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Post-Freudian Dreaming, Amherst Writers
& Artists Press, Richard
Bentley. $18 A collection of stories and poems. Dick Bentley's work achieves depth without heaviness, but rather with a quirky freshness that makes reading a delight. From the fusion of wildwood and wealth in "Rough Camp" to the voice of the tender, protective mother who is the narrator of "First Day of School," from the playful exactness and prickly aloneness of "In your Letter That You Did Not Write Me" to the voice of the justified maniac in "Health Care," Dick's ability to enter the lives of widely different characters, and to speak out of their experience, is extraordinary. This small book contains many worlds. Dick Bentley is a long time member of Pat Schneider's Wednesday night writing workshop, where all of the poems were first written, and the stories critiqued. Pat describes Dick's voice as "fresh, innovative, quirky, and wise." "If you've ever wondered what John Updike would read like on acid, trip out with Dick Bentley. He can take you far out and then surprise you by evoking ordinary life and feeling so unerringly. Flashbacks guaranteed." (Diane Lefer, author of Radiant Hunger, Very Much Like Desire, and The Circles I Move In) "What a mind is displayed in Richard Bentley's stories — especially the stunning, mysterious "Nighthawk Falls — Dusk" — what intelligence, what fun!" (Pamela Painter, author of Getting to Know the Weather and The Long and Short of It) "There seems to be no limit to where Bentley's writerly mind might take him: bar rooms, shabby-sad neighborhoods, radon-filled basements. Line after line leapt out at me, sometimes elegant as Fred Astaire, sometimes like a monkey mugging with huge teeth." (Sharon Sheehe Stark, author of The Dealer's Yard and A Wrestling Season) "Bentley has a really first-rate imagination. At times playful, at other times darkly satiric, at still other times empathetic, it's a talent that continually illuminates his work." (W.D.Wetherell, author of The Man Who Loved Levittown, Chekov's Sister, and Morning)
DICK BENTLEY grew up in the Midwest, and attended Yale and the Vermont College MFA Program. He served as Chief Planner for the Mayor's Office of Housing in Boston, and now teaches at Western New England College and the University of Massachusetts. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts and is husband of Carolyn and the father of Nicholas and Julia. He was a prize-winner in the Paris Review/ Paris Writers Workshop International Fiction Awards for 1994. An excerpt from Post Freudian Dreaming:
How she always mixed 'em --Dick Bentley
To order this book, please contact AWA at: AMHERST WRITERS & ARTISTS
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