Gasping for Air: Stories of Adults and Children
by Katherine Trace Brueck
“a dark sensibility and profound compassion for children”
Gasping for Air: Stories of Adults and Children portrays a dark sensibility and profound compassion for children scarred by the neglect and abuse of adults meant to protect them. Unsettling and unforgettable, the collection is a stark reminder of the precariousness of childhood innocence. Through short stories, poems, poems-within-stories, and stories-within-poems, the book paints a troubling vision, at times starkly real and at others vividly dreamlike, of the complex relationship between adults and children.
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More on Gasping for Air
“a stark reminder of the precariousness of childhood innocence”
About Gasping for Air
Of the many thousands of books published every year, few can truly be called “unique.” But Katherine Trace Brueck’s Gasping for Air: Stories of Adults and Children is a book like no other. In terms of genre, this collection has no fixed address. It contains short stories, poems, poems-within-stories, and stories-within-poems. There are narratives with distinct beginnings, middles, and ends, and there are also fragments and vignettes. There are sly homages to literary sources ranging from the Bible and classical myth to Lolita and The Catcher in the Rye, all rendered with virtuosic skill in a dizzying array of styles. But Gasping for Air is not just a grab bag, for the book coheres around a dark sensibility and a profound compassion for children damaged by the neglect and abuse of the adults who should protect them. Unsettling and unforgettable, Brueck’s collection is a stark reminder of the precariousness of childhood innocence. — Michael Fleming, author of Bags and Tools: Poems
About Katherine Trace Brueck
Dr. Katherine Brueck taught for over 35 years at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Los Angeles, where she served as Professor and English Department Chair. She published a poetry collection Voiceless Love, Finishing Line Press, 2016. Katherine published sonnets in a variety of literary journals, including Blue Unicorn, The Lyric, and Troubadour. She also authored the scholarly work The Redemption of Tragedy, The Literary Vision of Simone Weil, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1995. With her passing in October of 2020, she is survived by her husband Don, her daughters, Heidi and Emily, and her granddaughters, Chloe and Violet.
The writings of Katherine Brueck are ones that draw you into a world that is both innocent and painful. She touches upon the subjects that few of us dare to approach. Her stories are beautifully crafted and do what good literature does: pierce us to the core. — Marcos McPeek Villatoro, Fletcher Jones Professor of Creative Writing, Mount St. Mary's University, Los Angeles
Finishing Line Press - www.finishinglinepress.com
A Story from Gasping for Air
“Her stories ... pierce us to the core”
Mother, Father, Why have you abandoned me?
“Who is this Father?” Brian asked. “Our Father isn’t in Heaven, or whatever the word was, he is in an institution for alcohol and I’m waiting to get him back. He was so nice when he wasn’t drinking. He gave me a stuffed animal before he left. I would show it to you, but it got stolen at the group home we just came from.”
Beth said, “Our Mom was the same when she was sober. Why isn’t she even mentioned in the prayer? “
Gerald asked, “Did she give you a stuffed animal too before she left?”
“She played the piano. She even gave me a lesson from time to time. My gift was a music box that played Mom’s and my favorite song, ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’ One of the teenage foster children at the home took it from me. Otherwise, I’d love to show it to you. Her eyes welled with tears.
Later that night when the kids were asleep, Jenny said to her husband, “They seem so attached to their biological parents!”
“It’s going to be hard. They told us in the classes it would be hard. We need to expect to have to return them to their real parents. But an addiction is very hard to overcome. The whole thing is so unpredictable. It takes strong people to do what we are doing.“
“I didn’t know how weak I am. In fact, I don’t know if I can do it. It’s the uncertainty that bothers me most. For some reason I never thought about it before. I guess I figured God would work thinks out for us. Now that we have met the children, I don’t think I can bear it. I love them already, don’t you? And at times we seem to be doing them so much good.”
“Well, if we can’t do it we can always return them. That’s the worst part of fostering, you can’t count on their love, but they have to be able to count on yours.”
“Maybe we should go the next step on our infertility treatments. I think I am willing to undergo them now, although everyone says they are terrifically painful. Maybe this weekend was God’s way of saying He wants us to have our own biological children, no matter what the cost. “
“The pain. That was why we stopped, wasn’t it? You know the problem could be mine and not yours.”
“That was what I thought but I was afraid to say anything.”
“Okay, darling. Let’s think about it. Good night. They kissed and hugged before falling asleep in one another’s arms.
Mother, Father why have you abandoned me?
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