Key West Tales: Stories - Softcover

Hersey, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679772634 ISBN 13: 9780679772637

Publisher: Vintage, 1996

Synopsis

Alternating a tale of the past that has become a part of Key West legend with a contemporary story that reflects the pulse of life there today, Hersey weaves in these stories a brilliant human tapestry of the place that means a great deal to him. From the author of A Bell For Adano and Hiroshima comes this final collections of stories.

About this title

About the Author:

John Hersey was born in Tientsin, China, in 1914 and lived there until 1925, when his family returned to the United States. He studied at Yale and Cambridge, served for a time as Sinclair Lewis’s secretary, and then worked several years as a journalist. Beginning in 1947, he devoted his time mainly to writing fiction. He won the Pulitzer Prize, taught for two decades at Yale, and was president of the Authors League of America and chancellor of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Hersey died in 1993.

From Booklist:

Hersey's final stories are all set in the southernmost U.S. community, his home during the last years of his life, which ended there last March. There are 15--7 contemporary tales and 8 historical anecdotes well worthy of receiving the polish of Hersey's good craftsmanship. The stories share the equanimity of Hersey's wonderful last novel, Antonietta (1991), and constitute a suite of codas to it, each in a different mood suited to its main character. Among the most amusing are the first of the historical pieces, "God's Hint," in which a preacher who doubles as a scavenger has to figure out how to get the drop on his flock full of fellow plunderers when he spies a fresh wreck through the open church door while he's preaching; and one of the contemporary stories, "A Game of Anagrams," an exquisitely described weekly ritual whose players are "three poets and a novelist" who, altogether, have won four Pulitzers, three National Book Awards, and two Bollingens. In all, a fine conclusion to the distinguished career that began with Hiroshima and Hersey's own Pulitzer winner, A Bell for Adano. Ray Olson

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0679772634
• ISBN 13: 9780679772637
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240