Customer Reviews

Essential Stories (Modern Library Classics)

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Here's why you *need* to read this book.

1. Although Victor Sawdon Pritchett writes about ordinary people, the results are anything but ordinary. There isn't a story in this book that isn't exceptional.
2. Complexity of the right kind. As it says in the introduction: "he knows that oddity is the norm, not the exception". He presents his characters with such insight and perceptiveness it would be scary, if not for the generosity and compassion that shine through on every page.
3. Perfect pitch. Sir Victor writes as if taking dictation from the Muse herself.
4. Sixteen stories, all brilliant. My favorites were "The Evils of Spain", "The Two Brothers", "You Make Your Own Life", "When My Girl Comes Home", "The Wheelbarrow" - oh hell, I liked them all. There's not a dud in the bunch.

This is the best book I've read so far this year.