Empty Bed Blues: Stories

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University 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.”

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Contenido

Prologue
1
1 Feeling GoodFeeling Fine
2
2 A Story Goes with It
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
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Página 102 - Behold, thou hast made my days as it were a span long : and mine age is even as nothing in respect of thee; and verily EVERY MAN LIVING IS ALTOGETHER VANITY. 7 For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain : he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them.
Página 100 - I laid me down and slept, and rose up again ; for the Lord sustained me. 6 I will not be afraid for ten thousands of the people, that have set themselves against me round about. 7 Up, Lord, and help me, O my God; for thou smitest all mine enemies upon the cheek-bone : thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.
Página 147 - Remove gas cylinder tube and forearm (let mechanism forward easily). e. Remove trigger guard. f. Remove recoil spring guide- and recoil spring. g. Push hammer pin through hammer pin hole in receiver. h. Remove operating handle. i. Remove hammer pin.
Página 42 - His left hand trembled, his back was bent, his gaze was fixed, his eyes protruded but lacked their former lustre, his cheeks were flecked with red.
Página 49 - ... Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp; Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone, The armies who endured that sullen swamp. Here was the world's worst wound. And here with pride "Their name liveth for ever,
Página 153 - During rearward movement the processes of unlocking, extraction, ejection, and compression of the recoil spring are effected ; during the forward movement, feeding, locking, and igniting the cartridges are accomplished. The rifle is fed from a magazine having a capacity of 20 cartridges. This rifle can be fired effectively from all positions prescribed in TR 150-30.

Acerca del autor (2006)

George Garrett is Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. He has spent almost fifty years at work as a literary craftsman writing and publishing poetry, short stories, novels, and literary criticism. Garrett ranks among the most successful southern writers of the twentieth century; his stories have been widely anthologized and have earned numerous awards, including the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in short fiction. He was Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2002 to 2004 and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Virginia in 2004 and the Cleanth Brooks Medal from the Fellowship of Southern Writers in 2005. He resides in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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