Get to know the colorful cast of characters at the Granite State Trailerpark, where Flora in number 11 keeps more than a hundred guinea pigs and screams at people to stay away from her babies, Claudel in number 5 thinks he is lucky until his wife burns down their trailer and runs off with Howie Leeke, and Noni in number 7 has telephone conversations with Jesus and tells the police about them. In this series of related short stories, Russell Banks offers gripping, realistic portrayals of individual Americans and paints a portrait of New England life that is at once dark, witty, and revealing.
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"The stories that work have the fire and ice that loom over life and the magic that comes from a good story well and craftily told.""--Boston Globe""Each story is uncommonly good ... surprising, lively writing and believablyhuman characters.... Banks has a terrific eye, mordant yet affectionate, forthe bric-a-brac and the pathos of the American dream ."-- "Washington Post Book World""Mesmerizing .... There are times when Banks's prose fairly dazzles."-- "Publishers Weekly"
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"THE STORY OF FLORA PEASE, how she got to be the way she is now, isn't all that uncommon a story, except maybe in the particulars." Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
"THE STORY OF FLORA PEASE, how she got to be the way she is now, isn't all that uncommon a story, except maybe in the particulars." Read the first page
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This collection of short stories can be read as a novel. Most of the action takes place in the late 1970s in a trailer park in the Northeastern part of the USA. There is good character development of the individuals who live in the park, a little sex and very little violence.
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Russell Banks is a recent find for me and this book - the third of his I have read following Continental Drift and The Reserve - was no disappointment.
It is a collection of 16 short stories centered on a community living in a trailer park in northern New England.
This park is a kind of symbol of the United States in the 1970s where different kinds of people are forced to live side by side whether they like it or not.
Banks has created a cast that could easily fall into stereotypes - repressed homosexual, retired army officer, black nurse, teenage pothead, eccentric old man, unfaithful young wife etc - but he avoids this trap, thanks to his style which manages to be both sharp and understated at the same time.
He conveys not just the personalities of the individuals but also the communal personality of the trailer park.
He does so with particular skill in the best story - The Fisherman - which ends the collection and brings virtually all the characters together in a memorable final scene. This is one of the best things I have read in years.
The Guinea Pig Lady is another fine work and, like The Fisherman, is more of a novella than a short story.
In fact, I feel that Banks is better with these longer pieces as they give him more room to develop an idea. Some of the shorter pieces are feeble in comparison and not up to scratch.
It is a collection of 16 short stories centered on a community living in a trailer park in northern New England.
This park is a kind of symbol of the United States in the 1970s where different kinds of people are forced to live side by side whether they like it or not.
Banks has created a cast that could easily fall into stereotypes - repressed homosexual, retired army officer, black nurse, teenage pothead, eccentric old man, unfaithful young wife etc - but he avoids this trap, thanks to his style which manages to be both sharp and understated at the same time.
He conveys not just the personalities of the individuals but also the communal personality of the trailer park.
He does so with particular skill in the best story - The Fisherman - which ends the collection and brings virtually all the characters together in a memorable final scene. This is one of the best things I have read in years.
The Guinea Pig Lady is another fine work and, like The Fisherman, is more of a novella than a short story.
In fact, I feel that Banks is better with these longer pieces as they give him more room to develop an idea. Some of the shorter pieces are feeble in comparison and not up to scratch.
Format:Paperback
This collection of intertwined stories, that could easily be called a novel, describes the doings of a group of hapless people in a trailer park. All have their dreams, their ambitions, but it is clear from the start that none is going to succeed. Destiny is against them, even when Merle wins the lottery.
Russell Banks describes the inhabitants of the trailer park in a naturalistic way, each in their own story, matter-of-factly but not without compassion. In this he reminds of John Steinbeck, though his language is not as crisp. A well written, melancholic portrait of America's white underclass.
Russell Banks describes the inhabitants of the trailer park in a naturalistic way, each in their own story, matter-of-factly but not without compassion. In this he reminds of John Steinbeck, though his language is not as crisp. A well written, melancholic portrait of America's white underclass.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
On Form
When Banks is on form he's easily one of the best writers on the planet and here he proves why . Its a great little book consisting of short stories featuring characters who crop... Read more
Published on 27 Dec 2007 by Stevie Dal
4.0 out of 5 stars
This is an excellent description of human characteristics.
I just finished this book; it is a fast read that provides really good descriptions of the human condition. It is insightful, and in places, quite eloquent. Read more
Published on 22 Mar 1998
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