Coronado: Stories (P.S.) [Paperback]

Dennis Lehane (Author)

Book Description

Series: P.S. | Publication Date: November 6, 2007

Along with completely original material, this new collection is a compilation of the best of Dennis Lehane's previously published short fiction, including "Until Gwen," which was adapted for the stage in 2005 and appears in this book as the play Coronado. By turns suspenseful, surreal, romantic, and tragically comic, these powerful tales journey headlong into the heart of our national myths—and reveal that the truth awaiting us there is not what we would expect.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lehane (Mystic River) hints in the first of these five richly vernacular (and, save one, previously published) stories and one play that "a small town is a hard place to keep a secret." In "Running Out of Dog," two Vietnam vets return to their hometown of Eden, S.C., and become tragically entangled with the wife of a man whose rich family kept him out of the war. Class resentment similarly erupts in "Gone Down to Corpus," set in back-water Texas, 1970, as a group of high school football players breaks into the house of rich kid Lyle, who fumbled the big pass at the last game. They drunkenly wreck the house and are shocked by the appearance of Lyle's younger sister, Lurlene, who is eager to join the party. The collection's centerpiece is "Until Gwen," which has also been adapted by Lehane into a two-act play, Coronado. Transcribed, the play revolves around the edgy reunion of a hustler father and his son, Bobby, newly released after four years in prison. It quickly becomes apparent that Bobby's father has retrieved him only to find out where the heist loot is hidden, and Bobby, in turn, needs to know what happened to his girlfriend, Gwen. Powerfully envisioned lives, recounted unflinchingly. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–In this collection of five short stories and a brief play, Lehane assembles a disparate cast, yet each individual takes part in a similar search for something elusive. In ICU, Daniel is hunted down by assailants and must hide in a hospital waiting room to survive. Until Gwen reunites a young man just released from prison with the father who corrupted him. Several of the pieces are set in the South, and their pacing is infused with the slowness of a Southern drawl. The mastery of the author's storytelling lies in his ability to create atmosphere. His characters are defined by the mood of the world around them, a world that is often confining and in which hope is thrown aside in favor of a grim pragmatism. Lehane populates his stories with people who are ordinary and reveals the extraordinary complexity of their lives. The decisions they face are unenviable and their choices somehow unavoidable. The author invents nuanced relationships in which murder and betrayal become acts of loyalty and friendship. Each story introduces a touch of the unlikely or unfortunate into otherwise mundane circumstances, then relays the consequences as events unfold. Haunting imagery lingers long after the book is closed.–Heidi Dolamore, San Mateo County Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (November 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061139718
• ISBN-13: 978-0061139710
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #839,516 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dennis Lehane was born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He is the author of A Drink Before the War, which won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel; Darkness, Take My Hand; Sacred; Gone, Baby, Gone; Prayers for Rain; and the New York Times bestsellers Mystic River and Shutter Island.

Mystic River was a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and won both the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best Novel, as well as the Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction given by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Coronado, a collection of five stories and a play, was published in the fall of 2006 and includes the story "Until Gwen," which was adapted for the stage.

Lehane's work has been translated into 22 languages. He holds an MFA from Florida International University and is the writer-in-residence at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he runs the Writers in Paradise writers' conference. Before becoming a full-time writer, Lehane worked as a counselor with mentally handicapped and abused children, waited tables, parked cars, drove limos, worked in bookstores, and loaded tractor-trailers. He lives in the Boston area.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Bleakly depressing but very honest..., January 1, 2007

By 

WRG "Webstercat" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Coronado: Stories (Hardcover)

I picked this book up because I had heard much of the author Dennis Lehane, and thought it would be worth trying his prose on for size (so to speak). It is, for me, and imperfect fit. Lehane is a talented writer, but there is something unrelentingly dark about this book. Every character seems to be caught in a downward spiral, without any hope of escape. Admittedly, there are a few very quick flashes of biting humor in the stories, but I just had that impatient feeling of wanting the book to be over. Although the characters and situations are different, they are all sinking under the stormy surface of life. His prose is stark and unstructured, in a style that I feel is similar to Raymond Carver, although he explains more than Carver every did. I found the book interesting and the characters were very real, but I guess it's just not he kind of thing I feel I need to experience again.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Noir to the Max, December 24, 2007

By 

Richard B. Schwartz (Columbia, Missouri USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Coronado: Stories (Hardcover)

I'm struck by the response of other Amazon readers. I agree that Coronado is not the equal of one of Lehane's novels, but short stories (and short plays) are seldom the equal of a novel, particularly a novel crafted by a writer as gifted as Lehane. Each of the stories here is dark and each is haunting in its own way. Like any reader, I have my favorite(s), but the collection as a whole carries the Lehane touch. I waited awhile to buy Coronado because, like most readers, I was waiting for the next Lehane novel. Paging through the book it felt odd to me, particularly with a two-act play that grew out of one of the stories. I should have read it earlier. Any 'collection' is, a priori, uneven, but each of the stories held my attention and 'Running out of Dog' and 'Before Gwen' are unforgettable. The stories also take Lehane away from his geographical base and demonstrate the range of his talent. I'm still waiting for that next novel, but Coronado has given me enough of a Lehane fix to help me tolerate the wait.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Juvenile, September 13, 2006

By 

H. Schneider "Hamlet" (Pandistan) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Coronado: Stories (Hardcover)

After waiting 3 years since Shutter Island for DL's next book, this collection of short stories and a play came as a major disappointment.
Might DL have a writer's block problem?
Some of the stories are quite good, except ICU, which is a failed attempt at being kafkaesque. But they don't add up to a book. DL should have written a few more for a more solid collection.
The play is just plain bad. The scenes based on "Gwen" are so much weaker than the story. Filling it up with the triangle scenes and the doctor/patient scenes doesn't make it a real play. It is still just a collection of scenes. The dialogues are sometimes miserably juvenile, reminding me of high school efforts at drama. The father/son war of the Gwen-story does not bear being stretched anyway, the man's badness is so overdone, it ought to stay tucked away in a short story.
I think the best of the stories is "Gone down to Corpus". That is also juvenile, but in the sense of looking at young people who are feeling hopeless. Convincing, and very "economical", as the cover blurb announces. Economical probably stands for very short. "Running out of Dog" is a very violent and very bloody, well constructed story about another hopeless situation: when hope comes late to a man, it is dangerous. That's the aphorism around which it is constructed. Some more like these, and I would have given more stars.