- Hardcover: 183 pages
- Publisher: Harpercollins; First Edition edition (Jun 1986)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0060155671
- ISBN-13: 978-0060155674
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.2 x 2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,020,694 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Success Stories
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"Each story is uncommonly good...surprising, lively writing and believably human characters....Banks has a terrific eye, mordant yet affectionate, for the bric-a-brac and the pathos of the American dream.""--Washington Post Book World"
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
In "Success Stories, " an exceptionally varied yet coherent collection, Russell Banks proves himself one of the most astute and forcerful writers in America today. "Queen for a Day, " "Success Story, " and "Adultery" trace the fortunes of the Painter family in their pursuit of and retreat from the American dream. Banks also explore the ethos of rampiant materialism in a group of contemporary moral fables. "The Fish" is an evocative parable of faith and greed set in a Southeast Asian village, "The Gully" tells of the profitability of violence and the ironies of upward mobility in a Latin American shantytown, and "Children's Story" explores the repressed rage and boils beneath the surface of relationships between parents and children and between citizens of the first and third worlds.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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First Sentence
THE ELDER OF THE TWO BOYS, Earl, turns from the dimly lit worktable, a door on sawhorses, where he is writing. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
THE ELDER OF THE TWO BOYS, Earl, turns from the dimly lit worktable, a door on sawhorses, where he is writing. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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5 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Beautifully Human
18 Jan 2000
Format:Paperback
Russell Banks doesn't write about people per se; he write about what they do and leaves you to determine why they do it. Reading his prose is sort of like touring the human psyche by the light of a sputtering sparkler. Banks will never cheat or dupe you, and that's what makes his subjects and their lives so wonderfully human.
The Sarah Cole story is worth the price of the book, and The Fish is an amazingly incisive parable about righteousness and the tragedy of good intentions.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Success Stories
1 Dec 1999
Format:Paperback
A book about contradiction and moral mistakes, Success Stories did something for me that literature sometimes can: it helped me understand myself and my relationships with the people I love a little more usefully.
Several of the stories follow the fortunes of Earl Painter and his broken family with a distinctness and sympathetic humanity that forgives these sad characters who do the best they can with what they have and who they are, but does not blind itself or romanticize the truths of their lives. The other stories read like morality fables, reminding us that our own good and evil, our own conscious and unconscious intentions can be subverted and pushed down paths we don't have the foresight to predict when they leave us and go into the world.
A deeply moving and satisfying book.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Success Stories
1 Dec 1999
Format:Paperback
A book about contradiction and moral mistakes, Success Stories did something for me that literature sometimes can: it helped me understand myself and my relationships with the people I love a little more usefully.
Several of the stories follow the fortunes of Earl Painter and his broken family with a distinctness and sympathetic humanity that forgives these sad characters who do the best they can with what they have and who they are, but does not blind itself or romanticize the truths of their lives. The other stories read like morality fables, reminding us that our own good and evil, our own conscious and unconscious intentions can be subverted and pushed down paths we don't have the foresight to predict when they leave us and go into the world.
A deeply moving and satisfying book.
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