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True Tales of American Life (Paperback, Main) Loot Price: R323
Discovery Miles 3 230
You Save: R19 (6%)

True Tales of American Life (Paperback, Main)

Paul Auster; Edited by Paul Auster

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List price R342 Loot Price R323 Discovery Miles 3 230 You Save R19 (6%)

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In September 1999, American author Paul Auster and a producer from America's National Public Radio came up with an idea. They would launch the National Story Project, asking for short stories that could be read on the radio. There were two requirements. First, the author must never have been published before. And secondly, the stories must be true, or, as Auster puts it in his introduction, 'true stories, that sounded like fiction'. The result was this remarkable collection, 180 stories chosen from over 4000 submissions. From just a few lines long to a few pages at most, the entries are testament to the voice of the ordinary American man and woman. Each is a perfect, small detail - a snapshot - from the writer's own life. Everyone has something extraordinary to relate. 'Vic bought the python after a very bad week at the halfway house...' begins one story, 'Early in my career as a crime-scene cleaner...' starts another. These may be ordinary people, but their experiences often border on the bizarre. They also speak of things greater than themselves. Although they focus in on a small detail, each piece illuminates its time. One tale describes how the local leader of the Klu Klux Klan was unmasked by his dog on a march; another tells how a man lost his mother's watch against the backdrop of Pearl Harbour. These stories, so small and personal, demonstrate how no-one lives in isolation; everybody's life is unavoidably touched by great events and movements. These are not writers with a capital 'W'. Yet their very simplicity of language is their strength; not one piece is overwritten, and adjectives are sparse. There is no artifice and no attempt at being overtly literary. We often deride amateur writing. But this collection shows that there is, after all, a little piece of writing in everyone. Review by Dea Birkett (Kirkus UK)
Chosen by Paul Auster out of the four thousand stories submitted to his radio programme on National Public Radio, these 180 stories provide a wonderful portrait of America in the twentieth century. The requirement for selection was that each of the stories should be true, and each of the writers should not have been previously published. The collection that has emerged provides a richly varied and authentic voice for the American people, whose lives, loves, griefs, regrets, joys and sense of humour are vividly and honestly recounted throughout, and adeptly organised by Auster into themed sections. The section composed of war stories stretches as far back as the Civil War, still the defining moment in American history; while the sequence of 'Meditations' conclude the volume with a true and abiding sense of transcendence. The resultant anthology is both an enduring hymn to the strange everyday of contemporary American life and a masterclass in the art of storytelling.

General

Imprint: Faber and Faber
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Release date: October 2002
Authors: Paul Auster
Editors: Paul Auster
Dimensions: 198 x 126 x 27mm (L x W x T)
Format: Paperback - B-format
Pages: 418
Edition: Main
ISBN-13: 978-0-571-21070-1
Categories: Books > Fiction > Special features > Short stories
Books > Fiction > Special features > Fiction anthologies & collections
Books > Fiction > True stories > General
Books > Humanities > History > American history > General
Books > Humanities > History > World history > From 1900 > General
Books > History > American history > General
Books > History > World history > From 1900 > General
Books > Fiction > Promotions
LSN: 0-571-21070-8
Barcode: 9780571210701

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