| Description |
720 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm |
| Summary |
"Barry Gifford has been writing the story of America in acclaimed novel after acclaimed novel for the last half-century. At the same time, he's been writing short stories, his "Roy stories," that show America from a different vantage point, a certain mix of innocence and worldliness. Reminiscent of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Ernest Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, Gifford's Roy stories amount to the coming-of-age novel he never wrote, and are one of his most important literary achievements--time-pieces that preserve the lost worlds of 1950s Chicago and the American South, the landscape of postwar America seen through the lens of a boy's steady gaze. The twists and tragedies of the adult world seem to float by like curious flotsam, like the show girls from the burlesque house next door to Roy's father's pharmacy who stop by when they need a little help, or Roy's mom and the husbands she weds and then sheds after Roy's Jewish mobster father's early death. Life throws Roy more than the usual curves, but his intelligence and curiosity shape them into something unforeseen, while Roy's complete lack of self-pity allow the stories to seem to tell themselves"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Contents |
Machine generated contents note: MEMORIES FROM A SINKING SHIP -- Memories from a Sinking Ship -- A Good Man to Know -- The Forgotten -- Mrs. Kashfi -- The Old Country -- The Monster -- The Cine -- Dark Mink -- Nanny -- Island in the Sun -- An Eye on the Alligators -- The Piano Lesson -- The Lost Tribe -- The Lost Christmas -- My Catechism -- Sunday Paper -- The Origin of Truth -- The Trophy -- The Aerodynamics of an Irishman -- A Rainy Day at the Nortown Theater -- Renoir's Chemin montant dans les hautes herbes -- Forever After -- The Mason-Dixon Line -- The Wedding -- The Pitcher -- A Place in the Sun -- The Winner -- The God of Birds -- Sundays and Tibor -- Poor Children of Israel -- The Man Who Wanted to Get the Bad Taste of the World Out of His Mouth -- Johnny Across -- The Secret of Little White Dove -- The Delivery -- The Deep Blue See -- Radio Goldberg -- Why Skull Dorfman Went to Arkansas -- Wanted Man -- The Bucharest Prize -- Blows with Sticks Raining Hard -- The Chinaman -- The End of Racism -- Way Down in Egypt Land -- Bad Things Wrong -- Detente at the Flying Horse -- Shattered -- A Day's Worth of Beauty -- The Peterson Fire -- Door to the River -- Sailing in the Sea of Red He Sees a Black Ship on the Horizon -- WYOMING -- Cobratown -- Chinese Down the Amazon -- Bandages -- Soul Talk -- Skylark -- Flamingos -- Wyoming -- Saving the Planet -- A Nice Day on the Ocean -- Perfect Spanish -- Seconds -- Roy's World -- Nomads -- Ducks on the Pond -- Sound of the River -- Red Highway -- Lucky -- K.C. So Far (Seconds/Alternate Take) -- Concertina Locomotion -- Imagine -- The Geography of Heaven -- Man and Fate -- Where Osceola Lives -- The Crime of Pass Christian -- Cool Breeze -- Night Owl -- Islamorada -- On the Arm -- Look Out Below -- The Up and Up -- Black Space -- Fear and Desire -- God's Tornado -- SAD STORIES OF THE DEATH OF KINGS -- The Age of Fable -- The Great Failure -- Irredeemable -- Sad Stories of the Death of Kings -- The Sultan -- The Liberian Condition -- Six Million and One -- War and Peace -- Chop Suey Joint -- Significance -- Einstein's Son -- The Albanian Florist -- The Weeper -- The Swedish Bakery -- The Man Who Swallowed the World -- Ghost Ship -- Caca Negra -- Roy's First Car -- El Carterista -- Crime and Punishment -- The American Language -- Lonely Are the Brave -- Force of Evil -- The Choice -- Bad Girls -- The Sudden Demise of Sharkface Bensky -- Portrait of the Artist with Four Other Guys -- The Starving Dogs of Little Croatia -- In the Land of the Dead -- The Secret of the Universe -- Far from Anywhere -- Rain in the Distance -- Bad Night at the Del Prado -- The Theory of the Leisure Class -- Innamorata -- The Exception -- Close Encounters of the Right Kind -- Blue People -- Call of the Wild -- Arabian Nights -- Last Plane out of Chungking -- The Vanished Gardens of Cordoba -- Benediction -- THE RED STUDEBAKER -- Alligator Story -- The Vast Difference -- The Birdbath -- Storybook Time -- The Red Studebaker -- The Trumpet -- Unspoken -- Haircut -- The Invention of Rock `n' Roll -- Infantry -- Drifting Down the Old Whangpoo -- The Wicked of the Earth -- Christmas Is Not For Everyone -- THE CUBAN CLUB -- Roy and the River Pirates -- Dingoes -- The King of Vajra Dornei -- Real Bandits -- Haitian Fight Song (Take Two) -- The Cuban Club -- Appreciation -- The Awful Country -- Deep in the Heart -- Unopened Letters -- Chicago, Illinois, 1953 -- The Colony of the Sun -- Creeps -- Achilles and the Beautiful Land -- Men in the Kitchen -- Anna Louise -- Mules in the Wilderness -- The Boy Whose Mother May Have Married a Leopard -- Stung -- El almuerzo por poco -- Vultures -- I Also Deal in Fury -- Hour of the Wolf -- Lost Monkey -- When Benny Lost his Meaning -- Sick -- The Best Part of the Story -- Tell Him I'm Dangerous -- The Shadow Going Forward -- Feeling the Heat -- The Sharks -- Smart Guys -- Apacheria -- Dark and Black and Strange -- The Vagaries of Incompleteness -- King and Country -- House of Bamboo -- The Unexpected -- The Way of All Flesh -- Some Products of the Imagination -- The Comedian -- Lament for A Daughter of Egypt -- The Old West -- Incurable -- Shrimpers -- Learning the Game -- The Fifth Angel -- A Long Day's Night in the Naked City (Take Two) -- The Religious Experience -- The Familiar Face of Darkness -- Las Vegas, 1949 -- In Dreams -- Lucky -- Danger in the Air -- Child's Play -- The Message -- River Woods -- The History and Proof of the Spots on the Sun -- War is Merely Another Kind of Writing and Language -- The End of the Story -- Innocent of the Blood -- The Italian Hat -- The Senegalese Twist -- Kidnapped -- The Dolphins -- Dragonland -- Role Model -- Mona -- Mud -- The Phantom Father -- Roy's Letter -- THE WORLD IN THE AFTERNOON -- The World in the Afternoon -- Wing Shooting -- Acapulco -- His Truth -- Disappointment -- The Navajo Kid -- In My Own Country -- Rinky Dink -- Where the Dead Hide -- Bar Room Butterfly -- Absolution -- The Goose -- Spooky Spiegelman and The Night Time Killer -- Constantinople -- The Same Place in Space -- The Good Listener -- Garden Apartment. |
| Subject |
Short stories.
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FICTION / General.
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| Genre/Form |
Short stories. (OCoLC)fst01726740
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Short stories.
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| Other Form: |
Online version: Gifford, Barry, 1946- Roy's world New York : Seven Stories Press, [2020] 9781644210239 (DLC) 2020032406 |
| ISBN |
9781644210222 (trade paperback) |
|
1644210223 (trade paperback) |
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9781644210239 (electronic publication) |
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