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James W. Hall Paper Products
Minerva 0749391898 / 9780749391898 PAPERBACK Very Good
0749391898 From Publishers Weekly nFans of Hall's novels ( Tropical Freeze ) and poetry ( False Statements ) will have mixed reactions to the stories in this uneven collection. Writing for the most part about the alienated--teenagers, writers, drifters, an aged widow--Hall displays a light, sure touch with characterization that preserves idiosyncrasy while stopping short of caricature. The best tales are about adolescent boys. In Survival Week 17-year-old Connors spends the ritual final week of his last summer at camp not by himself in the woods but with another camper and a family that includes two teenaged girls. Miami Beach, Kentucky tells of a boy's conflicts with a powerful father, a mayor who wants to change his town's name from Sinking Fork to Miami Beach, and a mother who is principal of the boy's high school. More heavy-handed (and bitter) are the stories about poets. In The Electric Poet the eponymous hero colludes with the Famous Director of the Famous Writers Conference; Poetic Devices is told by a naive emigre poet. Though evocative of place, these works don't reflect the power evident in Hall's novels. nCopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. n nReview nRather, paper-thin products: but these tissue-weight tales from poet-turned-thriller-writer Hall (Under Cover of Daylight, 1987); Tropical Freeze, 1989) are not without their airy charms. One new story, Arabella, sits among eight others reprinted from literary quarterlies, and it's the clunker of the pack: a maudlin tale of an old blind woman who imagines her husband's loving voice speaking to her from a battery-powered talking clock. More representative of the collection's overall wry appeal is Miami Beach, Kentucky, in which an eccentric town-father wages a campaign to change the name of Sinking Fork, KY, to that of the Florida city - and succeeds so well that the air begins swarming with new smells. . .They weren't Kentucky smells. Fishy, fruity, salty smells. That note of light wonder reprises in other stories - in An American Beauty, about a man who finds a rose growing atop his bald skull, and in The Miracles, a fantasy about a football coach who teaches his team's boosters some cheers that send listeners into a defenseless trance. Tougher sentiments inform Survival Week, a sage coming-of-age tale, and the title story, in which bumptious humor fades into sardonicism as Hall deftly chronicles the misadventures of an itinerant plumber. The three remaining tales all deal self-consciously with the arts: Poetic Devices and The Electric Poet, each a mocking story about the politics of literary success; and, far more resonant, Gas, in which a successful conceptual clothes designer returns to her rural family and roots. Slight, nearly translucent tales that expose Hall's poetical nerves - but not his newfound muscle as one of the finest Florida thriller writers. (Kirkus Reviews)
Price:
5.87 EUR
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