Seconds of Pleasure

the long version

"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 dancer rescues a man stranded in the parking lot of a strip club in "Open All Night"; 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, the stories vivisect human relations in a way that is at once intimate, brutal, and unsettlingly familiar. In Seconds of Pleasure Neil LaBute unleashes his imagination in stories that offer unflinching insight into our very human shortcomings and impure urges with shocking candor."--BOOK JACKET.