Stepmother (Coover, Robert) [Hardcover]

Robert Coover (Author), Michael Kupperman (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Coover, Robert | Publication Date: June 10, 2004

Robert Coover, a father of modern American experimental fiction, returns with "Stepmother," a masterful re-imagining of the fairy-tale tradition. There is magic, there are princes, and painful castrations. Also, there is beauty and true love, of a sort. Stepmother is illustrated by Michael Kupperman, bound in soft cloth, and stamped with precious metals.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mr. Coover's work has long occupied a place of honor. He goes at his task with an almost alarming linguistic energy, a Burgessy splatter of vocabulary, and a ferocious love of everything comic and grotesque." -SALMAN RUSHDIE "As his dazzling career continues to demonstrate, Mr. Coover is a one-man Big Bang of exploding creative force." -EDMUND WHITE, The New York Times Book Review "Robert Coover remains our foremost verbal wizard, our laughter in the dark." -T.C. BOYLE "Robert Coover is a colossal subversive. At seventy-two, Coover is still a brilliant mythmaker, a potty-mouthed Svengali, and an evil technician of metaphors. He is among our languages most important inventors, and it is more crucial than ever to read him." -BEN MARCUS "Of all the post-modernist writers, Robert Coover is probably the funniest and most malicious, mixing up broad social and political satire with vaudeville turns, lewd pratfalls and clever word plays that make us rethink both the mechanics of the world and our relationship to it." -MICHIKO KAKUTANI, The New York Times "Robert Coover's work is sharp, sly, and shockingly funny." -LYDIA DAVIS "Robert Coover was my teacher when I was young and impressionable, which was long ago. He put my head in a vice, and crushed it, picked out the bits that were worth saving, of which there were not many, and made me the writer that I am. Rarely has mordant wit and loathing for the corridors of power been yoked so effectively to a wild love of language and a democratic urge to entertain. He was my teacher then, and he is still my teacher by his fine example. I always read his new work with a sense of excitment." -RICK MOODY

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: McSweeney's (June 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932416099
• ISBN-13: 978-1932416091
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #903,928 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coover at his best, May 3, 2006

By 

R. E. Lomas Nd "mancorn" (Long Valley, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stepmother (Coover, Robert) (Hardcover)

This is a fairy tale for adults, with all the elements of those tales you knew as children, but more. The book is an easy read, entertaining, and only long enough for a short afternoon or evening. The content, illustrations, and binding guarantee that it will be parked on your library shelf. It's a great introduction to Coover, and aptly demonstrates why he will, in my opinion, gain a rightful place among our country's great authors.

1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nothing you haven't seen before, August 25, 2008

By 

Evan Waters (Kansas City, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stepmother (Coover, Robert) (Hardcover)

Though Coover is undeniably a talented writer, he decides to take a very well-worn path for this book. It's a deconstructed fairy tale, one of approximately 18 billion, and the themes are familiar. Yes, the old stories were often appallingly misogynist and affirmed rigid patriarchal values, including a distrust of the other and the outsider. Yes, this was bad. Coover scores some points for not completely inverting everything- the witches aren't quite innocent, just no more brutal than everyone else- but the whole story is pretty one-note and forgettable. It offers nothing new, it just deconstructs the old, and without offering real change it's simply a grim and ugly affair.

3 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a retelling, October 19, 2007

By 

Anne Gabriel "voracious reader" (columbia, Tennessee United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stepmother (Coover, Robert) (Hardcover)

Taking only the scintillating, perverted elements and adding a dark, unbounded hatred for all that is "church" this author's treatment of every story hinted at in this text is without feeling or imagination. Salman Rushdie's review that this work occupies a place of honor is an accurate gauge of his lack of taste. I found it for 1.50 in a Univ. bin and regretted the waste of a decent binding as I threw it in the trash.