Verlag | Penguin Random House |
Auflage | 2023 |
Seiten | 192 |
Format | 12,9 x 1,2 x 20,8 cm |
Gewicht | 191 g |
Artikeltyp | Englisches Buch |
EAN | 9781644212868 |
Bestell-Nr | 64421286UA |
In Writers, great American storyteller Barry Gifford paints portraits of famous writers caught in imaginary vulnerable moments in their lives. In prose that is funny, grotesque, and a touch brutal, Gifford shows these writers at their most human, which is to say at their worst: they are liars, frauds, lousy lovers, and drunks. This is a world in which Ernest Hemingway drunkenly sets explosive trip wires outside his home in Cuba, Marcel Proust implores the angel of death as a delirious Arthur Rimbaud lies dying in a hospital bed, and Albert Camus converses with a young prostitute while staring at himself in the mirror of a New York City hotel room.
In Gifford's house of mirrors, we are offered a unique perspective on this group of literary greats. We see their obsessions loom large, and none more than a shared needling preoccupation with mortality. And yet these stories, which are meant to be performed as plays, are also tender and thoughtful exercises in empathy. Gifford as ks: What does it means to devote oneself entirely to art? And as an artist, what defines success and failure?
Rezension:
Barry Gifford invented his own American vernacular William Faulkner by way of B-movie film noir, porn paperbacks, and Sun Records rockabilly. Jonathan Lethem
The experience of reading Gifford is like starting a car and realizing, too late, that someone has cut its brake lines. A spectacular wreck is imminent, so you might as well enjoy the adrenaline rush... Nathaniel Rich, New York Review of Books
Gifford cuts right through the heart of what makes a good novel readable and entertaining... The way Barry Gifford does it, it's high art. Elmore Leonard
Gifford is a master. Los Angeles Times