Limbo, and Other Places I Have Lived [Kindle Edition]

Lily Tuck (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

[Lily Tuck is] an elegantly economical stylist able to evoke complex internal meltdowns with a simple stoke of the keys.

Product Description

In an elegant and penetrating first short-story collection, Limbo, and Other Places I Have Lived, Lily Tuck's characters travel to unknown, exotic places and, while there, find themselves deeply immersed in observation -- of the natives, the local customs, the foreign landscape -- in an effort to discern some elemental truth about who they themselves are. Instead, these women meet with disorientation, confusion; they are disappointed by the people closest to them -- lovers, husbands, family members. Finally, they arrive at the sometimes heartbreaking but ultimately optimistic realization that the answers they seek lie not in other people or places but within themselves.

Limbo, and Other Places I Have Lived is a brilliant collection from a writer of exceptional poise and insight.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 132 KB
• Print Length: 192 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books (October 13, 2009)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000QTEA2O
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #516,815 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Writing ability is in limbo, January 18, 2012

By 

Timothy L. Hardesty "picasso" (Memphis, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Limbo, and Other Places I Have Lived: Short Stories (Paperback)

None of these short stories are bad. However, just about all of them fail to live up their potential. Personally, I was expecting to gain a stronger sense of the locations in which these stories were set. Having read the first few, I realized that this was not the author's point. Instead it is to instill a feeling of being in limbo, i.e. a state of flux or transition. Unfortunately, I have experienced this to a greater extent in straight-up travel writing (Pico Iyer comes to mind). All of these stories are from a woman's point of view. I would have liked this collection more if the writer had tried to come at this from a male's perspective in at least a few stories. It would have been much more interesting to see the writer's thoughts about what constitutes a state of limbo for women versus men. Another disappointment is the rather redundant nature of the characters in these stories. The peripheral men, in general, are either weak and limp or abrassive, domineering, and boarder on abusive. While being in limbo is not exactly a zone of empowerment, the women themselves do not seem strong. They did not enter limbo as a strong women in their pasts, nor does the reader ever feel that any of these women will leave limbo with strength, will, and purpose. Overall, this collection receives three stars because the stories are readable, but not a book that I could recommend to someone.