Diverse voices and sparkling debuts dominate today's contemporary short story collections. All of Lange's characters are men--hard men, embattled men, misunderstood men. In the second half there's a man haunted by his ex-wife's ghost while he lives out his days with heroin addicted hookers in a pay by the week motel. We work hard to protect your security and privacy. From Dead City barroom brawls to scrimmages on the Plains of War, the philosophizing of the fleshless Skeletons of the White City to the scouring of the sands of the Moving Desert this is more than a simple quest with layers as deep as Southheap. There's a lot of tension with characters and their interactions. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in. Dope fiends, drunks, tweekers, losers, stalkers, paranoids, and pantie gropers are some of the characters he chronicles. Unable to add item to List. Anyway it is a fun read. Read it and laugh along with the author. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 11, 2018. However, something goes wrong about halfway through the collection. That was beautiful and brutal, grotesque and unique, philosophical and exciting. These two collections are Knockemstiff by Donald ray Pollock and Dead Boys by Richard Lange. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2007. Best book of short stories I've read in a while. Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission. But with his mind in chaos, can he bring any respite to this insanity? Lange has some real talent, but he needs to curb some of these tendencies. Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2015. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in. And that 'voice' he places in the first person narrative in each of these twelve very pungent short stories that comprise his debut on the writing scene. I don't fault the author; he has a very morbid sense of humor. The first two stories in this collection are jaw-droppingly amazing, and there's lots more incredible ones to follow. The book has enough pace to keep you turning the pages but is also immensely introspective at times. A house painter plans a new life for his family as he plots his last bank robbery. While the first few stories feature characters in some pretty grim circumstances by the second half things have turned so bad that it's cartoonish. ― Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author. fans of Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson, Bukowski even. These bereft young men don't seem to suffer so much from a lack of ambition as from a surfeit of emotion. The characters in the book were, for the most part, believable, relatable, and all very human. An ancient evil. I highly recommend this book!! In the title story, the nameless narrator is beset by a host of worrieshe thinks his wife is having an affair and that one of his office colleagues is about to commit suicide. They talk, fight and have adventures as long has they can hold themselves together. The working class, or maybe it's better to say the not working class are his subject matter. I'm not sure I understood it, but I know I liked it. Dragged to another world via a puddle, I'm now taking advice from statues. Failed relationships, wast. This shopping feature will continue to load items when the Enter key is pressed. Little wonder, then, that he can barely keep his mind on his jobpushing a new brand of yogurt. Howls in the night travel the restless wind. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. The working class, or maybe it's better to say the not working class are his subject matter. Bank of America is the completely believable tale of a regular John Q, a house painter who also happens to rob banks with a small-time team of hustlers while still being a good father and husband to his unsuspecting family. Undead noir with a devious sense of humor. Highly recommended!" Definitely a writer I plan to keep on the radar. but delivered with pitch black humor, impressive language, and a lived in compassion that never makes them feel exploitive and gives them their own grandeur. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. Refresh and try again. The only thing is that every story is first person. The writing here is beautifully descriptive and Lange has a great understanding of people's psyches, he manages to write about the most unlikeable of characters with a grace that reminds you that the character is writing about is, after all, still a human being. Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free. If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you grow your business. Standouts for me was "Bank of America," about a family man who plans a bank robbery, and "Long Lost," about a man and his brother who rediscover each other and attempt to move beyond their criminal pasts. Lange's writing is excellent and each story leaves you wanting to know more about the characters and what happens next. The writing here is beautifully descriptive and Lange has a gr. Your dreams and nightmares manifest as you sleep. This is an amazing tour-de-force of creative writing. A considered, colloquial understatement marks nearly all of the first-person protagonists over the course of these 12 stories, in a manner that's marvelously effective. LA is the perfect backdrop to a lot of these stories--boulevard of broken dreams and all that. by Little Brown and Company. Both collections you should also dip into every once in awhile rather than all at once, as the stories are dense and intense but also might have their individual charms overlook for the general atmosphere of the books. I am also a language nerd and appreciated variations in regional accents, and switches in language based upon the thousands of places and eras of origins of the many characters that inhabit the afterlife. You could easily read this in a few hours, so why are you wasting time reading my rambling review? I'll be short but sweet. Frayed nerves and broken hearts have kept them from realizing even the smallest of dreams; they're always "between jobs or between marriages, between runs of good luck."
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