- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Canada (Mar 13 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385259581
- ISBN-13: 978-0385259583
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 272 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #483,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Family and place are the hinges on which the stories of Lynn Coady's deservedly lauded Play the Monster Blind swing. And they do swing. The book is a sure-footed dance to the often painful music of the working class of the Canadian East Coast, a tough but graceful negotiation of the living rooms, bars, workplaces, and childhood haunts where violence and tenderness, hilarity and despair, belonging and alienation coincide.
The book's central image--a monstrous, confused loneliness--appears in the title story, which sees a young woman thrown into a manic-depressive driving tour of the Cabot Trail with her fiancé's chaotic, hard-drinking family. As Bethany sees her future father-in-law approach, weaving, arms outstretched, drunkenly repeating interminable stories of his youth, she can think only of Frankenstein's "Boris Karloff, clomping around confused and horrified." The banal grotesquerie of loneliness surfaces again and again in the stories. In "A Great Man's Passing," Bess describes her parents' house, where she lives with her young son, as "a funeral home, with two corpses propped up in front of the TV set." But despite the ache at their core, Coady's stories are often hilarious, their muscular manipulation of language and keen sense of absurdity reminiscent of Denis Johnson and Lorrie Moore. Coady grew up in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and its hyperbolic, wildly metaphorical, and exuberantly profane regional dialect fires these stories with a wicked joy. Coady was nominated for a Governor General's Award for her debut novel, Strange Heaven, and Play the Monster Blind, chosen as one of the best books of 2000 by The Globe and Mail, is a striking and thoroughly satisfying follow-up. --Karen Solie
Review
"Part of the delight and marvel of Coady's stories is their crazy energy: even though Play the Monster Blind is her debut collection, Coady swerves with a hardy veteran's knowing — her work is among the most noteworthy in the country." —National Post
"Stories told with uncommon dexterity and wisdom. Coady has a lively talent, writing with curiosity and warmth about the heartrending tangles of human connection." —The Globe and Mail
"Coady entertains, dazzles, instructs. Her stories manage to do what stories—do best: get at that bright kernel of things and vibrate in the imagination like light-shot gems." —The Toronto Star
"A stunning collection for the strong at heart, a more-than-worthy follow-up to her Governor-General's Award-nominated debut, Strange Heaven." —Vancouver Sun
"Stories told with uncommon dexterity and wisdom. Coady has a lively talent, writing with curiosity and warmth about the heartrending tangles of human connection." —The Globe and Mail
"Coady entertains, dazzles, instructs. Her stories manage to do what stories—do best: get at that bright kernel of things and vibrate in the imagination like light-shot gems." —The Toronto Star
"A stunning collection for the strong at heart, a more-than-worthy follow-up to her Governor-General's Award-nominated debut, Strange Heaven." —Vancouver Sun
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
4.0 out of 5 stars
Exhilarating collection of short fiction, Feb 22 2011
By K. Kvamme "bookstorejunkie" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Play the Monster Blind (Paperback)
Synopsis: An exhilarating collection of short fiction, Play the Monster Blind showcases the remarkably original voice of Lynn Coady, the award-winning author of Strange Heaven. Funny, poignant and smart, full of unforgettable characters, these stories explore the violence of family, the constraints of small-town life and the elusive promise of escape. In "Ice Cream Man," an adolescent girl struggles to come to terms with her mother's death and her father's seeming indifference while conducting a secret affair with an older man from the local arena. Gerald, the young boy in "Big Dog Rage," goes to extreme and reckless measures to thwart the expectations of his parents, teachers, and the local priest, leaving his childhood friend to look longingly on. And in the title story, Bethany sees her gentle fiancé anew as she enters the raucous world of his hard-drinking family. Receiving a sharp shot to the mouth from her future sister-in-law Bethany finds her place in this clan secured.
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