Selected Stories - Softcover

Grau, Shirley Ann

3.92

13 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807132012 ISBN 13: 9780807132012

Publisher: LSU Press, 2006

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This magnificent summation of the short stories of Shirley Ann Grau, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Keepers of the House, gathers together eighteen gems ranking with the finest of Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. Grau possesses a range representing a master course in the craft of this most demanding art form. Her reader's banquet offers character sketches of Chekovian poignance and insight, a hilarious love story, excursions into the gothic and hauntingly apocalyptic, the elegiac and experimental, and stories that feel like compressed novels in their lapidary polish, depth, and emotional weight. Grau belongs in the company of the great southern short story writers, and the author's own choices of her best work remind readers of the unmatched capacity of the brief fictional form to depict character epiphany and such timeless themes as redemption and rebirth, the struggle between power and love, and the persistence of the past.

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About the Author:

Shirley Ann Grau grew up in Louisiana and Alabama and now divides her time between Metairie -- a suburb of New Orleans -- and Martha's Vineyard. She is the author of three previous collections of stories and five novels, including The House on Coliseum Street,The Hard Blue Sky, and Roadwalkers.

From Booklist:

This collection of elegantly crafted short stories by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Grau (for The Keepers of the House, 1964) crackles with quiet intensity. Following in the footsteps of regional and thematic sisters Katherine Ann Porter, Flannery O'Connor, and Eudora Welty, she tackles the traditional subjects dear to a southern writer's heart. Handpicked by the author herself as most representative of her technique and sensibilities, these 18 tales tackle issues of race, class, power, love, loss, and salvation in an effectively understated fashion. Grau's tremendous powers of description, ability to conjure atmosphere, and impeccable prose elevate her to the top tier of American short story stylists. She may be unfamiliar to a lot of library fiction readers, but her gifts should be brought to the attention of any serious fiction appreciator. Margaret Flanagan
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