Customer Reviews

Here We Are in Paradise: Stories

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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.

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

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.

The first story in this collection had me concerned-- various southern "stock" characters, an odd stream of consciousness narrative, flashbacks between modern absurdities and wrongs a generation ago. The story was readable, but I thought that I was reading yet another "southern boy writes about how odd his milieu is" collection. As the collection progressed, though, I came to see that Mr. Earley has a real talent for the story. He hits themes which are pretty well travelled in short stories these days--"accepting less in life, but wanting more", "the things we say, the things we can't say", but his prose style is fresh, and his sense of a good story is impeccable. Sometimes I feel that his plots try to "touch the bases" of a "proper" short story, when in fact he should just let his narrative genius flow. This is a very worthwhile book to read, quite an entertainment. Mr. Earley can write comic scenes, but this is no simplistic set of comic stories. This is a set of good yarns by a modern storyteller.

I couldn't believe it when I heard this wonderful book is out of print!! How could we let this happen? Surely we could have found a spot on our bookshelves, one space between all the fluff for this priceless and rare book. A book that should teach us all a lesson. Treasure a gem if you find it, keep it somewhere safe, because you might find you've kept something even more valuable than you ever thought. I'm glad I found this particular gem of a book before the presses stopped. And Mr. Earley? How about just one more. I've saved a place on my bookshelf.

Tony Earley is a genuine voice of the South.

This collection of stories, told form the perspective of truly ordinary North Carolinians set over a period of 50 years or so, elegantly captures the nuances, the mores, the traditions, the idiosyncrasies and-most importantly-the feel of life in the South. The stories are told from radically different points of view-a Charlotte bar owner, a middle aged woman with breast cancer, an 8 year old boy-yet each is as genuine and true to its roots as the next.

Earley has an engaging and warm hearted writing voice and a very nice ear for dialog-both verbalized and internal. Also, for the most part (the story Entitled Aliceville is an exception) he takes his time and fully develops his characters and themes. One has the sense after completing each story that one has in fact read a novella though the length of the stories are consistent with the short story guidelines-it's just that the stories are so `rich' that they have the feel of being more substantial than a short story.

Those who follow Earley-not a great number given where his books sit in the sales ranks-may be interested to note that the last two stories develop the characters that would form Earely's excellent novel Jim the Boy, which I also heartily recommend.

I can't fathom why this man hasn't had more success. He was tagged early as one of those "rising young author's to watch" sorts by all those publications that track that sort of thing and I find his work to be exceptional, but he has for some reason totally obscure to me never reached or clicked with the mass market, an unfortunate outcome both for Earley as well as all those who are missing out on a great author.

This will be a truly enjoyable reading experience for those lucky enough to stumble upon it.

These delicate short stories tell harrowing tales of love and loss with something rare in modern literature - absolute respect for the characters and the reader.

I'm really looking forward to Tony Earley's novel that contains some of the characters from the last three stories in this collection.

Bill

I was a little disappointed in first story in book. It was a bit too graphic ..but true for the times..This author tells it like it is. Paints a "real" picture about anything he is describing..After I read the other stories I should write another review....and see how the whole books turn out..He is an excellent writer.

Tony Earley...after reading "The Blue Star" let me know that he is a gifted writer with a knack for taking the reader to a special place and time. That special place: the innocence of a child that some of us can relate to and unfortunately a lot of us cannot. And the time: far away to a simpler life of GOD-fearing people that worked hard and did anything to perserve that way of life. Tony Earley is on my list now. As of today I am only one book away from his entire collection(that I know of). I'm so excited!!!!

Even though I am known to many friends and acquaintances as a voracious reader, personal recommendations for reading matter only run to a dozen or two books annually. Yet, in the puzzling realm of coincidence which leads so many among us to believe in fairies or astrology, I have lately experienced literary deja vu all over again, for the second time in less than a year. Nine months ago it came in the form of two unaquainted friends, unbidden, handing me copies of INTO THE WILD (Villard Books, 1996) by Jon Krakauer. In the past two weeks two other unconnected friends recommended another non-current title -- in fact, they both recommended the same story in a book of short stories! I therefore determined to get hold of "Charlotte" by Tony Earley, and found it in this volume. In the delightful realm of non-coincidence which ever confirms my disbelief in fairies and astrology, I found "Charlotte" to be the weakest story in this book. Not bad, really, but not at all to my taste -- a little excessive, a little too much trying. On the other hand, and eager to give due credit, I was much pleased at being introduced to Earley's fiction. He is an adept story teller with a keen eye for detail: the clear water in a mill pond, "as green as a jewel" and water over the dam "fell away clear as glass and shattered on the rocks below," fixing that location in a setting like a brilliant gem. And again, hoeing past a grave in a cotton field, "... it was a spot that by its nature forced me to end one thing, and momentarily step out of my way and consider, and then start something fresh on the other side; it made room inside those four rows of cotton, and the working days that held them, for a small, necessary type of hope." In another passage his protagonist speaks of his mother, "Although I do not know how conscious she was of it, my mother had a gift for knowing how to change a story inside its telling to make it more true." This describes the author as well, changing his telling as he tells, detail by detail, until the subject is seen from every side, and the lives on the page step out into the reader's world. Fine reading.