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Original Essays | May 1, 2013
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More copies of this ISBNThe Collected Stories of Lydia Davisby Lydia Davis
Staff Pick
Normally I dislike "domestic stories." You know, those fictions that deal with slice-of-life musings or investigations into the American Life and Household. Lydia Davis tackles this terrain quite often, but the clarity of her voice, coupled with a will to make it all a little weird, makes her a keen observer of the minutiae of life. Her preferred style seems to be tiny prose gems, 1,000 words or less. This hardcover-bound volume is thick in the spine but otherwise diminutive; it is graced with a bright coral cover. What a fitting vehicle for Davis's small fictions, which hold so much. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE A LOS ANGELES TIMES FICTION FAVORITE FOR 2009 A SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BEST BOOK OF 2009 Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers, a storyteller celebrated for her emotional acuity, her formal inventiveness, and her ability to capture the mind in overdrive. She has been called “an American virtuoso of the short story form” (Salon.com) and “one of the quiet giants . . . of American fiction” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). This volume contains all her stories to date, from the acclaimed Break It Down (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee Varieties of Disturbance. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is an event in American letters. Lydia Davis is the author of one novel and seven story collections, the most recent of which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government for her fiction and her translations of modern writers including Maurice Blanchot, Michel Leiris, and Marcel Proust. Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers, a storyteller celebrated for her inventiveness, and her ability to capture the mind in overdrive. She has been called "an American virtuoso of the short story form" (Salon) and "one of the quiet giants . . . of American fiction" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). This volume contains all her stories to date, from the acclaimed Break It Down to the 2007 National book Award finalist Varieties of Disturbance. “Among the true originals of contemporary American short fiction.”—San Francisco Chronicle "Davis nervily inhabits obsessive and haunted personas, her intonation shifting with unsettling precision from the sly to the sinister . . . Davis approaches the short-story form with jazzy experimentation, tinkering with lists, circumlocutions, even interviews where the questions have been creepily edited out. You don't work your way across this mesa-sized collection so much as pogo-stick about, plunging in wherever the springs meet the page."—Jan Stuart, The New York Times "Finally, one can read a large portion of Davis's work, spanning three decades and more than seven hundred pages, and a grand cumulative achievement comes into view—a body of work probably unique in American writing, in its combination of lucidity, aphoristic brevity, formal originality, sly comedy, metaphysical bleakness, philosophical pressure, and human wisdom. I suspect that The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis will in time be seen as one of the great, strange American literary contributions, distinct and crookedly personal, like the work of Flannery O'Connor, or Donald Barthelme, or J. F. Powers."—James Wood, The New Yorker “Davis is a magician of self-consciousness. Few writers now working make the words on the page matter more.”—Jonathan Franzen “All who know [Daviss] work probably remember their first time reading it . . . Blows the roof off of so many of our assumptions about what constitutes short fiction.”—Dave Eggers, McSweeneys “Sharp, deft, ironic, understated, and consistently surprising.”—Joyce Carol Oates “The best prose stylist in America.”—Rick Moody "Critics unanimously praised this extraordinary (and extraordinarily hefty) collection, in which Davis masterly taps into myriad emotions—from melancholy to hilarity, empathy, and apathy. Each voice is unique; each story is equally difficult to categorize. Many of the stories lack basic names, dates, and places and are disconcerting in their brevity. Are they short stories? Flash fiction? Fables? Davis steadfastly refuses to adhere to any kind of prescribed formula, with stunning and original results. Whatever label readers decide to attach to her work, critics agreed that Davis is one of American literature's best-kept secrets."—Bookmarks magazine "This collection marks the first publication of Davis's stories in one volume, including stories from two previous collections, the acclaimed Break It Down and Varieties of Disturbance. Davis's highly original voice ranges from tweetlike one-liners with title ('Index Entry Christian, I'm not a') to longer works of several pages. Many stories are first-person accounts of the narrator analyzing, or overanalyzing, some situation he or she is encountering, as if waking from a dream. As she writes in 'Story,' 'I try to figure it out.' Davis, unlike some writers of nontraditional fiction, doesn't take 'stop making sense' as her personal motto. Her art lies in getting the reader to look at everyday situations from a new and different perspective. This will be prized by those who are already fans of Davis's work and should also appeal to discerning readers of more plot-driven, conventional fiction ready for something challenging and thought-provoking."—Leslie Patterson, Brown Univ. Lib., Providence, RI, Library Journal Synopsis:A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE A LOS ANGELES TIMES FICTION FAVORITE FOR 2009 A SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BEST BOOK OF 2009 Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers, a storyteller celebrated for her emotional acuity, her formal inventiveness, and her ability to capture the mind in overdrive. She has been called “an American virtuoso of the short story form” (Salon.com) and “one of the quiet giants . . . of American fiction” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). This volume contains all her stories to date, from the acclaimed Break It Down (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee Varieties of Disturbance. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is an event in American letters. About the AuthorLydia Davis is the author of one novel and seven story collections, the most recent of which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. She is the acclaimed translator of a new edition of Swanns Way and is at work on a new translation of Madame Bovary. Table of ContentsBREAK IT DOWN (1986) Story The Fears of Mrs. Orlando Liminal: The Little Man Break It Down Mr. Burdoff's Visit to Germany What She Knew The Fish Mildred and the Oboe The Mouse The Letter Extracts from a Life The House Plans The Brother-in-Law How W. H. Auden Spends the Night in a Friend's House: Mothers In a House Besieged Visit to Her Husband Cockroaches in Autumn The Bone A Few Things Wrong with Me Sketches for a Life of Wassilly City Employment Two Sisters The Mother Therapy French Lesson I: Le Meurtre Once a Very Stupid Man The Housemaid The Cottages Safe Love Problem What an Old Woman Will Wear The Sock Five Signs of Disturbance ALMOST NO MEMORY (1997) Meat, My Husband Jack in the Country Foucault and Pencil The Mice The Thirteenth Woman The Professor The Cedar Trees The Cats in the Prison Recreation Hall Wife One in Country The Fish Tank The Center of the Story Love Our Kindness A Natural Disaster Odd Behavior St. Martin Agreement In the Garment District Disagreement The Actors What Was Interesting In the Everglades The Family Trying to Learn To Reiterate Lord Royston's Tour The Other A Friend of Mine This Condition Go Away Pastor Elaine's Newsletter A Man in Our Town A Second Chance Fear Almost No Memory Mr. Knockly How He Is Often Right The Rape of the Tanuk Women What I Feel Lost Things Glenn Could Smoke From Below, as a Neighbor The Great-Grandmothers Ethics The House Behind The Outing A Position at the University Examples of Confusion The Race of the Patient Motorcyclists Affinity SAMUEL JOHNSON IS INDIGNANT (2001)
Boring Friends A Mown Lawn City People Betrayal The White Tribe Our Trip Special Chair Certain Knowledge from Herodotus Priority The Meeting Companion Blind Date Examples of Remember Old Mother and the Grouch Samuel Johnson Is Indignant New Year's Resolution First What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
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