Staff Pick
Brian Doyle's second collection of short stories runs the gamut from highly amusing ("Four Boston Basketball Stories," "Dear Mum," "A Note on the Actors," "When You're Out of Schlitz, You're Out of Beer"), wise ("Chauncy Street," "The New Bishop," "Muirin"), heartbreaking ("This Is the Part Where You Say Something Real," "Mr. Kim's Song," "The Seventh," "Elson Habib, Playing Black, Ponders the End Game"), and chilling ("Mr. Oleander," "The Guest Speaker," "In the Cafe Rue de Turenne, Charleroi, Belgium, 1943").
Doyle has the uncanny ability to notice the unnameable, the unseen, the unnoticed, and it is a delicious epiphany to slowly uncover his insight. Revisiting a few characters from previous novels (Chicago; Martin Marten), Doyle throws in a welcome nod to former friends we know and love. As always, Doyle's tender treatment of the human condition, with humor and pathos, is exactly what we need. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A collection of headlong tales by Oregon author Brian Doyle exploring such riveting and peculiar topics as chess in the Levant, tailors who specialize in holes, how to report stigmata to your attending physician, the intense hilarity of basketball, how to have a bitter verbal marital fight in your car, an all-Chinese football team in Australia, soccer and Catholicism, what it's like to be in a ska band, a singing Korean baker, an archbishop who loses his faith between the salad and the entree, genius Girl Scouts who save a radio station, and a baby born from a lake in Illinois. And some other fascinating stories. Really. Trust us."
Synopsis
Both intimate and irreverent, The Mighty Currawongs taps into the small truths of what makes a life worth living--from the oddly hilarious to the cherished and pure.