Here We Are in Paradise: Stories - Softcover

Earley, Tony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0316199494 ISBN 13: 9780316199490

Publisher: Back Bay Books, 1997

Synopsis

This collection of stories, set in various locales of North Carolina create entire worlds and indelible moments as only the best short fiction does.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Six of the eight stories in this debut collection have appeared previously in magazines ranging from Harper's to Mississippi Review, and one (``Charlotte'') has been reprinted in two ``best of'' anthologies. All of Earley's work is considerable, despite the tell-tale MFA polish and neatness. Though very much southern in setting and subject, Earley's tales often sound as flat and affectless as the New South sensibility he records. The much-reprinted ``Charlotte'' is an unabashed bit of nostalgia for a lost time in that North Carolina city, before pro basketball came to town, when garish pro wrestling instead held sway. The young male narrator of ``The Prophet From Jupiter'' suffers a similar loss when his wife leaves him for a smooth-talking cop with no appreciation for the area's rich history. Nostalgia and loss come together in ``Gettysburg,'' in which a former UNC jock, traveling through the unforgiving North, realizes the awful mistake he made when he encouraged his wife to have a tubal ligation early in their 18-year marriage. Childlessness figures in the title story as well, a post-operative mastectomy patient's reflection on her long, lustless marriage to a decent lug--proving that a good man is all too easy to find. In ``Lord Randall,'' a 34-year-old janitor remains flabbergasted by his still sexually active parents and their addiction to goofy get- rich schemes. The last three stories, with some repetition, tell about the narrator's strange life in small town North Carolina, where he was raised by his widowed mother and her bachelor brothers. Two of the pieces celebrate the simple wonders and mystery of ordinary things. Full of folksy platitudes about ``our stories,'' and how they go on, and the world being ``crazy with all kinds of luck,'' Earley's debut nevertheless reflects some genuine insight into ordinary people. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Eight beautifully crafted tales illuminate the lives of 20th-century North Carolinians in this debut collection from Earley, whose work has been published in Harper's , Tri-Quarterly and other literary periodicals. With quirky ruefulness, he narrates the experiences of ordinary people who may or may not matter to anyone but themselves. In "Charlotte" (which also appears in Best American Short Stories 1993 ), the manager of a bar recalls an epic battle between two professional wrestlers in the days before "Frannie Belk gathered up all the good and evil in our city and sold it four hours south"--to Atlanta, where the wrestlers now fight on TBS. The narrator of both "Aliceville" and "Story of Pictures" chronicles his Depression-era boyhood, remembering how glimpses of a flock of geese and a woman bathing in a pond awakened him to the world outside his hometown. "My Father's Heart" captures the bittersweet longing of a boy who knew his father only through the memories of others. In each of these stories, Earley deftly weaves together several thematic strands to create complex, richly rewarding fiction. His tales connect with the heart.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0316199494
• ISBN 13: 9780316199490
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208