Remedies For Hunger

by Anara Guard

Book Cover: Remedies For Hunger

This collection of short stories focuses on moments in life when something turns: a choice is made, a promise kept or broken. With vivid and precise details, you are introduced to characters whose inner lives are both troubled and eloquent. These observant tales provide remedies to readers who are hungry for stories that will resonate long after the last page is turned.

PURCHASE:
Paperback
eBook
Kindle

Named to the Chicago Book Review's Best Books list

Published:
Tags:
Reviews:Chicago Book Review wrote:

Anara Guard’s second collection of short stories showcases the experiences and emotions of the domestic scene. The book’s cover is an array of windows and doors, which represents the content within. Guard explores the complexity, the weirdness, and the heartache of what happens in the home among family and significant others. She embraces how quirky and funny life can be but also mixes the humor with life’s inevitable sadness and disappointment. Reading these stories is like walking through the house next door, with its everyday miracles and betrayals, both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Guard’s stories are a pleasure to read. These short stories are powerful and memorable, and although not long, they require time for reflection. Readers likely will recognize themselves in these stories, which evoke childhood memories that will feel familiar. These stories are luscious food for thought.

Readers wrote:

The stories in "Remedies for Hunger" evoke thought about the human condition as seen through the eyes of the most common of us rather than super heroes. Most of the stories are told in first person and pull you into lives that feel familiar -- yet different, the behind-the-scene stories underlying the headlines in the newspaper, the kind of stories that touch you emotionally, the kind of stories that cause you to reach inside for empathy and understanding rather than judgement. – Margaret Duarte

The strength of these stories lies in the characters that are created, each one engaging, believable, and irresistibly vulnerable. As often as we want to think of ourselves as not only unique, but also exceptional, better than others, the characters in Remedies for Hunger reveal that we are not. Regardless of the circumstances or situation, each character is self-reflective and insightful in ways that remind us of our commonality. Even the bear. I feel as though I have just spent time with many new and interesting people, each with a fascinating story to tell. -- Cherie O’Boyle

How lucky am I to have in my possession Anara's latest book! - just received it today (yay), and was impatient to get to it. I wish I hadn’t brought it with me to a Dr. Appointment though. - just as I was becoming immersed in a rather erotic passage, he entered the room. (come back later, please). I suspected my eyes had become dilated and anxiously stammered through his questions. In any case, the last line of “ Ambidextrous” - stunningly flawless! I confess it took me a few seconds to catch on (okay, maybe 15 or 20 seconds). By the time I finished “Georgia” I came to understand that this is a book to be alone with, to savor, with no risk of interruption; - not one to be read in a waiting room. –Nadia Roman


About the Author

Anara studied writing at the Urban Gateways Young Writers Workshop of Chicago with Kathleen Agena, the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts with Norman Corwin, Columbia College Story Workshop, St. Joseph’s College with Stu Dybek, Bread Loaf Writers Conference with Robert Cohen and Alix Ohlin, and the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. She graduated from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science in Boston. In 2010, Back Pages Publishing issued her first collection of short stories, The Sound of One Body. Her second story collection, Remedies for Hunger (2014) was named one of the Best Books of 2015 by Chicago Book Review. Read her interview with the Authors Guild.

Her debut novel, Like a Complete Unknown, won Honorable Mention from the Chicago Writers Association's for indie fiction Best Books of 2022, and is an Eric Hoffer Award finalist.

She is also a poet and memoirist. Her poems, improbably enough, have won both a John Crowe Ransom Poetry Prize and a Jack Kerouac Poetry Prize, as well as gold prize from the California State Poetry Society. Her work has recently appeared in The Ear, Gold Man Review, New York Times Tiny Love Stories, Last Stanza Poetry Review, Persimmon Tree, and elsewhere.  She and her sister, Gay Guard-Chamberlin, perform their poetry together as Sibling Revelry. Watch videos of Sibling Revelry here and here

Contact the author, subscribe to her newsletter, visit her website, follow her on Instagram or Facebook.

Quotes from various Sibling Revelry audiences:

Loved your program! The introductions/backgrounds/history for the poems were perfect as well as breaking up the poetry by themes. The interplay between you also worked really well. – Joanne K.

Your reading was a delight!  So much fun to see the similarities and difference between the two of you and your work. You read (and write, of course) so expressively. —Michelle K.

It was such a delight for me.  It was such a treat to hear their work and see how they play off one another with their different personalities and styles of writing.  It was also fun to hear them read each other’s poems.—Ruth K.

I was very grateful for the brief respite your event provided. I ordered your book, so I am anxious for it to arrive. I think my favorite poem may have been the one about “What is Greater than 45” probably because of our current situation. I also loved the poem about her breasts; something I can relate to these days!—Shelli S.

I really loved hearing both of you together and the way your poetry intersects and yet is so different. I think your "concept" in these readings is just so lovely for this strange time. I can imagine writing a dissertation on both of your work and its--maybe "interplay" is the right word? I was definitely seeing your performance art side in the reading. —Abby B.

So lovely to see the two of you together with all your devotees! It was a delightful hour, so thank you. The poems really do come to life and I think you should think about reading each other’s poems more. It adds a certain freedom to the reading, I think. Nina G.

That was a lot of fun. The poem about the mason jar actually got me alittle misty ("the grandmother's home we long to return to") so I covered my cam for a second to blink back the tears. The ending about the lip meeting our lips is wonderful, too. And I loved the poem about the crow and its knick-knack shelf.—Erika M.

 



Other Books By Anara Guard