The Ugliest House in the World - Softcover

Peter Ho Davies

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1862073422 ISBN 13: 9781862073425

Publisher: Granta Books, 1999

Synopsis

Ranging from the Welsh valleys to the Malaysian jungle, from Coventry to Natal, the eight stories in this original and elegant collection are filled with unlikely characters and striking juxtapositions. In one story two infamous American bandits herd ostriches in Patagonia, while in another, a self-styled John Wayne leads a band of local revolutionaries, the Silver Screen Platoon, in Southeast Asia. In England, a couple of unemployed men wait for Lady Godiva to appear and the pubs to open, while, on the other side of the world, a young Chinese man searches for underwater demons. Alongside a quirky, pointed humour, these pieces reveal a deep humanity. In the understated title story, the accidental death of a child forces a father and son to confront deeper questions of guilt and responsibility; in 'A Union', a prolonged strike at a Welsh slate quarry is the backdrop for an acutely sensitive portrayal of a marriage; and in 'I Don't Know, What Do You Think?', a man working for a crisis phone-line learns that redemption is far from simple. Peter Ho Davies' eccentric, heartbreaking stories of small lives affected by consequential events, herald the arrival of an engaging and powerful new voice in fiction.

About this title

About the Author:

Peter Ho Davies was born in 1966 to Welsh and Chinese parents, grew up in Coventry, and now divides his time between Britain and the US, where he teaches at the University of Michigan. His prize-winning stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies and his second short-story collection, Equal Love, will be published by Granta Books in February 2000.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A debut collection of short fictions, ingenious, moving, and exasperating in turn. At his best, as in the title story about the way in which a child's death polarizes a Welsh village, Davies exhibits a sharp, unblinking, persuasive view of human nature, as well as a deft hand at plotting: The deceptively quiet tale, somewhat distanced in its effect by the rather prissy voice of the narrator, builds to a moving climax and a haunting final image. Davies often demonstrates an uncanny ability for suggesting the outlines of character in speech: The narrator of the story, a physician and the son of the man blamed for the child's accidental death, is very convincing precisely because he seems so wilfully insensitive to the events that he's describing. The reader has to work to puzzle out what really has happened, and the labor is well rewarded. ``A Union,'' a novella tracing the course of a strike in Welsh village in 1899, rings some unusual changes on a subject often reserved for melodramas. Davies is particularly good at catching the mingled affection and resentment shaping village life, and at suggesting the ways in which events can overtake even the most cannily arranged plans. Davies also has a clear affection for these characters, a quality not noticeable in some of the other stories, including the aggressively postmodern ``Relief'' and ``Safe.'' The first deals with the survivors of the battle of Rorke's Drift, in which a Welsh company repulsed the attack of a Zulu army in South Africa. It dwells largely on flatulence, in what is meant to be a send-up of colonial icons, but the irony falls rather flat. ``Safe,'' about the hapless adventures of an aging Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, has little new to suggest about the pair and seems rather wearily referential, more concerned with the duo as hazy icons than as actual characters. Still, overall, there's sufficient energy and originality here to suggest that Davies is a writer well worth watching. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1862073422
• ISBN 13: 9781862073425
• Binding: Paperback