- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Canada (Sep 11 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 067697399X
- ISBN-13: 978-0676973990
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 299 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,761,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Poet and novelist Steven Heighton brings his love affair with language to fruition in the razor-sharp short stories of On Earth As It Is. The grand themes of love, death, and eroticism drive the 10 collected pieces, which treat passion with a near-religious reverence. Yet in Heighton's finely honed perspective, it's the little things that matter most, and the biggest sin of all is the inability to commit: "I'm sorry that your husband was a sad, stymied man who belittled your life's work and was swallowed completely by his own--but that is not my fault. For that much, at least, I'm not to blame. I could hardly have stayed with you. Think of us together now! You're an old woman now," the titular character in "Downing's Fast"--a divorced small appliance salesman and closet poet--tells the literature professor with whom he once had a passionate and prolonged affair.
In "Heart and Arrow," images of flat and rancid bar cordials ("the pina colada mix, its gluey cap sporting a skirt of bark shavings, had gone off") conjure up the fetid atmosphere of a family plagued by alcoholism. While secretly mixing sophisticated drinks in his parents' wood-paneled basement bar, 10-year-old Merrick stumbles on the chance to reciprocate his big sister Laurel's greatest gift to him: he saves her life. As an adult, however, she can only deny the incident. The secrets they share are not heroic, but sources of shame. When Merrick's wife, desperate for a family, tells him "in her best counsellor's voice that a fear of children is a fear of growing up," Heighton intimates that Merrick fears the opposite: fathering children who are forced to grow up too soon. All this in 18 pages. --Deirdre Hanna
Review
"Steven Heighton is a writer of high intelligence and wit, an immaculate and sensuous stylist whose prose moves fluidly from the acerbic to the erotic." —Janette Turner Hospital
"Heighton writes beautifully on love and regret." —The Globe and Mail
"Heighton writes convincingly…switching smoothly between lyricism and the erotic, between grandeur and elegiac mood. He can carve out a scene of beauty in a few words, but is also able to realize the unremarkable with a vivifying simplicity." —Times Literary Supplement
"Masterly...tales of sex, morality and faith striated with compassion and humanity. The stories possess a rarefied beauty and a capacity to imagine the familiar afresh." —The Sunday Times
"There’s not a wilting word in on earth as it is; these stories are real and rooted and vital." —Quill and Quire
"Heighton writes twith elegance and a breathtaking audacity…and succeeds in defying the odds [by presenting] a second collection of short stories that is, if anything, even better than his first." —Winnipeg Free Press
"Heighton is a brilliant stylist unafraid of investigating the big questions of contemporary life." —Vancouver Sun
"Masterly…tales of sex, mortality an dfaith striated with compassion and humanity. The stories possess a rarefied bearuty and a capacity to imagine the familiar afresh." —Sunday Times
"His intense, multi-layered work demands concentration from the reader-who will be rewarded at every turn." —The literary review (U.K.)
"Heighton writes beautifully on love and regret." —The Globe and Mail
"Heighton writes convincingly…switching smoothly between lyricism and the erotic, between grandeur and elegiac mood. He can carve out a scene of beauty in a few words, but is also able to realize the unremarkable with a vivifying simplicity." —Times Literary Supplement
"Masterly...tales of sex, morality and faith striated with compassion and humanity. The stories possess a rarefied beauty and a capacity to imagine the familiar afresh." —The Sunday Times
"There’s not a wilting word in on earth as it is; these stories are real and rooted and vital." —Quill and Quire
"Heighton writes twith elegance and a breathtaking audacity…and succeeds in defying the odds [by presenting] a second collection of short stories that is, if anything, even better than his first." —Winnipeg Free Press
"Heighton is a brilliant stylist unafraid of investigating the big questions of contemporary life." —Vancouver Sun
"Masterly…tales of sex, mortality an dfaith striated with compassion and humanity. The stories possess a rarefied bearuty and a capacity to imagine the familiar afresh." —Sunday Times
"His intense, multi-layered work demands concentration from the reader-who will be rewarded at every turn." —The literary review (U.K.)
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.ca
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
