Description

Book Synopsis
McGahern''s command of the short story places him among the finest practitioners of the form, in a lineage that runs from Chekhov through Joyce and the Anglo-American masters. When the collection was first published in 1992, the Sunday Times said ''there is a vivid pleasure to be had in the reading of these stories,'' while for Cressida Connolly in the Evening Standard ''these wonderful stories are sad and true . . . McGahern is undoubtedly a great short story writer.'' Many of the stories here are already classics: ''Gold Watch'', ''High Ground'' and ''Parachutes'', among others. McGahern''s spare, restrained yet powerfully lyrical language draws meaning from the most ordinary situations, and turns apparently undramatic encounters into profoundly haunting events: a man visits his embittered father with his new wife; an ageing priest remembers a funeral he had attended years before; a boy steals comics from a shop to escape the rain-bound melancholy of a seaside holiday;

Trade Review
"'... they constitute McGahern's greatest achievement and rank among the finest stories of our time.' Irish Independent"

Creatures of the Earth New and Selected Stories

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    A Paperback / softback by John McGahern

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      Publisher: Faber & Faber
      Publication Date: Publication Date: 05/07/2007
      ISBN13: 9780571237852, 978-0571237852
      ISBN10: 0571237851

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      McGahern''s command of the short story places him among the finest practitioners of the form, in a lineage that runs from Chekhov through Joyce and the Anglo-American masters. When the collection was first published in 1992, the Sunday Times said ''there is a vivid pleasure to be had in the reading of these stories,'' while for Cressida Connolly in the Evening Standard ''these wonderful stories are sad and true . . . McGahern is undoubtedly a great short story writer.'' Many of the stories here are already classics: ''Gold Watch'', ''High Ground'' and ''Parachutes'', among others. McGahern''s spare, restrained yet powerfully lyrical language draws meaning from the most ordinary situations, and turns apparently undramatic encounters into profoundly haunting events: a man visits his embittered father with his new wife; an ageing priest remembers a funeral he had attended years before; a boy steals comics from a shop to escape the rain-bound melancholy of a seaside holiday;

      Trade Review
      "'... they constitute McGahern's greatest achievement and rank among the finest stories of our time.' Irish Independent"

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