It's Beginning to HurtIt's Beginning to Hurt
In sharply evoked settings that range from the wilds of Northern Greece to the beaches of Cape Cod, these intensely dramatic tales chart the metamorphoses of their characters as they fall prey to the gamut of human passions. The lives in them seethe with love, hate, desire, fear, tender corruption and cruel idealism. They rise to unexpected heights of decency, stumble into comic or tragic folly, they throw themselves open to lust, longing, paranoia - but they are always recognisably, illuminatingly, our lives.
As James Wood, the celebrated critic, has noted, 'James Lasdun seems to me to be one of the secret gardens of English writingwhen we read him we know what language is for.' This collection of haunting, richly humane pieces - including the first winner of the National Short Story Award, 'An Anxious Man' - is further proof of the powers of enormously inventive writer.
The stories in this remarkable collection—including “An Anxious Man,” winner of the National Short Story Prize (UK)—are vibrant and gripping. James Lasdun’s great gift is his unfailing psychological instinct for the vertiginous moments when the essence of a life discloses itself. With forensic skill he exposes his characters’ hidden desires and fears, drawing back the folds of their familiar self-delusions, their images of themselves, their habits and routines, to reveal their interior lives with brilliant clarity.
In sharply evoked settings that range from the wilds of Northern Greece to the beaches of
Cape Cod, these intensely dramatic tales chart the metamorphoses of their characters as they fall prey to the full range of human passions. They rise to unexpected heights of decency or stumble into comic or tragic folly. They throw themselves open to lust, longing, and paranoia—always recognizably mirrors of our own conflicted selves.
As James Wood has written, “James Lasdun seems to be one of the secret gardens of English writing . . . When we read him we know what language is for again.” This collection of haunting, richly humane pieces is further proof of the powers of an enormously inventive writer.
A latest collection of works by the author of Seven Lies takes readers from the wilds of northern Greece to the beaches of Cape Cod in a volume that follows themes of self-delusion, hidden fears, and the illuminating potential of realizing one's true interior life.
A collection of short stories covering the wilds of northern Greece to the beaches of Cape Cod follows themes of self-delusion, hidden fears, and the illuminating potential of realizing one's true interior life.
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- New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009/07/21
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