The author of the critically acclaimed Frog presents a collection of what he considers to be his finest short fiction that incisively captures the absurdities of urban America, the nature of modern relationships, and the complexities of human life. 10,000 first printing.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
As a body of work, the 60 pieces in this collection create a fictional world which, though often chillingly narrow in focus and perspective, manages also to be universal. Selected by the author (a 1991 National Book Award nominee for his novel Frog ) and presented chronologically, the stories contain a wide variety of incidents yet also demonstrate how little Dixon's approach has changed over three decades. He portrays urban, middle-aged male characters neurotically and sometimes violently obsessed with sexuality and partnership issues, capable of both violent, insensitive acts and gentle, tremendously touching gestures of humanity. His stylistic tricks include machine-gun dialogue and descriptions that merge thoughts, conversation and often absurd narrative into a single mind-blurring entity. Interspersed among these clipped passages are long, labyrinthine sentences that occasionally rival those of Joyce and Faulkner for depth and complexity. Perhaps Dixon's greatest gift is his talent for hall-of-mirror effects: virtually every story takes alarming twists and turns, and several contain more than a dozen tales within a single title ("14 Stories"). First-time Dixon readers may find the anthology more exhausting than exhaustive, for his style can be grim, overbearing and relentlessly male. Nonetheless, this volume is indispensable for serious literature students and lovers of the short story.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This volume contains some of Dixon's best short fiction, written over a 30-year period from 1963 to 1993. His work is artful and structurally complex: stories unfold within stories, digressions interrupt the narratives, time frames shift from past to present, and different voices pick up the threads. Rich with the precise details of ordinary urban life, the stories are gently distorted by the introduction of fantastic and surreal elements. Dixon's characters are contemporary metropolitans; his subject is changing relationships, romantic and familial, captured at the moment they are about to disintegrate. He is a master of the rhythms of dialog who skillfully captures the oblique ways in which people talk about, and avoid talking about, love and commitment; meaning is derailed, time and again, by extravagant word play. Dixon has written ten books of short stories and several novels, including the acclaimed Frog ( LJ 1/92), portions of which are included in this volume. A good introduction to Dixon's work; recommended for fiction collections. --Eleanor Mitchell, Arizona State Univ. West, Phoenix
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
Stephen Dixon is the author of twenty-seven works of fiction including, most recently, Phone Rings and Old Friends (both published by Melville House). His novels Interstate and Frog were both finalists for the National Book Award. Frog was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. His work has received the O. Henry Award, the Best American Short Stories award, the Pushcart Prize, The American Academy Institute of Arts and Letters Prize for Fiction, and he has been a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Unpredictable Stephen Dixon Spins a Winner,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Stories of Stephen Dixon (Hardcover)
The stories in Stephen Dixon's most recent collection drop the reader into the middle of the action with the opening lines. Here is a writer that creates a whole scenario with a few choice exchanges of dialogue or descriptions and involves the reader effectively. The conflicts are realistic, the tension convincing, yet ordinary. The charecters are diverse, although all have a certain humanity, which the author exposes without being perverse.
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