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Laddar... Limbo Riverav Rick Hillis
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Nine stories deal with a one-handed guitarist, a schoolteacher unwilling to face his true nature, a relieved widow, an aging nursing home attendant, pipeline workers, and a boy growing up with an alcoholic mother. Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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Google Books — Laddar... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Klassifikation enligt LCBetygMedelbetyg:
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I've already told you I loved these stories. In them, Hillis succinctly shows the quiet desperation that Thoreau spoke of, in the workaday, hum-drum, frustrated and often unhappy lives of his characters. There is Art Sweet, a minimalist, aging, one-handed jazz guitarist, who almost finds his soulmate in Ava, only to have her stolen away by a fast-talking sales rep ("Eagle Flies on Friday; Greyhound Runs at Dawn"). Harvey McKinnon is a failed teacher, made crazy by what he has seen in the eye of a butchered pig ("The Eye"). And "Summer Tragedy Report" gives us thirteen year-old Alex, left to spend the summer with his cloddish "stubble-jumper" relatives on a remote farm, where a fifteen year-old delinquent cousin torments and abuses him mercilessly. And in the title story we meet Sean, a boy dragged from town to town by his alcoholic mother, who remembers a series of "uncles," but never knew his father. All of these stories contain both hints of tragedy and a sly, sometimes ribald sense of humor.
There are nine stores here. They are all good. But there are two linked stories that stand out - "Blue" and "Big Machine." The characters here - Ed Lubnickie, a welder on a gas pipeline company, and his teenage son, Chris. And Murdoch, a clueless "motorhead," who "wants" - fast cars, stereos, pretty girls - but mostly he wants to be like Ed. And Norma, who works with Lubnickie and Murdoch, has a useless husband, an angry daughter and a dyslexic son. There are also great secondary characters - Chris's high school coach; a first-year teacher, Guttenberg; Norma's punk daughter, Tracy and her wild waitress friend - and others. In these two stories Hillis has given us a cast of characters that are as real as you will find anywhere in literature. I wanted more, wanted to know the rest of their stories. There was a whole novel here, just waiting to be written. But, sadly, these stories will have to suffice. Hillis was a major talent, too soon snuffed out. These are simply terrific stories. My highest recommendation.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )