Special Offers see all

More at Powell's

Interviews | Q&As | Essays

Powell’s Q&A: Michael Marder

0 comments By Michael Marder

Describe your latest work. When I started working on Plant-Thinking in 2008, I had no idea that the project would turn out to be as broad as it did.... Continue »

$26.95 Sale Trade Paper add to wish list

Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life
Michael MarderMichael Marder 9780231161251

This item may be
out of stock.
Click on the button below to search for this title in other formats.

Check for Availability

Receive an email when this ISBN is available used.

Stories in the Old Style

by Al Sim

ISBN13: 9780977228331
ISBN10: 0977228339
All Product Details

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

This collection of eighteen previously published short stories by Al Sim includes "Get the Can," winner of the 2001 Glimmer Train Short Story Contest. Bill Roorbach, author of "Big Bend," "The Smallest Color" and "Temple Stream," says, "Stories in the Old Style harkens back to the days of Cannery Row, of Jack London, to the splendid era of American realists. Al Sim's people are the people Johnny Cash sings about, whether the setting is the great Southwest or Soho in New York City. And these are the people who make America such a complex and bedeviled place. So turn off the electric lights, unplug the phone, shoot your TV, and sit down in the easiest easy chair you've got: it's time to enjoy Stories in the Old Style."

What Our Readers Are Saying

Add a comment for a chance to win!

Average customer rating based on 2 comments:

: Lacey Follet, May 10, 2009 (view all comments by Lacey Follet)
I think this guy is the reincarnation of John Steinbeck.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)

report this comment

: Mary Akers, February 28, 2007 (view all comments by Mary Akers)
Each one of Sim's 18 stories is a deliciously self-contained treat. My very favorites were: "Two Head Gone," a story of human helplessness in the face of ordinary but devastating loss; "The Freedom Pig," in which a runaway slave and his master's pig conspire to reach the promised land; "Get the Can," a lovely, lyrical short-short that uses a childhood game of one-up to show that all things are possible; and especially "Fetch," an emotionally packed short-short that ripped my heart out and left it bleeding in the snow at the edge of the frozen lake.

No stranger to publication, Sim's stories have previously appeared in such vaunted journals as Glimmer Train, Antietam Review, Crab Creek Review, North Atlantic Review, Fourteen Hills, The Literary Review, Red Cedar Review, and New Millennium Writings. And his choice of title? Well, Sim titled his collection spot-on, in my view, because his stories truly are written in the "old style." They hearken back to such various influences as the surprise endings of O. Henry, the grit and realism of John Steinbeck and the barely contained wildness of Jack London.

As a group, or stand alone, Sim's stories are spare and brutally beautiful.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(5 of 7 readers found this comment helpful)

report this comment

View all 2 comments

Product Details

ISBN:: 9780977228331
Publisher:: Press 53
Subject:: Short Stories (single author)
Author:: Sim, Al
Subject:: Literature-A to Z
Publication Date:: 20060131
Binding:: TRADE PAPER
Language:: English
Pages:: 256
Dimensions:: 8.50x5.50x.58 in. .72 lbs.

Related Subjects

Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z

Follow us on...

RSS 2.0
Log Off

Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.