The Luxury of Tears: Winning Stories from the National Society of Arts and Letters Competition - Hardcover

9780874830934: The Luxury of Tears: Winning Stories from the National Society of Arts and Letters Competition

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0874830931 ISBN 13: 9780874830934

Publisher: August House Pub Inc, 1989

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Twelve stories deal with the family, traditions, youth, aging, and love

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From Library Journal:

These two collections of the best stories of 1989 represent distinct groups of authors: The Luxury of Tears is an assemblage of work by young writers (winners of the National Society of Arts and Letters Competition), and The Best American Short Stories is the latest in the esteemed yearly series that features the "blind" selections of a highly regarded author from a wide variety of publications. Luxury is a uniformly strong collection, so it is difficult to single out any of the stories. That said, let it be noted that Tina Marie Conway's brilliant "World War II Picture" is one of the most moving and innovative pieces in either collection, while David Anthony Dobbs's "Placing Protection" is a chapter from a novel and thus fails to build enough interest in the characters to succeed as a short story. If any general complaint could be made about this anthology, it is that it is too soaked in pathos: stories deal with cancer, amputation, senility, alcoholism, divorce, and infertility. Atwood's selections are more diverse in tone, in narrative technique, and, most notably, in quality. Atwood proves as capable a judge as a creator of fiction; there are more outstanding pieces here--Alice Munro's "Meneseteung" is as fine a tale as any from Updike's Pigeon Feathers or Salinger's Nine Stories --but there are a few lapses in judgment: Larry Brown's "Kubuku Rides (This Is It)," for example, is tedious and artificial. If you must choose, select Atwood's collection; but both books are highly recommended.
- Frank Pisano, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Many of these 12 stories, winners of a literary competition sponsored by the National Society of Arts and Letters, deal with the theme of intergenerational compromise and conflict. In "Not If, When" by Carol Vivian Spaulding, a rueful young woman describes the physical ruin of her mother and ponders an escape from a life of onerous caretaking. In "World War II Pictures" by Tina Marie Conway, a young divorcee recalls the romance in her parents' lives as she views a well-worn snapshot of her mother as a seductive teenager slipping provocatively out of the shower. (The mother is now barely recognizable after the ravages of cancer.) Precocious children observe the dissolution of their parents' marriages in the harshly realistic "Midway," by Young William Smith, and the gently compelling "Light in My Pocket," by Marty Leslie Levine. Lyrical, gritty or wry, many stories also offer sharp portraits of people in transition.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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