Richard Russo
In his first collection, a master storyteller focuses on a fresh and fascinating range of human behavior. A jaded Hollywood movie-maker uncovers a decades-old flame he never knew he'd harbored; a precocious fifth grader puzzles over life, love, and baseball as he watches his parents' marriage dissolve; another child is forced into a harrowing cross-country escape; an elderly couple rediscovers the power of their relationship; and in the title story,
...5) Sh*tshow
David and Ellie didn’t realize how much they have missed their friends, two other couples who had moved out of their modest neighborhood in a desert city for the comforts of the suburbs, until the day of Donald Trump’s election. Separated also from their daughter who lived hours away in California, they were in a funk. But, when Ellie discovers a repellant offering floating in the...
When Donald Trump claimed victory...
While the title novella of Dubus' Finding a Girl in America returns to the somewhat off-the-rails literary life of Hank Allison, the collection's opening story strikes a much darker tone: "Killings"—the basis of the Academy Award–nominated film In the Bedroom—is a swift tale of revenge that leaves readers wondering what they might do in the name of family love.
Dubus' prowess with narrative compression is on
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