Julia and the Bazooka

SHORT STORIES. A posthumous collection of Kavan's prose, Julia and the Bazooka, and Other Stories (1970), makes an accessible and representative introduction to her work. "Bazooka" was her own term for a syringe, and there are a couple of pieces in here than deal directly with drug use. One of the best stories, "The Mercedes," was evidently inspired by her relationship with Bluth and suggests that there was something rather more complex than inseparable friendship going on. A man and a woman wait for a car to arrive to take him back to his wife. The car simply appears before them, and the man gets in and drives away, leaving the devastated woman behind.