Southern Stories: Selected Stories, Vol. 1

From Publishers Weekly
Canadian Blaise (author of 12 previous books, including Lusts and If I Were Me) gathers 13 early short stories, all set in the grim, steaming poverty of north-central Florida in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Autobiographical in inspiration, they reflect Blaise's own childhood as an intelligent child of Canadian parents struggling to make their way in a world of rednecks, migrant workers, tarpaper shacks, swamps and privation. Carefully worded and beautifully constructed, these tales reveal Blaise's talent as a storyteller, as well as his dark view of human nature. In "A Fish Like a Buzzard," two quarrelsome young brothers go fishing on a Florida lake, but only one may come back. In "A North American Education," a father takes his son to a county fair peep show to teach him about sex, but the lesson has unpleasant consequences. "The Fabulous Eddie Brewster," a clever story of clouded family loyalty, suspicion and wartime secrets, is one of the collection's strongest. Entries tell of infidelity, racism and religious intolerance-of a boy's deep and inexplicable admiration for his father, driven by "blind lusts," and a family's business betrayal and their subsequent retreat to escape their failure and humiliation. Though Blaise's volume is a superb example of controlled, elegant writing, readers should not expect to find many moments of humor or happiness. As Johnson notes in his introduction, "an open-ended terror underlies these stories.... [and] the characters never fully comprehend the forces that have been brought to bear upon them.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times
`A born storyteller ... a writer to savour.'


Books in Canada
`[a] fresh, idiosyncratic approach to what the short story can and should do.'


The Toronto Star
`... fascinating studies of the Global Village in the late 20th century.'


Book Description
The stories collected here are among the earliest in Blaise's forty-year publishing career. The experience of Florida - particularly the under-developed north-central areas close to modern Disneyfied Orlando - profoundly affected a `Yankee' child with Canadian parents. The Florida he describes is little changed since the Civil War.


Buy from Amazon     Compare Prices

Canadian Blaise (author of 12 previous books, including Lusts and If I Were Me) gathers 13 early short stories, all set in the grim, steaming poverty of north-central Florida in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Autobiographical in inspiration, they reflect Blaise's own childhood as an intelligent child of Canadian parents struggling to make their way in a world of rednecks, migrant workers, tarpaper shacks, swamps and privation. Carefully worded and beautifully constructed, these tales reveal Blaise's talent as a storyteller, as well as his dark view of human nature. In "A Fish Like a Buzzard," two quarrelsome young brothers go fishing on a Florida lake, but only one may come back. In "A North American Education," a father takes his son to a county fair peep show to teach him about sex, but the lesson has unpleasant consequences. "The Fabulous Eddie Brewster," a clever story of clouded family loyalty, suspicion and wartime secrets, is one of the collection's strongest. Entries tell of infidelity, racism and religious intolerance-of a boy's deep and inexplicable admiration for his father, driven by "blind lusts," and a family's business betrayal and their subsequent retreat to escape their failure and humiliation. Though Blaise's volume is a superb example of controlled, elegant writing, readers should not expect to find many moments of humor or happiness. As Johnson notes in his introduction, "an open-ended terror underlies these stories.... [and] the characters never fully comprehend the forces that have been brought to bear upon them." (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.


Buy from Barnes & Noble     Compare Prices