Gigantic [Paperback]

Marc Nesbitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 2003

An extraordinary collection of dynamic stories by an exciting new voice in American fiction, Gigantic features ten powerful stories of emotional stagnation and personal transformation, passion and violence, race and community, that are viscerally immediate in their impact and otherworldly in their scope. In "What Good Is You Anyway?" a struggling mattress salesman witnesses a horrific car accident at his bus stop and embarks on a wild journey that will lead him to put his life in order, beginning with his troubled relationship with his disabled alcoholic father. In "Quality Fuel for Electric Living," a sanitation worker, recovering from a romantic breakup and a painful hangover, suddenly faces a life-threatening situation while collecting an unusual deer carcass. In "Thursday the Sixteenth," a club manager dating the ex-girlfriend of a reggae singer unwittingly becomes entangled in a chain of events that ends in a violent confrontation. At turns comic and heartbreaking, and at all times rich with language and meanings that operate simultaneously on a variety of levels, the stories of Gigantic mark the arrival of an exciting voice in American fiction. "Impressive ... Ten lean and energetic stories ... Grimly funny, bleakly fatalistic, and emotionally true all at once." -- Chris Lehman, The Washington Post "Beautiful ... Nesbitt is smart, dark, and funny, like a young Elmore Leonard with a drinking problem." -- Sam Sifton, The New York Times Book Review "Nesbitt takes risks. ... with imagery, details of his characters' dead-end lives and even with structure.... Wonderful ... A talent to watch." -- David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle "Nesbitt sets out to blow his readers away with his debut collection.... He succeeds.... Funny, tense and horrifying." -- Carole Goldberg, The Hartford Courant

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this clever, raucous debut collection, intriguing newcomer Nesbitt offers 10 stories that explore a hard, racially charged world, bitterness and compassion vying for top billing. The first story, "The Ones Who May Kill You in the Morning," sets the tone with its tale of class and racial warfare on the huge estate of a processed-meat magnate ("His baloney has a first name and it's his"). After the young black narrator endures a humiliating job as a glorified lawn ornament he's dressed up in a jockey's outfit to welcome guests he finds himself sought out by the magnate's white daughter for some slumming sex. This thinly veiled rebellion against her father doesn't last long, and the situation soon deteriorates into violence. In "What Good Is You Anyway?" a young man offers this frank assessment of living with his alcoholic father: "We're like most fathers and sons: not much to say, never live up to the other's expectations." Still, he's drawn to his father's ne'er-do-well friends, who together started a black fraternity back in college. In "Man in Towel with Gun," a man takes on a sad and hilarious quest to find his girlfriend, who seems to have disappeared from their house on short notice. If the other stories don't hold together as well as these, Nesbitt's idiosyncratic voice, his sharp-tongued observations and his convincing, colloquial dialogue communicate a unique and arresting worldview. (Mar. 2)Forecast: Nesbitt, a standout among this year's crop of new writers, has been published in the New Yorker and Harper's. That exposure, and an eight-city author tour, should help Gigantic make a strong showing.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Nesbitt comes well recommended; the title story of this debut collection was featured as a New Yorker Debut Fiction Story in July 2001. These ten stories indeed sound "gigantic"Dtough, muscular, and vital, with real events that change peoples' lives. Publication will be capped off with an eight-city author tour.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (January 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802139639
• ISBN-13: 978-0802139634
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,015,326 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mark Nesbitt is one of the Finest Young Fictioneers at Work Today, July 28, 2007

By 

Editor, American Book Review "Eric Miles Will... (South Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gigantic (Paperback)

I review books for the LA Times, the SF Chronicle, the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle, and many other venues. I usually don't write these Amazon reviews. However, I was looking up information on Nesbitt's "Gigantic" and saw that a silly person had taken the time to post a misguided nasty-gram about Nesbitt's masterful first collection. Nesbitt is precisely the kind of antidote we need to displace so very many poseurs like Cunningham, Chabon, Moody, and the rest of the soulless, gutless authors getting all the ink. Thankfully Cheever can no longer write, since he's dead. Updike will cease and desist soon, too. Nesbitt, along with Richard Lange, Larry Fondation, Kevin McIlvoy, and a few others will replace the sorry old guard, much as McCarthy has deposed gasbags like Pynchon and Coover.

Read Nesbitt, folks, and be grateful. I look forward to his new book, and hope that this time around he gets the attention he deserves.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blistering and ultimately cathartic, May 1, 2002

By 

Alan DeNiro "alan_deniro" (Oakdale, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gigantic (Hardcover)

The stories in _Gigantic_ are both hyperkinetic and hyperbolic, often taking an absurdist premise and teasing out the implications. Nesbitt has a keen ear for dialogue and a killer instinct for using metaphors. The opening story, "The Ones Who May Kill You in the Morning" is a perfect example--it has a visceral final image that crystallizes in a few sentences explicitly everything that was implicit in the story beforehand. It's one of those moments where you put the book down and let everything sink in for a few minutes.

I really can't recommend these stories enough--in the end, they are incredibly moving _because_ of the way Nesbitt plays fast and loose with the countours of reality, not despite it. In the last 10 years there has been an oatmealy sea of sameness in literary fiction--but unconventional, authentic writers like Nesbitt give hope for the future. A _lot_ of hope.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invisible Man for the New Century, March 3, 2003

By 

Cort McMeel - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gigantic (Hardcover)

What Sherman Alexie did for the res Indians in "Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heavan," Nesbitt does for his disaffected mullato ekeing out a marginalized existence in the Great White North...Nesbitt with prose that reads like a shttered mirror..one thousand shards of truth scattered on the hard boiled floor of a junkyard, strip club, playground world...Nesbitt is part poet, part badass Chester Himes, part howling Invisble Man...ie..the real deal...he reads like Evader Holyfield fights, a brawling style that sucks you in...While some think that his stories lack plot I would say that the highspeed existence of the modern age is a blur and Nesbitt captures it in rare fragments, diamond like moments...it is fiction for a new century...