The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God & Other Stories - Softcover

Keret, Etgar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1592641059 ISBN 13: 9781592641055

Publisher: Toby Pr, 2004

Synopsis

Offers a collection of warped and candid stories, including "Goodman," "Breaking the Pig," and "The Story about a Bus Driver who Wanted to be God.".

About this title

Review:

Etgar Keret's The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories stings and thrills with fierce fables of modern life. Set in landscapes ranging from "this armpit town outside Austin, Texas" to "this village in Uzbekistan that was built right smack at the mouth of Hell," these stories lay their plots' central tensions out plainly: "Dad wouldn't buy me a Bart Simpson doll," one begins. Then they take off like little roller coasters, careening through the pathos of Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son, the clowning of David Sedaris's Barrel Fever, the in-your-face violence of Quentin Tarantino, and the bewildered alienation of Franz Kafka. But readers need not know any of Keret's sources to enjoy his stories fully. The Israeli writer's aphorisms leap off the page and lodge themselves in the mind: "There are two kinds of people, those who like to sleep next to the wall, and those who like to sleep next to the people who push them off the bed." Keret's vernacular prose is fun to read, and his vision of the world is weirdly comforting. Happiness never really flourishes, but small hopes and graces abound. --Michael Joseph Gross

About the Author:

Etgar Keret was born in Tel Aviv in 1967. He is a recipient of the French Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and the author, most recently, of the memoir The Seven Good Years and the story collection Suddenly, a Knock on the Door. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The Paris Review, and The New York Times, among many other publications, and on “This American Life,” where he is a regular contributor.

About this edition

• Publisher: Toby Pr
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1592641059
• ISBN 13: 9781592641055
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200