Seconds of Pleasure: Stories

Neil LaBute is best known for his controversial films In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, and his plays The Mercy Seat and The Shape of Things which he also adapted for the screen. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and Harper's Bazaar, among others. Now, in his debut collection of stories, he brings to the page his cutting humor and compelling take on the shadowy terrain of the human heart. Seductive and disturbing, the stories in Seconds of Pleasure are not for the faint of heart. Each potent and pithy tale finds men and women exploiting or at the mercy of the hidden fault lines that separate them: a woman leaves her family at their vacation home after discovering her husband in a compromising situation in "Time Share"; a middle-aged man obsesses over a scab on the calf of a pretty young girl in "Boo-Boo"; and a vain Hollywood actor gets his comeuppance in "Soft Target." Infused with LaBute's trademark wit and black humor, Seconds of Pleasure unleashes his imagination in stories that offer unflinching insight into our very human shortcomings and impure urges with shocking candor.