These People Are Us: Stories [Paperback]

George Singleton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2002 | Series: Harvest Book

Once you start reading George Singleton's eagerly awaited first book of stories, a strange thing happens: You discover that the characters sound like people you know--people who are trying hard to make sense of modern absurdities.
With a style all his own, Singleton fashions a world that wins our hearts but teases our senses: how to find a black-market sonogram so your pregnant wife won't find out you accidentally taped over the original; how to help your father and everyone else in town fake being hit by a tornado to get emergency government funds; and why not to look for your next wife at your local recycling center.
Step into Singleton's world and you'll see why he is earning a reputation as one of the funniest, wisest, and most surprising Southern writers of his generation--and why he was named one of the "new writers you need to know" by Book Magazine.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A bouncer videotapes an episode of Bonanza over his wife's sonogram and scrambles to find a replacement, an ex-poet takes a job driving a van that provides mammograms, and an office-supply salesman falls for a woman from an all-girl wrestling revue in a town called Kingdom Come in George Singleton's These People Are Us. While the collection as a whole suffers from a uniformity of tone (all the baffled, overeducated narrators are basically the same guy) and theme (the scratch-yer-head differences between the sexes plus a dose of late 20th-century cultural malaise), taken individually these are fine stories odd, amusing and insightful. (River City

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

PRAISE FOR THESE PEOPLE ARE US

"George Singleton has the singular voice of a down-home schizophrenic. His stories are crazy mad fun."--Playboy

"Plenty of sharp-witted humor . . . A raconteur of trends, counter-trends, obsessions and odd characters."--Morning Edition, NPR

"Every page has a sentence worth reading over again just to savor the image."--Winston-Salem Journal

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1st Harvest Ed 2002 edition (September 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 015601274X
• ISBN-13: 978-0156012744
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,438,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is no lie!, July 12, 2001

By 

Jack Slay (LaGrange, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: These People Are Us (Hardcover)

George Singleton is one of those writers who appears regularly in the best of quarterlies and reviews: Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Glimmer Train, Southern Review, even a couple stories in Playboy. This deserved collection has been a long time coming.

And this is no lie: this boy can write. His stories penetrate the South, depicting narrators in all manner of fixes (taping over a wife's sonogram, caulking a house to within an inch of its life, reporting on a fake tornado, helping blind men shoot pool) in a prose that is as elegant as the Peabody, as savory as barbecue. He nails the Southern experience (call it, perhaps, Good Ol Boy lit), creating empathetic characters and the funniest situations this side the Mississippi.

There are classics here ("Crawl Space," "Outlaw Head and Tail," and the title story jump immediately to mind), stories that deserve to be read for generations to come.

Treat yourself: try this book.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Short Stories!, July 13, 2001

By 

H. Wayne Greenhaw - See all my reviews

This review is from: These People Are Us (Hardcover)

No one writes like George Singleton. Every short story in this grand collection -- as good as, if not better than, J.D. Salinger's NINE STORIES -- is a classic gem. Told with tongue-in-cheek, "These People Are Us" views the world in Singleton's own inimitable vision, sliding through the cracks of life with a grand sweep. In stories that have been published in Playboy, Georgia Literary Review and other literary quarterlies, this collection sings as no other song can be sung. I wouldn't be a bit suprised if Singleton doesn't win the biggest awards in the land with this, his first book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My wife kept talking about convection ovens., March 7, 2002

By 

Sean Nolan "I love a good story" (Greenville, SC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: These People Are Us (Hardcover)

With that we begin a trip, a trip down the backroads of the south. A trip that includes dogs benesth the porch, recycled beer cans, and midget plumbers! Everything that makes the South great!
George has replaced Raymond Carver as my favorite short story writer.