Stroke of Good Luck: A True Nurse Romance

Kotzwinkle, William

Primary Category: Literature / Fiction

Genre: Short Story

Annotated by:
Ratzan, Richard M.
  • Date of entry: Jul-26-2004

Summary

Before and after an appendectomy (done for what seem possibly questionable indications) an adolescent boy just feeling the surges of pubescence receives the appropriate attentions of a nurse. During a follow-up visit, for no clear medical reason that I can fathom, he also experiences the exhilarating good luck, for him, of a sperm test, performed by the physician's "young, good-looking nurse."

Commentary

In "Stroke Of Good Luck," William Kotzwinkle, the talented and versatile author of the cultish Fan Man, a novel that just flows from beginning to end, and winner of several awards for E. T., the Extra-Terrestrial: A Novel, revels in the bawdy punning that adolescence, pubescence and the variously interpreted rituals of medicine afford.

Primary Source

Elephant Bangs Train

Publisher

Avon

Place Published

New York

Edition

1971

Page Count

10