- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd (5 Feb 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0434011878
- ISBN-13: 978-0434011872
- Product Dimensions: 18.4 x 13.4 x 3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,553,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Short People
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
In "Short People", we encounter, among many others, Jason and Billy, best friends who discover by the age of six how to conquer the world, only to see this idyll then shatter before them; Shawn, whose baptism compels him to make life a holy hell for everyone around him; and Evan, who finds that his pursuit of a Boy Scout merit badge is luring him into uncharted social territory. In the meantime, an agonized couple exhausts their expectations for their own kids, with an aftermath that afflicts them all. There's also Mary, whose sixteenth birthday precipitates an adulthood she is scarcely prepared to enter, and Emmy, who began that same transition when she was only twelve. Finally, and perhaps most harrowingly, is the nurse who with eerie prescience delivers so many babies to their destiny. In a remarkable display of imagination and compassion, Joshua Furst reconstrues our preconceptions about innocence, purity, faith and memory through an unflinching, pitch-perfect gaze, with both authority and originality. Each new story enhances a collection whose importance is thoroughly contemporary and at once hilarious and heartbreaking.
From the Publisher
A striking first collection of short stories, which explore childhood and adolescence with an extraordinary precision of observation and remarkable empathy.
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2 reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Scarily accurate portrayal of the minds of children
5 Dec 2004
Format:Paperback
This collection of stories gets inside the heads of kids. Furst reveals voices of children that are eerily familiar but more expressive than even the most articulate child could ever be. He has a particularly good eye for detail. His memory for the stuff we had as kids--and our bizarre attachment to these tv shows and toys--could be the stuff of a bad 90s movie. But Furst uses this attention to detail for much more than ironic "retro" nostalgia. In a least redemptive interpretation, these stories could question whether it is all worth it. At their most respectful, the stories give kids a kind of respect that they very rarely get, even though they deserve it.
Oh, and it is also very funny.
Oh, and it is also very funny.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
BORING!
1 May 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY. First of all the title of the book is stolen from a title of a song, it's not even original. The content is repetitive and the language too childlike. This story is supposed to be for adults to read about childhood, but comes off as a book for children. Structure is all over the place. Let me stress again, the language is REPETITIVE. BTW, I read an excerpt of this authors second book- IT'S JUST AS IF NOT EVEN MORE BORING THAN THIS ONE. This writer needs to go back to school and take a workshop on writing. He writes like a know it all when it comes to kids, but is an unskilled communicator. Author needs to be humbled.
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