In The Gloaming: Stories [Paperback]

Alice Elliott Dark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 16, 2001

When the austere and moving title story of this collection appeared in The New Yorker in 1993, it inspired two memorable film adaptations, and John Updike selected it for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of the Century. In these ten stories, Alice Elliott Dark visits the fictional town of Wynnemoor and its residents, present and past, with skill, compassion, and wit. By turns funny, sad, and disturbing, these are stories of remarkable power.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Alice Elliott Dark's second collection of stories evokes the same reaction one might have to a terribly beautiful, unabashedly smart woman--the reader is left both captivated and unnerved. Dark, of course, has a great many expectations to live up to. There's not only the success of her debut collection, Naked to the Waist, but the numerous bouquets tossed at the title story of In the Gloaming: first John Updike chose it for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of the Century, and then it was made into a fine (and highly visible) film. Yet she meets the challenge with wide range and descriptive acuity--and, better, with an emotional intensity that unifies the entire collection. Her stories largely concern what is said, and what is unsaid, between lovers, neighbors, and family members. "In the Gloaming," for example, revolves around the valedictory conversations of a mother and her son who is dying of AIDS. In "The Secret Spot," a young wife encounters a woman whom she mistakenly identifies as a rival for her husband's affections, and chats herself into an awful, artful epiphany. The protagonist of "Dreadful Language" is haunted by her dead lover, who seems to pass judgment on the suburban existence she has settled for:

He came to me more and more often and was so himself, so surprising and other, that I had to reason with myself severely on my train rides back to Wynnemoor to remember that I was making him up. Or was I? Has anyone ever known for sure the provenance of either art or apparitions?

At times Dark demonstrates an almost Victorian impulse toward melodrama--almost because she grounds her coincidences in the ordinary mess of modern life. And her mastery of atmosphere will persuade us of almost anything. Witness the spooky and authoritative opening of "Maniacs": "Silent sound, vivid absence, pressure from beyond the quilts and walls, the taste of pennies on the tongue; several miles apart two sisters awoke within moments of each other and instinctively knew it had snowed." Whether you're seeking exquisite prose or raw emotion, you'll find yourself perfectly moved and plainly edified by Dark's capacious talent. --Amy Grace Loyd --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The title story of Dark's second collection was a major 1994 hit, published in Best American Short Stories of the Century and made into a critically acclaimed HBO film starring Glenn Close, directed by Christopher Reeve. The other nine stories collected here prove that Dark is by no means a one-hit-wonder. Probing the murkiest and the more illuminated regions of the human psyche, these tales reckon with relationships between lovers, spouses, sisters, neighbors and parents and children with a masterful combination of subtle humor, emotional precision and devastating narrative tension. The collection opens with the celebrated title story about a woman tending to her adult son who's dying of AIDS; the tone throughout is one of sorrowful, unnerving quiet until the final, cathartic line. "The Tower" is a spirited tale of a suave, detached bachelor who, upon finally meeting his soul mate, falls madly in love, setting up a chain of coincidences that leads the new couple to a hilarious, unexpected plateau. Similarly twisted humor abounds in "The Secret Spot," which suspensefully skewers a vengeful woman who obsessively plans a long-awaited confrontation with her husband's mistress. Other stories perceptively plumb the relationships between sisters, with "The Jungle Lodge" following two teen sisters on a jaunt in Peru that turns nightmarish, and "Maniacs" showing the despair and longing in a mother taking her two pubescent daughters to the airport so they can fly alone to visit their divorced father. The author manifests the voices of men and women, teens and seniors, with equal dexterity, and whether it's an elderly woman facing the frightening immediacy of relocating to a rest home, a man trying to choose between his wife and his lover, or a dying celebrity desperate for a favor from the home-town neighbors she's always scorned, Dark's characters ring fearlessly, plangently true. Dark (Naked to the Waist) belongs in the annals with literary peers Lorrie Moore and Alice Munro, and with this collection she should garner widespread acclaim and attention. Agent, Henry Dunow. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 286 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st Scribner Paperback Fiction Ed edition (January 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684870053
• ISBN-13: 978-0684870052
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,014,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real writing, December 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Gloaming (Hardcover)

It's great to see someone writing stories that are ambitious in scope and that go a long way toward achieving that ambition. The writing is gorgeous, the plotting intelligent, the level of thought and observation very high. All of the stories were excellent, but "Home," "In the Gloaming," "Triage," "The Secret Spot," and "Watch the Animals," are among the best I have read in a single collection since Cheever's collected works. Alice Dark's stories also reminded me of those of Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald, though they are original, distinctive, and contemporary in sensibility. Well worth reading.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding collection by a talented writer, January 19, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Gloaming (Hardcover)

Alice Elliott Dark's new collection of short stories is a revelation! Dark is able to take even the most ordinary of situations and make it extraordinary with her subtle, beautiful writing and keen sense of observation. "The Secret Spot" crackles with tension and is wonderfully reminiscent of Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever." Meanwhile, the title story, "In the Gloaming" is quietly moving, with a beautiful, human, heartbreaking ending. That story alone is worth the price of the book! Fortunately, every story is a delight.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smart and Observant Fiction, January 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Gloaming (Hardcover)

Dark is a terrific writer. Her prose is graceful, yet keenly observant. And her characterizations are so specific, so deft, that these stories often surprised me...and I'm not often surprised by contemporary short fiction. I've recommended the book to both men and women, and the praise is unanimous. This is rich, thoughtful writing for readers who like rich, thoughtful books. The above review which mentions Wharton and Cheever is on the mark. A high recommendation.