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jamiereadthis's review
3.0
This was a rescue from the library and a no-brainer to rescue a book full of stories. My favorites surprised me, though, bypassing Faulkner (a posthumous story that had never been published) and turning up unexpected gems:
“The Burning,” Jack Cady; a tractor-trailer wreckage on a high Kentucky highway. “The Beach Party,” Shirley Ann Grau; a young girl at a party when a diver washes ashore. Henry Kreisel’s “The Broken Globe,” an Alberta man roaring impotently against the “tampering of God’s flat earth.” William Maxwell’s “Further Tales about Men and Women,” where I couldn’t pick a favorite of the four further tales. “Parker’s Back” might be the biggest surprise, a Flannery O’Connor story I actually kind of love, the wild Parker running from burning bushes and in love with his tattoos. And then there’s the charmingly-titled “Pluto Is the Furthest Planet,” Abraham Rothberg on a recuperating man and his young son, and the tender and aptly-titled “Bottomless Well,” Walter S. Terry on an Alabama man and his young son.
I do love books like this that are a grab-bag, a leveled playing field. You never know what’s hiding inside. It sure makes my prejudices apparent, though. Stories that begin with smog and hustle and bustle bore me on the first page. Stories full of wreckage and wide open space never let me go.
“The Burning,” Jack Cady; a tractor-trailer wreckage on a high Kentucky highway. “The Beach Party,” Shirley Ann Grau; a young girl at a party when a diver washes ashore. Henry Kreisel’s “The Broken Globe,” an Alberta man roaring impotently against the “tampering of God’s flat earth.” William Maxwell’s “Further Tales about Men and Women,” where I couldn’t pick a favorite of the four further tales. “Parker’s Back” might be the biggest surprise, a Flannery O’Connor story I actually kind of love, the wild Parker running from burning bushes and in love with his tattoos. And then there’s the charmingly-titled “Pluto Is the Furthest Planet,” Abraham Rothberg on a recuperating man and his young son, and the tender and aptly-titled “Bottomless Well,” Walter S. Terry on an Alabama man and his young son.
I do love books like this that are a grab-bag, a leveled playing field. You never know what’s hiding inside. It sure makes my prejudices apparent, though. Stories that begin with smog and hustle and bustle bore me on the first page. Stories full of wreckage and wide open space never let me go.
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