High Noon at Starbucks is an eloquent and compelling exploration of human particularity in diverse cultural settings: the author's hometown of Melbourne, Trumpite Florida, posthandover Hong Kong, and Switzerland. Its themes include midlife experience, identity, mental and physical illness, gender, colonialism and the Holocaust. Whether comic, tragic or tragicomic, these stories are pervasively concerned with the complexities of the moral life. Their historical reach includes imaginative encounters with classics of nineteenth century fiction. Sophisticated but accessible, High Noon at Starbucks reminds us that fictional realism remains very much a going concern.
"Tonally complex and acutely observed, Richard Freadman's powerful stories take us into the inner world of conflicted men as they confront personal crises, and into the experience of the people with whom they share romantic, familial or fleeting relationships. Freadman's exploration of the effect of patriarchy on both women and men extends the reach of Australian fiction. Running through the volume is a comic element, transgressive as well as funny." - Hermina Burns, author