“Leonard Michaels’s stories stand alongside those of his best Jewish contemporaries—Grace Paley and Philip Roth.” —Mona Simpson, The New York Times Book Review “Leonard Michaels was an original . . . with a concise, pungent and pyrotechnic style that tolerated no flab.” —Phillip Lopate, The Nation “As good as any writer you’re likely to run across.” —Alex Abramovich, Bookforum
The Collected Stories
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Though Michaels, who died in 2003 at the age of 70, is probably best known for his novel The Men's Club (1981), these 38 stories attest to his skill as a short story writer. Readers coming to Michaels's work for the first time will find the early, pointed stories from his noteworthy collections, Going Places and I Would Have Saved Them If I Could as well as some of his later works that have never been collected. Michaels's early stories are written with a frantic sexuality that displays his distinctive dark humor. In "Fingers and Toes," recurring characters Henry and Phillip weigh the value of their friendship against their encounters with the same woman through a set of urban hallucinations characteristic of the early stories. Raphael Nachman, the icon of Michaels's later fiction, is an aging mathematician at UCLA and a surprising foil to Michaels's usual kinetic energy. In the first Nachman story, the professor takes a guest lectureship in his ancestral Poland and tries to reconcile his analytical yet peaceful view of the world with his family's history. Fans of the author should be thrilled at having such a wide body of work between two covers.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
"Larky, fifully brilliant, as profane as they are aphoristic, Leonard Michaels's stories stand alongside those of his best Jewish contemporaries--Grace Paley and Philip Roth. Like theirs, Michaels's vernacular achieves the level of song ... ["Murderers"] measures up to that other masterpiece about a young boy on a rooftop, Philip Roth's "Converstion of the Jews" ... Michaels's later work contains his greatest writing ... The seven astonishing Nachmann stories ... consider moral problems freshly. All the ornament seems burned off, purified; the narratives distilled and gorgeously plain, as only a great stylist's can become. Less crackling than the earlier work, they're smoother in the mouth, stark in form. Michaels was writing more Nachmann stories when he died. If finished and published together, they might have made a novel. As it is, they're seven irregular beauties, to be read again and again." --The New York Times Book Review
"Anyone concerned with the American short story should read and know these stories."--Charles Baxter, San Francisco Chronicle
"Though Michaels, who died in 2003 at the age of 70, is probably best known for his novel The Men's Club (1981), these 38 stories attest to his skill as a short story writer. Readers coming to Michaels's work for the first time will find the early, pointed stories from his noteworthy collections, Going Places and I Would Have Saved Them If I Could as well as some of his later works that have never been collected. Michaels's early stories are written with a frantic sexuality that displays his distinctive dark humor. In 'Fingers and Toes,' recurring characters Henry and Phillip weigh the value of their friendship against their encounters with the same woman through a set of urban hallucinations characteristic of the early stories. Raphael Nachman, the icon of Michaels's later fiction, is an aging mathematician at UCLA and a surprising foil to Michaels's usual kinetic energy. In the first Nachman story, the professor takes a guest lectureship in his ancestral Poland and tries to reconcile his analytical yet peaceful view of the world with his family's history. Fans of the author should be thrilled at having such a wide body of work between two covers."--Publishers Weekly
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
dude is a genius,
By
This review is from: The Collected Stories (Hardcover)
Writing this precise doesn't get learned. It comes straight from something higher. This is as poetic as you are likely read. Words will smash your face in. Desparation looms everywhere, and hope is just around a deserted corner.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great collection,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Collected Stories (Hardcover)
These stories present vision of many different times and places, all told with precision and biting humor. Many take place in New York in the '50s and '60s. You will witness a major social and cultural center at a crucial moment. You will feel you lived there for a brief time while you read the story.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Point of View,
By QUESTER "Quester" (USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Collected Stories (Paperback)
I got this book after hearing one of the author's short stories read on-air. I liked the story, but did think that it did leave you wondering a bit. My guess was that the other short stories by this author would be similar, if not quite as amorphous.
Truth be told, the story that I had originally heard (one of the Nachman series), was one of the more solid and complete stories in the set. It's like he's transcribing the continous internal/thought-life of his subjects as they react to various experiences, from the mundane to the outlandish. I've read a few of the others, but don't know when or if I'll read more.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
