This is a haunting novella. It's so well-written and captivating at the same time. It looks back on a complicated relationship with precision and emotional honesty. Highly recommended.
A sensational international bestseller, and winner of Frances' coveted Prix Goncourt, 'The Lover' is an unforgettable portrayal of the incandescent relationship between two lovers, and of the hate that slowly tears the girl's family apart.
Saigon, 1930s: a poor young French girl meets the elegant son of a wealthy Chinese family. Soon they are lovers, locked into a private world of passion and intensity that defies all the conventions of their society.
A sensational international bestseller, 'The Lover' is disturbing, erotic, masterly and simply unforgettable.
I've been recommending this book to everyone since I read it. I feel like I know F. Scott Fitzgerald after reading. It captures who he is in such an intimate and convincing way, it almost feels like a magic trick. This is Fitzgerald in his last years working to pay off debt by writing bad Hollywood screen plays and trying to write his literary comeback--The Last Tycoon. He manages his health problems, tries not to drink, and tries to manage a new relationship with Sheila Graham. This book haunted me, and I'm not sure why or how O'Nan accomplished this.
In 1937, F. Scott Fitzgerald was a troubled, uncertain man whose literary success was long behind him. In poor health, with his wife consigned to a mental asylum and his finances in ruin, he struggled to make a new start as a screenwriter in Hollywood.
The last three years of Fitzgerald's life, often obscured by the legend of his earlier Jazz Age glamour, are the focus of Stewart O'Nan's heartfelt new novel. With flashbacks to key moments from Fitzgerald's past, the story follows him as he arrives on the MGM lot, falls in love with brassy gossip columnist Sheilah Graham,…
I picked up this book after seeing that it had been featured on Raymond Carver's syllabus when he taught creative writing. I wanted to know why Carver had chosen this book. After reading, I know exactly why. This book is a masterwork. I know of no other short story collection like it. If you like singular short story collections, just read it. It's wholly original, and you won't find better writing anywhere.
Now considered a contemporary classic, Airships was honored by Esquire magazine with the Arnold Gingrich Short Fiction Award. The twenty stories in this collection are a fresh, exuberant celebration of the new American South — a land of high school band contests, where good old boys from Vicksurg are reunited in Vietnam and petty nostalgia and the constant pain of disappointed love prevail. Airships is a striking demonstration of Barry Hannah's mature and original talent.
This novella-in-flash is the winner of the Etchings Press Book Prize and was published by the University of Indianapolis’ Etchings Press in September 2024. It deftly uses short chapters in a unique format to allow for quick, intimate, and gripping flashes into the perspective of the main character, Frank, as he sets off on a quest through North America following a cat named Buffalo.
After Frank escapes from a prison in Kentucky, his journey to find meaning in the absence of his former life as a charismatic traveling preacher leads him all up and down the US and Canada, delving into his own memories and questions of faith, family, self, and stories—and where those stories lead us.
“A man escapes from prison only to find he can’t separate himself from his past. Wes Blake renders the tale with great empathy and in language that’s so lyrical it practically lifts from the page. Blake is a writer to watch.” —Lee Martin, author of Pulitzer Prize Finalist The Bright Forever
“This was an utterly compelling read. Blake’s prose is sparse and simple, whose short, almost broken, sentences sing with enormous power.” —SmokeLong Quarterly
