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God Bless America Stories

by Steve Almond
God Bless America Stories

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ISBN13: 9780984592234
ISBN10: 0984592237
Condition: Standard


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Synopses & Reviews

Synopsis

WINNER, PATERSON FICTION PRIZE

FINALIST, FOREWORD BOOK OF THE YEAR

OUTSTANDING COLLECTION, THE STORY PRIZE

LONGLIST, FRANK O'CONNOR INTERNATIONAL STORY PRIZE

BRONZE MEDALIST, INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER

From a "gifted storyteller" who delivers "always enjoyable, often hysterical stories" (New York Times Book Review) comes a meditation on the American Dream and its discontents. In his most ambitious collection yet, Steve Almond offers a comic and forlorn portrait of these United States: our lust for fame, our racial tensions, the toll of perpetual war, and the pursuit of romantic happiness.

In the exuberant title story, a hapless would-be actor, desperate to escape the drudgery of his existence, lands the role of a lifetime. In "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched," reprinted in Best American Short Stories, a psychoanalyst with a secret gambling addiction squares off over the poker table against a damaged ex-patient. In "First Date Back," a young woman becomes the target of a traumatized soldier's misguided hopes for love. And "A Dream of Sleep," the collection's final story, presents a grief-stricken refugee who tends the graves of a forgotten cemetery, only to have his fragile peace shattered by an unwelcome visitor.

Each of these thirteen stories is an urgent investigation of America's soul, its particular suffering, its injustices, its possibilities for redemption. With deft sleight of hand, Almond, "a writer who knows us as well as we know ourselves" (Houston Chronicle), leavens his disappointment and outrage with a persistent hope for the men and women who inhabit his worlds. God Bless America offers us an astonishing vision of our collective fate, rendered in Almond's signature style of "precise strokes . . . with metaphors so original and spot-on that they read like epiphanies" (San Francisco Chronicle).


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lukas , September 25, 2014 (view all comments by lukas)
I probably shouldn't review this because I have a personal bias, but what the heck. I used to live in Boston and I met Steve Almond once and I'll never forgot his answer to how his recent book tour was: "It was f***ing rock and roll man." Maybe he felt compelled to say that because his collection "My Life in Heavy Metal" (a misleading title, btw) had just come out. As an aspiring writer (well, aspiring to fail), maybe there was some envy, but I mostly thought he was a tool, which colors how I read his books. This generically titled collection of short stories isn't so much bad as bland. Speaking from experience, much of them seem like what you'd read in a community eduction writer's workshop. Although the gushing praise on the back cover, including quotes from big shots like Junot Diaz and Karen Russell, includes words like "provocateur," "hilarious," "ruthless," "original," and "sexy," I found none of that to be true. They seem like sub-Saunders stories, a little absurd, a little comic, a little relevant (and I don't even like Saunders). He may touch on big topics like Iraq, 9/11, a father dying, race, and sex, but it never feels anything but shallow. An exception is the final story, "A Dream of Sleep," which is a touching portrait of an elderly European man who is a caretaker of a cemetery, but Almond can't resist throwing in an implausible twist that ruins the mood he's created. Cool cover though! It's like two dudes in animal masks in a shrink's office.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780984592234
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
10/25/2011
Publisher:
Lookout Books
Pages:
211
Height:
.80IN
Width:
5.40IN
Thickness:
.75
LCCN:
2011010332
Illustration:
Yes
UPC Code:
9780984592234
Author:
Steve Almond
Author:
Steve Almond
Subject:
Literature-A to Z

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$6.95
List Price:$17.95
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