Product Description
Brother, What Strange Place is This? is Tom Saunders’ first short story collection.
From the pagan brutalities of a Welsh island at the time of the Armada in The Seal Man to the quest for redemption of an English jazz pianist in modern day Cuba in The Calle de Obra Pia, the stories explore the complexities of history and the twists and turns of the human journey.
Beautifully, often lyrically written, these stories reveal a keen and playful intelligence at work and all are executed with humour and compassion. The characters are, by turn, quirky, difficult, off beat and yet each is sympathetically rendered.
The title story Brother, What Strange Place is This? examines the relationship between two brothers, one excited by the possibilities of the 20th century, the other, a classical composer, mad with remorse over the instincts he is unable to discipline and understand.
This is a truly remarkable debut, both original and imaginative. Not just a book for lovers of finely crafted short stories, but for everyone interested in the art of writing and in literature itself.
From the pagan brutalities of a Welsh island at the time of the Armada in The Seal Man to the quest for redemption of an English jazz pianist in modern day Cuba in The Calle de Obra Pia, the stories explore the complexities of history and the twists and turns of the human journey.
Beautifully, often lyrically written, these stories reveal a keen and playful intelligence at work and all are executed with humour and compassion. The characters are, by turn, quirky, difficult, off beat and yet each is sympathetically rendered.
The title story Brother, What Strange Place is This? examines the relationship between two brothers, one excited by the possibilities of the 20th century, the other, a classical composer, mad with remorse over the instincts he is unable to discipline and understand.
This is a truly remarkable debut, both original and imaginative. Not just a book for lovers of finely crafted short stories, but for everyone interested in the art of writing and in literature itself.
Synopsis
Tom Saunders is the author of the outstanding collection of short stories, Brother, what strange place is this? Previous work has been published in the anthologies Pleasure Vessels and Voices from the Web. Brother, What Strange Place Is This? is Tom Saunders' first short story collection. "From the pagan brutalities of a Welsh island at the time of the Armada in The Seal Man to the quest for redemption of an English jazz pianist in modern day Cuba in The Calle de Obra Pia, the stories explore the complexities of history and art and the twists and turns of the human journey. Beautifully, often lyrically written, these stories reveal a keen and playful intelligence at work and all are executed with humour and compassion. The characters are, by turn, quirky, difficult, off beat and yet each is sympathetically rendered. The title story Brother, What Strange Place Is This? examines the relationship between two brothers, one excited by the possibilities of the 20th century, the other, a classical composer, mad with remorse over the instincts he is unable to discipline or understand. This is a truly remarkable debut, both original and imaginative. Not just a book for lovers of finely crafted short stories, but for everyone interested in the art of writing and in literature itself." - GATOR SPRINGS GAZETTE, a literary journal of the fictional persuasion. "Tom Saunders' "Brother, What Strange Place is This" gave her rippling spine-shivers for whole giddy paragraphs": 'It was gone midday before the composer's older brother, Alaric, was called to the hospital. Wings of his long leather overcoat beating, he flew out of the gates of the Curzon Motor Bicycle Company astride the prototype of the twin-cylinder Rapide Senior, the burnished steel of its petrol tank mirroring an unburnished sky. Swerving around a cairn of manure, he cut between an omnibus and a brewer's dray, the nearest horse rolling the yellow of an eye and baring its teeth in the style of a bad Hamlet. As he cut the corner into Dartington Street fine rain slapped his face and the rear wheel scrubbed an S on the wet road. Drab in their off-duty clothes, a trio of whores turned from a shop window to watch him tame the machine and rip on in a blue haze.' - The Bodega Babe, Bodega Survey (reviewing Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios' All Story: Extra).
