Empty Bed Blues: StoriesUniversity of Missouri Press, 2006 M04 1 - 208 páginas The fifteen stories of George Garrett’s Empty Bed Blues (his eighth book-length collection) are vintage Garrett—no two alike—with each moving, one way and another, in new and daring directions. His stories are deeply concerned with the old verities of love and death and filled with the joys and woes of characters who come to life and command our attention. Diversity is the key word for Garrett’s short fiction. He works in every known form and invents a few himself. In “A Story Goes with It,” Garrett fondly remembers an old friend while retelling a story the man once told him. Most of it is probably not accurate, as Garrett is quick to admit, but the mixture of fact with fiction makes for an entertaining read. His stories turn like the sharp curves of a mountain road, abruptly changing from a fond trip down memory lane to a sleazy reporter’s quest along the backroads for the ultimate crime story in “Pornographers.”He tops off his collection with “A Short History of the Civil War,” a series of poems written by two participants: one a Confederate, the other a Yankee. In the marriage of fact and fiction, of comedy and pathos, and the music of many voices, the stories of Empty Bed Blues reconfirm the judgment of novelist and story writer Richard Bausch, who said in 1998: “There is no writer on the American scene with a more versatile, more eclectic, or more restless talent than George Garrett.” |
Dentro del libro
Resultados 1-5 de 23
... laughing. They told us that the pale young men were the one and only John Dillinger gang. They said we were lucky to be alive. “Well, one thing for sure,” Father said. “They are all patriots.” “And they had very good manners,” my mother ...
... laugh the way George did, but on the other hand—he had not then been selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club. Now that I am caught up in these memories I could go on, but— to repeat—these recollections (and some few George might add) ...
... laughing and scratching and talking trash and taking some hits until it was time for us to go to the airport. Got there (safe and sound). It was a terrible-looking little airport. Parking lot empty. Tall grass growing everywhere. Not ...
... laughing and scratching. After a while ole Eddie wakes up and stretches. “Everything okay?” He asks. “Everything is copacetic, five-by-five.” Lucky for us, it turned out not to be quite so bad as everybody had expected. It was a ...
... Laughing, she jumped up from the table and joined the dancers. Danced for a few moments in all her fine new clothes, then suddenly began to shuck off those clothes and become another naked dancer. I remember her wedding ring, a big ...
Contenido
1 | |
2 | |
6 | |
3 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR | 50 |
4 THE MISERY AND THE GLORY OF TEXAS PETE | 57 |
5 TANKS | 61 |
6 EMPTY BED BLUES | 69 |
7 GHOST ME WHAT S HOLY NOW | 83 |
8 Spilling the Beans | 105 |
9 Pornographers | 117 |
10 With My BodyI Thee Worship | 124 |
11 HEROES | 147 |
12 A PERFECT STRANGER | 155 |
13 GATOR BAIT | 164 |
EPILOGUE | 177 |