From Publishers Weekly
In this collection of 13 short stories, Southern writer Gay (Provinces of Night; The Long Home) confirms his place in the Southern fiction pantheon. Set in rural Tennessee, the stories pulsate with the inevitability of emotional pain, sometimes charged with fear, other times with limitless rage. Gay's characters are perpetually frustrated with the world's awkwardness and obstinacy, lashing out in bizarre ways. After shooting his wife's yapping dog and then facing divorce proceedings, the protagonist of "Sugarbaby" flees responsibility and commits suicide rather than face the music. About to leave town with a young woman who exudes "sullen eroticism," the downwardly mobile television salesman whose desperation animates "The Man Who Knew Dylan" deserts her at a bus stop, smelling too much trouble to handle. In the more ironic stories, natural forces stifle rebellion. The title tale peaks when an old man pushed out of his home by his son tries unsuccessfully to burn out the house's new occupants, nearly killing himself. Although the stories maintain an alluringly simple, spare affect, they are complex in their psychological underpinnings and their poetically described settings range from deep woods to shady towns to the half-junkyard, half-wilderness hell of the area known as "the Harrikin," to which several of Gay's characters flee when they reach the end of their tether. The very names establish authenticity: Finis Beasley, Billy Crosswaithe, Bonedaddy, Quincy Nell. Despite occasional rambling sentences revealing the influence of Cormac McCarthy or the odd false-ringing line of twangy dialogue, this collection is a fine showcase for Gay's imaginative talent.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
From Library Journal
Gay (Provinces of Night; The Long Home) offers a collection of stories whose characters arrive at a crossroads and usually choose the wrong path, be it violence, arson, or suicide. In the title story, an elderly man escapes his retirement home and uses extreme measures to rid his house of the family who is renting it. "The Paperhanger" involves a Pakistani doctor's wife, her difficulties with the titular paperhanger, and a missing child. In "Closure" and "Roadkill on the Life's Highway," a quest for a hidden stash of money gives the protagonist the means to come to terms with his estranged wife. Gay often fails to connect characters with the reader, so it's hard to understand why they make their violent, irrational decisions. But in the stronger stories the truth of the characters comes through. For larger public libraries and collections of Southern fiction. Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Lib., Minneapolis
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
