In the nine short stories collected here, Pizzolatto, like the great Richard Ford, is drawn unceasingly to sad, even grim scenarios depicting the ways people fail to connect. And, also like Ford, he expresses their disaffection in precise language, drawing readers into perfectly realized, frequently unconventional scenarios. Loneliness, fear, shame, and alienation are the emotional currency he deals in as he tracks heartbroken moms and depressed vets. In the most affecting story, "1987, the Races," 11-year-old Dru spends his visitation weekend with his father at the racetrack. Made uneasy by his dad's emotional volatility, Dru watches warily as his father tries to flirt with a woman clearly out of his league. Dru feels a sudden surge of affection, which just as quickly changes to fear when he realizes he may share certain of his father's traits. In the title story, a young man agrees to help his football coach kidnap his daughter, who makes porn films, but their plan goes disastrously awry. These sad, beautifully constructed stories will resonate with fans of the form.
Joanne WilkinsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“Pizzolatto, like the great Richard Ford, is drawn increasingly to sad, even grim scenarios depicting the way people fail to connect. And, also like Ford, he expresses their dissatisfaction in precise language, drawing readers into perfectly realized, frequently unconventional scenarios…These sad, beautifully rendered stories will resonate with fans of the form.”
—
Booklist
"This collection is first-rate, and Pizzolatto is going to be wowing us for a long, long time to come."
–Steve Yarbrough author of
Prisoners of War “This is a wonderful book of stories by a natural writer. Nic’s beautiful, lucid prose seems to flow like water or like music....Nic knows how to write in the marrow of his bones. This will be the first of many brilliant books. Hooray for talent, that rare and lovely gift of the gods.”
–Ellen Gilchrist, author of
Victory Over Japan and
Nora Jane “Pizzolatto’s powerful fiction harkens back to the golden age of short stories when O’Connor and the rest were working. He possesses an apparently unlimited imagination and the narrative skills to bring it to bear.”
–William Gay, author of
Provinces of Night “These are bold, tender, and intelligent stories. Nic Pizzolatto writes about people who don't take loss lightly; they fight it. Whether searching for a disappeared daughter or underground son or for their own abandoned illusions, Pizzolatto's characters try to retrieve and recover their bets. That they rarely succeed doesn't matter. Interesting and beautiful things happen in
Between Here and the Yellow Sea.”
–Molly Giles, author of
Iron Shoes “These stories are violent, sad, and beautiful. They hang around long after you've read them, like a long kiss, or a bruise.”
–Daniel Wallace, author of
Big Fish and
Ray in Reverse
