The Stories of Mary Gordon
by Mary Gordon
- Used
- good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Good/Good
- ISBN 10
- 0375423168
- ISBN 13
- 9780375423161
- Seller
-
Wamuran, Queensland, Australia
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
The Masterly Stories of Mary Gordon return us to the pleasure of this writer's craft and to her monumental talent as an observer of character and of the ever-fading American Dream. These pieces encompass the pre- and post war Irish American family life she circles in the early Temporary Shelter series, as well as a wealth of new fiction that brings her contemporary characters into middle age; it is their turn to face bodily decline, mortality, and the more complex anxieties of modern life. Gordon captures the sharp scent of feelings as they shift, the shape of particular lives in their hope and incomprehensibility. In "The Neighbourhood," a seven-year-old who has lost her father finds birthday parties, with their noisy games and spun-sugar roses on fancy cakes, her greatest trial. "City Life" explores the dark side of Manhattan apartment living. "Intertextuality" proposes a dream meeting between Proust's characters and the author's aging grandmother.
Throughout, Gordon's surprising path to the centre of a story is as much a part of the tale as the self-understanding her characters achieve in the process: "What were they all, any of them, feeling?" one narrator ventures. "This was the sort of question no one in my family would ask. Feelings were for others: the weak, the idle. We were people who got on with things."
With their powerful insights into how we make do, both socially and privately, these stories are a treasure of American fiction. Each is a joy to read and a chance to savour Gordon's clear vision: her ability to reveal at every turn what we need and what we wish for, and her willingness, always, to address what comes of such precious wishes.
Synopsis
Mary Gordon is the author of six novels, including Final Payments and Pearl ; a memoir, The Shadow Man ; and an earlier collection of stories, Temporary Shelter . She has received a Lila Wallace—Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the 1997 O. Henry Award for Best Story, and an Academy Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She teaches at Barnard College and lives in New York City.
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Details
- Seller
- DASHbooks (AU)
- Seller's Inventory #
- DASHbooks451
- Title
- The Stories of Mary Gordon
- Author
- Mary Gordon
- Book Condition
- Used - Good
- Jacket Condition
- Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10
- 0375423168
- ISBN 13
- 9780375423161
- Publisher
- Pantheon Books
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2006
- Keywords
- mary gordon, stories of mary gordon, novel, talent, irish, american, family,
- Bookseller catalogs
- Short Stories; Novel;
Terms of Sale
DASHbooks
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
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DASHbooks
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- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...