- Paperback: 9999 pages
- Publisher: Picador; New Ed edition (5 Feb 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330373099
- ISBN-13: 978-0330373098
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 1.6 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,114,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
"Masterful and wrenching." Boston Globe
"A volume of short stories that belongs alongside those of Raymond Carver . . . Brilliant, moving, often gloriously funny and triumphant." The San Francisco Chronicle
"As interesting a group of stories as can be found in contempory literature." The Miami Herald --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
"A volume of short stories that belongs alongside those of Raymond Carver . . . Brilliant, moving, often gloriously funny and triumphant." The San Francisco Chronicle
"As interesting a group of stories as can be found in contempory literature." The Miami Herald --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
‘Masterly . . . the work of a fine writer on the top of his form’ Sunday Telegraph
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First Sentence
MARY URQUHART had just finished story hour at the library when the muted phone rang at the circulation desk. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
MARY URQUHART had just finished story hour at the library when the muted phone rang at the circulation desk. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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5 reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
A MEMORABLE COLLECTION
3 Oct 2000
Format:Paperback
In William Golding's landmark The Lord Of The Flies we weep for "the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart." The heart's blackness is mourned again in two sharply drawn story collections. Despair is their leit motif.
Emotionally scarred, the characters in these tales are fragmented by substance abuse, by obdurate personal demons or both. Nonetheless, such unengaging personalities become compelling when presented by a pair of Pulitzer Prize nominees writing at top form. The child of a schizophrenic mother and unknown father, Robert Stone spent three years in an orphanage. Later, as a New Orleans census taker, he walked that city's back streets. With Bear And His Daughter, seven intense tales penned between 1969 and today, he depicts communal deadends and the dissolute souls trapped therein.
Begin with "Miserere." A widowed librarian's bitterness becomes a mission to have aborted fetuses receive the church's blessing. Another vignette explores the effects of childhood violence: "The worst of it, Mackay says, was the absence of mercy. Once the punishment began, no amount of crying or pleading would stay the prefect's hand. Each blow followed upon the last, inexorably like the will of God. It was the will of God."
The title story sears as it traces the downward spiral of a visit by an alcoholic poet to his drug addicted emotionally deprived daughter. The author's chilling denouement rivals Euripidean tragedies.
Robert Stone's writing is edgy, scalpel keen. He probes, cuts, laying back the protective coverings of our human condition. He well knows life's underside.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Robert Stone's fans won't be disappointed.
18 Nov 1997
Format:Hardcover
The themes will be familiar to those who've read Mr. Stone's novels. Alcohol & drug abuse, characters haunted by the past. His characters are on the verge of losing it, and often do. Mr. Stone knows how to build intensity, and his style and structure propel the reader toward the climax, climax being a more apt term than conslusion. Not for the faint of heart or those looking to be uplifted, but a look at life that is real indeed.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
What an incredible collection
27 May 1999
Format:Paperback
Stone's short stories don't have much in the way of plot, but they each leave the reader with an unforgettable insight into the way Stone feels the world works. My favorite tale is "Aquarius Obscured," in which a woman gets high and takes her dog to the aquarium, where the woman has a conversation with a fascist dolphin. Each story here deserves careful reading, and readers who comply will not be disappointed.
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