Pipistrel

Selzer, Richard

Primary Category: Literature / Fiction

Genre: Short Story

Annotated by:
Kohn, Martin
  • Date of entry: Nov-05-1999

Summary

Pipistrel is a tale about difference and lack of understanding. It recounts a teen-aged autistic boy's flight from the destroyed safety of his home to a nearby mountain cave. It also is the story of a mother's love and devotion to this human, yet bat-like creature, whom she bore and whom she can no longer protect.

The mother, Ada, discovers after many months where her son has hidden. She protects his secret hiding place from the townsfolk, but only for a while. After convincing her neighbors that he's no longer in the cave she returns to its depths to find he's fallen from the ceiling and has died. The story's final image is of the mother next to her son's body looking at the drawings he had made on the walls of the cave.

Primary Source

Imagine a Woman and Other Tales

Publisher

Random House

Place Published

New York

Edition

1990

Page Count

30