Here We Are in Paradise: Stories [Hardcover]

Tony Earley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1994

A collection of powerful short stories set in North Carolina includes ""Charlotte,"" about a professional wrestling extravaganza that uncovers a young couple's differences, and ""Gettysburg,"" in which a middle-aged man falls in love--with his wife.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Eight beautifully crafted tales illuminate the lives of 20th-century North Carolinians in this debut collection from Earley, whose work has been published in Harper's , Tri-Quarterly and other literary periodicals. With quirky ruefulness, he narrates the experiences of ordinary people who may or may not matter to anyone but themselves. In "Charlotte" (which also appears in Best American Short Stories 1993 ), the manager of a bar recalls an epic battle between two professional wrestlers in the days before "Frannie Belk gathered up all the good and evil in our city and sold it four hours south"--to Atlanta, where the wrestlers now fight on TBS. The narrator of both "Aliceville" and "Story of Pictures" chronicles his Depression-era boyhood, remembering how glimpses of a flock of geese and a woman bathing in a pond awakened him to the world outside his hometown. "My Father's Heart" captures the bittersweet longing of a boy who knew his father only through the memories of others. In each of these stories, Earley deftly weaves together several thematic strands to create complex, richly rewarding fiction. His tales connect with the heart.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Earley has written eight short stories about regular folks living in North Carolina, coping with the trials of their existence. None of the characters is glamorous, but all reveal a basic humanity. Earley's style varies from pure narrative to stream of consciousness. In "The Prophet of Jupiter," a damkeeper intersperses the story of Lake Glen with his feelings about his estranged wife's carrying another man's child. "Aliceville" is a charming story about a young boy who sees a large flock of geese while out with his uncle and returns to hunt them. The title story portrays an older couple's response to the wife's breast cancer and mastectomy. Three of the stories feature young Jim Glass and his eccentric family. In each, the mother strives to keep her deceased husband's memory alive by endlessly telling stories about him. While the subject matter is not extraordinary, this collection is engaging and down to earth. For general readers.
- Kimberly G. Allen, MCI Corporate Information Resources Ctr., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 198 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (T); 1st edition (February 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316199621
• ISBN-13: 978-0316199629
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,171,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Earley's debut doesn't disappoint, July 11, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Here We Are in Paradise: Stories (Hardcover)

I first stumbled across Tony Earley's work in Best American Short Stories, in which "Charlotte" was featured. Since that time, I've eagerly awaited his first full-length collection of fiction. That debut, Here We Are in Paradise, is one of most well-crafted books of the year, and Earley has proven to be one of the finest portrayers of character in contemporary American fiction.

Reader beware - Earley presents very few intriguing plot entaglements and no high-speed adventure in his stories of mostly small-town Southern life. Instead, his tales are small and delicate, placed in the slippery spaces that exist between human hearts. Earley has a grasp of the intricacies of relationships and feelings only matched by a select few of his contemporaries.

In the tradition of Raymond Carver, Earley effortlessly identifies the thing in each of his characters which makes him or her a unique individual. With that individuality comes a sort of dignity, and Earley's characters become more than characters - they are real humans, who change and grow, albeit gradually, through each story. Earley's characters are significant not so much because of their outward actions, but because their inward humanity captures the reader's pity and respect. The main character of "Charlotte" struggles with his love of a girlfriend who is unable to reciprocate, the narrator in "Here We Are in Paradise" identifies the split between the woman she is to herself and the woman she must be for her husband, the son in "Story of Pictures" tries to deal with his mothers' obsession with his father's death and his own obsession with trains. Each of Earley's stories gives us a small glimpse of what it means to be human.

It is the author's voice which truly separates him from the pack of young writers today. He is in no hurry to move the plots of his stories along, and the virtue of this languid pace is that it allows him to capture details unseen by most authors. It is in these small moments of the characters' day to day that they reach their most important revelations. In "Here We Are in Paradise," the narrator remembers a picture, with the words of the title scrawled on its back, which her father sent relatives after their life in California failed to live up to expectations. The young woman in "Gettysburg" maintains that the herpes which she passed along to her live-in boyfriend will at least keep him from ever forgetting her. It is these moments which reveal the individuality of each of Earley's characters.

Each of the stories in Here We Are in Paradise climaxes as the main character reaches some sort of self-revelation. Unlike many writers, Earley tackles these moments sublimely without overstatement. There is no blinding light and no words from above, but some small ordinary event changes the way each character sees his or her world. Through their small actions and interactions, Earley's characters find their way in the world and identify their place within it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best single work of fiction I've ever read., August 23, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Here We Are in Paradise: Stories (Hardcover)

The first short story in this collection, "The Prophet from Jupiter," is the single best work of fiction I've ever read. Funny, evocative, sad, and amazingly complex. I read that after Tony Earley finished that story, he was afraid he'd never write anything ever again - it took that much out of him. The rest of the stories are stellar as well, the magical lives of people who have fallen into the cracks of American life

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What a good writer he is., June 10, 2008

By 

Lazyboy (San Francisco, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Here We Are in Paradise: Stories (Paperback)

This book inlcudes the first short stories of the characters from "Jim the boy" and "Blue Star". Since I'm a big fan of those books, it was interesting to read his first takes at those characters. His other stories show a different side of the writer. He writes of modern characters in very adult situations. He's a very observant, realistic writer, who can subtly capture a character's emotional essense in a small act. I don't know many writers who can disclose the truth about average people more artistically than Earley.