- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Scribner (Jan 4 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1439190054
- ISBN-13: 978-1439190050
- Product Dimensions: 21.5 x 14.1 x 1.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 200 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #711,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
The whorls, chambers, and ribs of the seashell are an elegance unto themselves, but if man-made beauty can come anywhere close to this, Anthony Doerr's short stories would be perfect candidates. His debut collection, The Shell Collector, sets such high standards, sentence to sentence, that it is more like the private architecture of shells than like the random borrowings, sexual details, and flashes of insight that make up the bulk of contemporary fiction. The title story is about a blind man of 58, a scholar of shells (malacology), who retires to an isolated beach-side hut in Kenya, but then accidentally discovers a cure for a major illness in the often-deadly stings of the cone snail. "The Hunter's Wife," a second small masterpiece, describes the marriage of a Montana hunter and his much younger, psychically gifted wife. There are more conventional pieces here; well-written, resonating stories that do not attempt the sweep or descriptive wealth of "The Shell Collector," although they are still at the level of the best realistic fiction that is being published now in America. --Regina Marler
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
HThe natural world exerts a powerful, brooding presence in this first collection; it's almost as much a main character as any of the individuals the 26-year-old Doerr records. Nature, in these eight stories, is mysterious and deadly, a wonder of design and of nearly overwhelming power. This delicate balance is evidenced by the title story, about a blind man who spends his days collecting rare and beautiful shell specimens. Self-exiled to the coast of Kenya, he discovers that a certain poisonous snail has the power both to kill and to effect a rapid recovery from malaria. This discovery brings him much attention but little joy, disturbing the carefully ordered universe that he has constructed to manage both his blindness and his temperament. A naturalist's perspective also informs the other stories. In "The Hunter's Wife," Doerr catalogues winter in Montana as "a thousand ladybugs hibernating in an orange ball in a riverbank hollow; a pair of dormant frogs buried in frozen mud." But Doerr can play it funny, too: in "July Fourth," a group of American fishermen endure a hilarious litany of woes in a fishing contest across Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. Their troubles include much drinking, few fish and losing their shirts (and all their tackle) to a Belorussian basketball team. The title story could well appear in the next Best American or O. Henry anthologies, and the others make a fine supporting cast. Agent, Wendy Weil. (Jan. 14)Forecast: With blurbs from the likes of Rick Bass, this debut collection should do better than most, especially if reviewers take note.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A moving debut,
By A Customer
This review is from: Shell Collector Stories (Mass Market Paperback)
I'll keep it short and sweet. Three things make this book stand out from other short story collections:a) It is written incredibly well. The stories flow effortlessly, are written with excellent imagery and figurative language, and invoke everything from heartache to nausea. b) It is one of those books that you could read one time for enjoyment... or you could read it three times and dig up all the many meanings. c) This is not your Nora Roberts soap opera. Anybody can use sex and violence to make a book captivating, but it takes a master to weave a beautiful story from something more simple. Without becoming boring, Doerr masters this. Read it, love it, and tell your friends to do the same.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nice coffe shop read,
By
This review is from: Shell Collector Stories (Mass Market Paperback)
If you like short stories then this novel will not disappoint. You will be transported from you coffee shop all over the world and back again. We experience globalization in the workforce these days - this novel takes you around the world to other places and lets you experience a little bit of the world.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good but not GREAT,
By A Customer
This review is from: Shell Collector Stories (Mass Market Paperback)
Whenever a book appears with so much PR, I get both interested and suspicious.The Shell Collector is certainly an impressive book, as far as first collections go. However, I was not overwhelmed by the book as a whole. The strongest stories in the collection are the title story, "The Caretaker," and "The Hunter's Wife." If I had only read these three stories, I would consider Doerr worthy of all the praise (i.e., blurbs on paperback). The remaining stories all seem like versions of the same story. Not only are the characters (preying men, preyed women) similar in composition, but the structure of the stories (shape, POV, arrivals) are also repetitive. How about a first person POV? And if a contemporary writer is going to exercise tresspass vision, writing outside his experience(s), I hope he continues to work beyond surface details (see token ethnicity in "So Many Chances"). Ultimately, I am satisfied with this book. Although I do recommend these first collections for their skill and content: Magic of Blood by Dagoberto Gilb, Sky Over El Nido by C.M. Mayo, and The Question of Bruno by Aleksandar Hemon.
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