Perpetuity Blues and Other Stories [Hardcover]

Neal Barrett Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2000

The work of novelist and short-story writer Neal Barrett, Jr., runs the gamut from science fiction, westerns, and historical novels to off-the-wall but well-received mainstream fiction, and this collection brings together 11 previously uncollected short stories, many of which first appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Best of the West, and The New Frontier. It also features the novella “Ginny Sweethips’ Flying Circus” and presents the reader with a distinct mix of science fiction and western, which is Barrett at his offbeat best. Here readers will discover Billy the Kid, Erwin Rommel, and the Wright brothers all sharing a dilapidated hotel on the edge of nowhere in “Sallie C,” see how business is done with art-loving extraterrestrials in the “Trading Post,” and meet Maggie McKenna, a country girl whose auctorial aspirations are aided by an alien temporarily stranded on Earth, in “Perpetuity Blues.”

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Gr. 11^-12. Throughout this collection, which includes three sections from his novel The Hereafter Gang (1991), Barrett extends the boundaries of sf, weaving it, sometimes only peripherally, into his lush southern landscapes. With consistent rhythms, intriguing plots, and macabre humor that, according to Terry Bisson's foreward, "out-o-connors" Flannery O'Connor, his book is a demonstration of fine writing. Descriptions are vivid, characters (including some actual figures from history) are multidimensional, and the settings seamlessly transport readers to a distinct place and time. Barrett's original, sometimes brilliant voice makes his book impossible to put into a traditional genre, style, or formula. His approach limits his marketability to YA readers. The protagonists' ages and personalities have YA appeal, but the mature content of some of the stories, sometimes including coarse language or pervasive references to adult themes (including pedophilia), makes this YA literature with a decidedly adult temperament. Roger Leslie
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews

Barrett's previous novels ran from weightless mysteries (Bad Eye Blues, 1997, etc.) to weighs-a-ton science fiction (Through Darkest America, 1987), so this 15-piece collection, a mad, grim, plausible, off-kilter, sometimes amusing brew, comes as a pleasant surprise. In the title piece, a struggling young playwright, swindled by her wicked uncle, befriends a stranded alien, to ultimately felicitous effect. Equally memorable are an unsettling slice-of-life on a remote colony planet, and a similarly disconcerting, hallucinatory world of endless stairways and rooms. Elsewhere, Barrett puts an agreeably flinty edge on a series of dark futures, where co mmunist Chinese have occupied the US, or whites have become a bankrupt, despised, exploited minority; or, after an effortless invasion by superior aliens, entrepreneurs trade art looted from a smashed civilization for basic subsistence; or still other alien invaders, having disappeared most of the human race, are haunted by the ghost of a man who isn't dead yet. The hilarious, well-known ``Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus'' offers a Mad Maxstyle future of robot hucksters, VR sex, gangster-actuaries, and seven-foot-tall, machine-guntoting, poker-playing possums. More sardonically, a half-milehigh statue of Richard Nixon rises on the California coast. In a historical-games vein: straitlaced Emily Dickinson's ghastly adventures in Indian territory; and Sheriff Pat Garrett meets Erwin Rommel and the Wright brothers. Less convincing are the saccharine account of a deformed child's transcendent destiny, Jesus as an elementary student, and a couple of all-but-unintelligible fragments. Here, events march to an outlandish but persuasive logic: peculiar, curious, engaging. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press; 1st edition (February 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965590143
• ISBN-13: 978-0965590143
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,544,514 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "must" for all Neal Barrett fans!, March 3, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perpetuity Blues and Other Stories (Hardcover)

Perpetuity Blues And Other Stories is a showcase collection of Neal Barrett's superb literary talent. The author of more than forty novels and numerous short stories, Barrett's tales evoke that classic "sense of wonder" that separates the adequate hack from the truly gifted author. The speculative fiction featured here include Diner; A Day at the Fair; Sallie C.; Cush; Class of '61; Trading Post; Winter on the Belle Fourche; Stairs; Under Old New York; High Brow; Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus; High Fashion, Mummies, The Model Shop, (from the novel "The Hereafter Gang"); and the title piece, Perpetuity Blues. This very fine anthology is a "must" for all Barrett fans and is highly recommended for anyone who enjoys short stories which consistently defy categorization or convention.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great stories from Neal Barrett, Jr., April 29, 2006

By 

not4prophet (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perpetuity Blues and Other Stories (Hardcover)

I am a longtime admirer of Neal Barrett, Jr., and what particularly dazzles me about his work is its variety. He rambles from post-apocalyptic science fiction to outrageous comic fantasy and over the whole plain of speculative fiction in between, while also taking side trips to mystery and mainstream literature. Barrett's special talent is to use an equally dazzling array of literary styles, a different tone and verbal approach to each story, and always exactly appropriate for what's being said. Through it all, luckily, there are certain things we can depend on from Barrett: beautiful, detailed place descriptions; a bitter cynicism about human institutions; and a deep sympathy for the ordinary people being shoved around by cruel and callous overlords. Given the huge variety of work he does, a collection of Barrett's best short stories has to be a major event in science fiction.

"Winter on the Belle Fourche" begins with a lone woodsmen tracking a party of Indians through a frozen wilderness. A surprise turn of events leaves him stranded for the winter with a strange woman in a remote mountain cabin. Drama builds from the tension between his rough-and-tumble ways and her deep Christian piety. The real joy, however, comes when her identity is finally revealed, and a delgihtful twist ending will have you chuckling for days. This is probably the best alternate history tale I've ever read.

"Stairs" recalls the claustrophobic genius of J. G. Ballard, but with a more fantastic edge. The entire world is reduced to a crowded apartment complex. People live in cramped quarters, rarely venturing out into the hallways, where brutal authorities enforce inexplicable rules.

"Highbrow" takes us to the California coast, where thousands of workers have labored for generations on a towering statue. Barrett spices this one up with little details: steam-powered aircraft, ornery overseas tourists, and a feud over who gets to carve the hairline. What makes this classic Barrett is the ambiguity surrounding the whole project. No one seems to know (or care) the reason the statue is being built. People dedicate their entire life to it and even get buried in it when they die, but the what, why, and when is left to our imagination.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars superbly astounding, June 11, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Perpetuity Blues and Other Stories (Hardcover)

You ever wonder what Mark Twain would be writing if he were alive today? Neal Barrett is simply THE best story teller this country has produced in the last twenty five years. Read any of these stories once, and they will remain with you for years. This guy is so good it hurts!