A RELATIVE STRANGER. [Paperback]

Charles. Baxter (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: NORTON. NY 1990 (1990)
• ASIN: B000J0WGZ8
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,722,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A star rising from the midwest, April 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: A Relative Stranger (Contemporary American Fiction) (Paperback)

Many of these brilliant, thoughtful stories are about people at unexpected moments of boiling over. Something is wrong in these characters' lives--a minister anchored in security who desperately needs his own sermon on fear; an adult ed. teacher questioning what he believes and teaches--their emotional well-being, as a whole, may not be in peril, but something is. And Baxter has the grace and patience to take us about as far as one could go into small yet poignant circumstances of recognizable characters. Baxter's prose is lilting yet potent: "He was ball-and-chained to his emotions. On some days the obsession weighed him down so heavily that he could not get out of bed to go to work without groaning and reaching for his hair, as if to drag himself up bodily for the working day." This passage from "Saul and Patsy are Pregnant" illustrates Baxter's gift for confusing the comic and tragic--should these be opposites, one thinks--after reading this stunning collection.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth discovering, January 19, 2000

By 

Eric Ziegenhagen - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Relative Stranger (Contemporary American Fiction) (Paperback)

My favorite story in this solid collection is "The Disappeared" -- a Swedish engineer comes to Detroit on business and tries to make sense of the world he finds himself in. It's one of the best stories I've read this decade, and a number of others in this collection rival it as well. (I liked this collection more than "Believers" and "Harmony of the World" -- but his essay collection Burning Down the House is great, too.) Baxter's not a flashy writer, but he's never simple -- more Edward Hopper than Norman Rockwell. Sample one story and you'll probably find the collection worth buying. These stories should last.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, September 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Relative Stranger (Contemporary American Fiction) (Paperback)

Why aren't more people reading Baxter? These wonderful stories are so moving they hold weight against writers like Cheever and Englander. Each is exquisitely wrought and powerful. A true master of craft...and (finally) suspense!