloft once the cocktail of pharmaceuticals meant to wake him up puts him to sleep.""Impotent"" is a collection of moving stories about a time when individuals are reduced to letters on a medical chart and 'it is easier to get a refill on a prescription than approval for therapy'. In revealing vignettes, Matthew Roberson clinically catalogs the hopes, dreams, and failures of people identified only through form-like abbreviations (C - for co-dependent, I - for Insured). In these 'case studies', Roberson captures his subjects' lives poignantly by supplementing their diagnoses with unconventional footnotes, lists, and medicinal warnings. Each vignette exposes a different facet of our medicated society, humanizing a multitude of conditions: depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, impotence, and dementia. In a world of domestic ennui, deadpan voices struggle to transcend numbness while simultaneously trying to manage the pain of living. ""Impotent"" is both important social commentary and engrossing fiction.
Reviews / Votes
As the fictions in Impotent accumulate, the book graphically decays, morphs, becomes ruined in front of your eyes. Matthew Roberson's work is, in a way, a rewriting of Frankenstein but Impotent is the monster itself - patched up, stitched, sewn together. A hybrid. A mash-up. The book reanimated. Sublime. And 'it's alive!' - Michael Martone, author of Michael Martone and The Blue Guide to IndianaMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Normal
United States
Publishing group
The University of Alabama Press
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 213 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
236 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-57366-148-5 (9781573661485)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
11/2015
1st Edition
University of Alabama Press
€48.99
Available for download
Person
Matthew Roberson is the author of 1998.6 (FC2). He teaches at Central Michigan University and lives with his wife and children in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.