- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: WW Norton (May 27 1997)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393040682
- ISBN-13: 978-0393040685
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 14.7 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 431 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #782,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
A wrestler gets an erection and the crowd turns viciously against him. A young, beautiful prostitute thinks better of her latest client, a baseball player who has already killed 11 spectators with his foul shots, than she does of married men "playing the dark game that some men did, putting themselves closer and closer to the edge of their lives, until something went over." A warrior justifies a major tactical mistake (not leaving enough time for the cauldron of oil to heat) in a gung-ho bureaucratic report: "The problems of the day were not attributable to inappropriate deportment. My staff was good. It was when the Visigoths had approached close enough that we could see their cruel eyes and we could read the savage and misspelled tattoos that I realized our error."
Hotel Eden offers two hilarious stories, the boiling oil project and a complex variation on a suburban myth. A young couple necking in an isolated spot hears scratching on one side of the car, speeds off, and discovers the local psychopath's prosthetic hook on the door handle. In Ron Carlson's telling, the item belongs to an innocent mental-asylum watchman. And Mr. Howard Lugdrum is more than a little upset that everyone's sympathy is going to the kids! "I was lucky I was wearing my simple hook and the straps broke; if I'd been wearing my regular armature, those two little criminals would have dragged me to death." This is a seriously funny collection, but it is also serious. In several pieces, notably the title story, "Oxygen," and "Nightcap," the characters are led astray and into disappointment or unwanted knowledge. The college student delivering medical oxygen one summer vacation realizes, "I was young those nights, but I was getting over it." Carlson is also a poet of precarious lives, humiliation, and loss.
From Library Journal
In News of the World (Norton, 1987), Carlson wryly observed the public's fascination with the weirdness of tabloid journalism by giving us a straightforward accounts of Bigfoot, our most popular urban legend. The strongest stories in his uneven new collection have this same sort of quirky sensibility. In "The Chromium Hook," we find out the real story behind that deranged mental hospital escapee who has terrorized generations of teenage couples, and "What We Wanted to Do" is a hilarious account of medieval warfare gone haywire, told in a way that could pass as a modern-day, excuse-ridden statement to the press. "The Hotel Eden" and "Oxygen" are truly engrossing and pack an emotional wallop, but most of the other stories here have a somewhat generic feel and fail to transcend the conventional, man-has-difficulty-relating-to-women plotline. For larger fiction collections.?Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Idaho Lib., Moscow
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Collection of stories that will entertain and move you,
By ChickLitGurrl™ "Shonell Bacon" (Lake Charles, LA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hotel Eden (Paperback)
I found myself very entertained by Carlson's collection of stories, Hotel Eden. A lot of people insisted that I check out his work, and I'm so glad I did. What I found in Hotel Eden was a collection of stories with characters from every walk of life. They were so different, yet so real that I found it hard to believe they lived only on the page and in my mind.Any reader of Hotel Eden will appreciate Carlson's tight and poetic writing that has the ability to snatch you into - at times - bizarre storylines, like the story Zanduce at Second, about a baseball player who has killed 11 spectators with his stinging foul shot and finds an almost blood thirsty thrill in regaining his former playing prowess. In a collection, I would expect to find a few great stories, but in Hotel Eden, I found 12 wonderful stories filled with intriguing characters, fascinating plotlines and a mixture of humor and reality (a sometime sobering thing). I would definitely recommend Hotel Eden to those interested in reading great literature that is ENTERTAINING.
5.0 out of 5 stars
His Best Collection Ever,
By
This review is from: Hotel Eden (Paperback)
The Hotel Eden is possibly Carlson's best collection of short stories ever. This is a fine example of an author in his element of short stories--they are engaging and funny, even fascinating. "The Hotel Eden" is actually my least favorite in the collection (but it's still nothing to look down at). However, I'm somewhat fond of "The Chromium Hook" (an out-take of the popular urban legend) and "Dr. Slime." I wouldn't be going far to say that this collection is genius! Read it.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Count Carlson among the top short story writers working toda,
By Voice of Chunk (NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hotel Eden Stories (Hardcover)
A story should either make you laugh or cry. Ron Carlson's stories do both. I don't know how else to describe his stories other than comparison -- he's as poignant as Andre Dubus, as funny as Lee K. Abbott and John Dufresne, as insightful as Charles Baxter and Lynne Barrett, and has an eye for detail like William Trevor or Alice Munro. Though he's not a minimalist, Carlson doesn't waste a word to sentimentality or a scene to gratuitous fluff. His stories are chiseled out of granite. A great collection.
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