Gallatin Canyon - Stories

Zusatztext "Tremendous. . . . [McGuane] evokes characters so vivid and universally pained that they'll keep you up at night." — The Philadelphia Inquirer “Astonishing. . . . [McGuane] knows something about writing! real writing–which is to say! words as access to the soul. . . . McGuane has driven so hard into the heart of a received wisdom concerning American manhood . . . that he has broken through to the other side.” — The New York Times Book Review "McGuane is a master. . . . To see the world through the eyes of his characters . . . is to feel unsettled! precarious! and yet certain . . . of one thing: change. . . . [He] turns each story into a kind of pressure cooker." — Los Angeles Times Informationen zum Autor Thomas McGuane Klappentext The stories of Gallatin Canyon are rich in the wit, compassion, and matchless language for which Thomas McGuane is celebrated.Place exerts the power of destiny in these tales: a boy makes a surprising discovery skating at night on Lake Michigan; an Irish clan in Massachusetts gather around their dying matriarch; a battered survivor of the glory days of Key West washes up on other shores. Several of the stories unfold in Big Sky country: a father tries to buy his adult son's way out of virginity; a convict turns cowhand on a ranch; a couple makes a fateful drive through a perilous gorge. McGuane's people are seekers, beguiled by the land's beauty and myth, compelled by the fantasy of what a locale can offer, forced to reconcile dream and truth. Leseprobe Vicious CircleJohn Briggs sat on his porch on a dreary hot August day with a glass of ice water sweating in his hand, listening to opera on the radio. The white borders of the screen doors were incandescent with mountain summer. Through them he could see the high windswept ridge above his house, where the bunchgrass could not get a hold, leaving only a seam of shale to overlook the irrigated valley.Earlier, at the farmers' market at the fairgrounds, he'd strolled among the pleasant displays of food and craft. A bearded youth offered handmade walking sticks; next to him, with a cage full of rabbits, a woman in Chiapas folk costume sold angora tooth-fairy pillows while tugging strands of angora from a rabbit asleep in her lap. An extraordinary variety of concrete yard animals surrounded a display of bird feeders with expired Montana license plates folded for roofs. A hearty woman with her fists on her hips offered English delphiniums, which, she explained again and again, had never been crossed with Pacific Giants, "not ever." The Hutterites, in suspenders and straw cowboy hats, had a vast array of vegetables; their long table faced lines of people, five deep, eyes fixed upon the produce. A girl in jeans and a bustier played a harp, almost inaudible over the sounds of the crowd, beside a table selling geodes and specimens of quartz.Briggs had a large shopping bag into which he placed his purchases: carrots, kohlrabi, baby beets bought from a woman in a Humane Society T-shirt, and Flathead Lake cherries from an old man in an "Official Party Shirt" from Carlos and Charlie's in Cozumel. A woman with the forearms of a plumber spotted Briggs and stepped from behind a meager display of home-grown lavender to block his path. She gazed at him fixedly and, as he grew uncomfortable, asked, "Is anything coming to you?"Briggs shook his head tentatively. The woman let out a vehement laugh with a faint whistle in it. A mirthless grin spread ear to ear."Is it possible," she asked, "that you don't remember me at all? Two a.m.? January? Roswell, New Mexico? Ring a bell?"Trying to conceal his discomfort, Briggs said that he was afraid it was possible he didn't remember."You glutton!" she roared.He could see that the onlookers were not on his side. The woman followed him for several yards, a steady, accusing ...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Thomas McGuane
• Editore: Vintage USA
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 12.06.2007
• EAN: 9781400075188
• ISBN: 978-1-4000-7518-8
• Pagine: 240
• Dimensioni: 133 mm x 203 mm x 14 mm
• Serie: Vintage Contemporaries; Vintage Contemporaries
• Categoria: Narrativa > Romanzi