Maps to Anywhere (Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction) [Paperback]

Bernard Cooper (Author), Richard Howard (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction | Publication Date: October 1, 1997

The essays in Maps to Anywhere plot terrain that is at once familiar and subtly strange. Writing on subjects ranging from his family to the origin of the barbershop pole, Bernard Cooper digs into the glimmering surface of the southern California landscape, observing the collision of the American Dream with the realities of everyday life. From the fragments, he discovers landmarks by which he attempts to make sense of contemporary America.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As its title intimates, this set of essays captures the open-ended, rootless feel of modern life. Cooper, whose writings have appeared in Harper's and Grand Street , lets his imagination play freely over sundry topics--barber poles, learning to draw, modern architecture, dinosaurs, photography, Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, being childless. Growing up in Southern California, he dreamed of utopias while his "home life resisted perfection." From his father, and from the taste of horseradish, he learned that pleasure can merge with pain. He writes movingly of his brother dying of leukemia, and of his hyperenergetic, eccentric father, a lawyer who took on odd cases. Cooper's ironic tone is at once self-deprecating and subverting of the reader's preconceptions. Autobiographical fragments, prose poems, spiels and mini-essays crafted with precision are dazzling, elusive shards in this jigsaw.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"This set of essays captures the open-ended, rootless feel of modern life. . . . [These] dazzling, elusive shards [are] crafted with precision."--Publishers Weekly

"An astonishing collection of daring and highly evocative texts [which,] dictated by Cooper's love of language, his reverence for memory and the quirky shapes experience takes, and arranged according to the rhythms of reunion, expand the notions of what fiction can be."--PEN/Hemingway Award Committee

"Bernard Cooper is extremely gifted. This book is fascinating."--Annie Dillard

"When [an] author has this much intelligence, verbal dexterity, warmth, and honesty, we can safely predict we will be reading him with relish for years to come."--Phillip Lopate

"The images Cooper conjures up in Maps to Anywhere become quickly stated poems or paintings whose surfaces are dazzlingly luminous. . . . I enjoyed this book very much."--Ann Beattie

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press (October 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0820319465
• ISBN-13: 978-0820319469
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #204,647 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A cluster of texts, July 11, 2002

By 

Rebecca "rebagin" (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maps to Anywhere (Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction) (Paperback)

This book contains many essays. Some are one to two page long observations, others are more personal. The more personal ones are the heart of this book. The essays about his relationship with his father are very good. The longest entry is entitled "The House of the Future". It is roughly thirty pages long and it is beautiful. It is worth buying this book just to read this one essay, which is about the death of his older brother. I could not put the book down during this essay. The language and images are extremely vivid, and the story is enveloping. I didn't really care for some of the shorter pieces, but "The House of the Future" is one of the best pieces I have read in a long time.

7 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a truly excellent debut!, January 16, 2001

By 

Hils (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maps to Anywhere (Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction) (Paperback)

I read this book so long ago but just had to be the first to post a review...

This is what essays are all about. It's a fun, informative, and smartly written jaunt through a culture and individual life.

Wonderful!