The Tiger in the Grass: Stories and Other Inventions [Hardcover]

Harriet Doerr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1995

The first collection of stories by the author of the best-selling Consider This, Sen+a1ora includes never-before-published fiction, set in Mexico, and autobiographical reflections. 50,000 first printing. $35,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Because she started writing late in life, octogenarian Doerr has only two works to her credit: the novels Stones for Ibarra and Consider This, Senora. This collection of short fiction and vignettes offers more of her crystalline, elegiac prose, with the added advantage to those interested in her life that two pieces are short memoirs and most of the others have at least traces of autobiographical inspiration. The title piece is undiluted memoir, in which Doerr explores the power of memory to synthesize a lifetime's experience and acknowledges an influence she learned about in her declining years, "the tiger in the grass... [is] my fierce old companion, half threat, half friend." Resonant, touching, and vividly real, this piece is a model of its kind. Three of the six stories in a section named "Mexico" concern Sara and Richard Everton, the protagonists of Stones for Ibarra, and all the stories in this section reflect Doerr's years in that country. The awareness of mortality hovers over these tales, but there is also the recognition of haunting moments of perfect happiness, most of them understood as characters look backward and distill the essence of the event. Each piece here contains wise insights, couched in stunning metaphors and sensory imagery that lifts individual sentences off the page. Of a woman overheard weeping: "It seemed chronic rather than acute, a way of life rather than a trauma." The final story, "Evie: A Life," has been anthologized often, but it is affecting no matter how many times one has read it. In fact, one reads all these pieces slowly, savoring the glow of Doerr's prose. In the section titled "Memory," Doerr describes the sheets of summer rain that fall in isolated, selective torrents in Mexico. "My memory, like those storms... has begun to rain on me in sleeves," she says. Readers will hope that more of these beautiful pieces will come from Doerr's pen. 50,000 first printing.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

As she recounts in the moving opening piece of this collection, Doerr published her first novel at the age of 74. Now 85, she looks back on the intervening years of marriage, children, and her years spent living in Mexico as an exercise in memory for her grown children. This and the final reminiscence frame the incandescent stories at the center, many of which are set in Mexico. Fans of Stones for Ibarra (1984) will be happily reunited with Richard and Sara Everton and their colorful neighbors and villagers. The closing piece, "Edie: A Life," tells of the woman who came to work as a housekeeper for the author's family after her mother's death, lived with them until the children were grown, and remained a fixture in their lives until her own death. Written with great tenderness and understanding, these stories and "inventions" are perfectly evocative of a long life well lived.
-?Barbara Love, Kingston P.L., Ontario
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 210 pages
• Publisher: The Viking Press; 1st edition (December 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670864714
• ISBN-13: 978-0670864713
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,815,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional reading, December 8, 1999

By 

Kgosh (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tiger in the Grass: Stories and Other Inventions (Paperback)

This book reads like poetry. It's been a while since I read it, but am thinking of reading it again...such a beautiful, if not sad look back on a long and rich life centered in a dry and dusty old Mexico.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ten stars. Absolutely wonderful., April 14, 2004

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Tiger in the Grass: Stories and Other Inventions (Paperback)

Superlatives aren't powerful enough to describe this book by Harriet Doerr. I read Stones for Ibarra, liked it a lot, so rented The Tiger in the Grass from the library as an audio-book to listen to during a long car trip. Halfway thru, I was exclaiming out loud (all by myself in the car), `OMG, this is soooo good!' I liked it light years more than the Ibarra book, even. As soon as I got home, I bought a used copy on Amazon for 50 cents plus the usual postage, etc.
The first section of this lyrical, oh-so-beautifully written book is a loose memoir, a collection of impassioned memories that she wrote down for her children. She was already old when she published Ibarra, and I believe she was in late 70s or maybe her 80s when she wrote this one.
The rest of the book is composed of short pieces that are ethereal essays or somewhat longer semi-autobiographical short stories, vignettes of people she knew while living in Mexico - but all of them rise so far above the usual stuff we read that it's difficult to describe how powerful they all are, once gathered together. It's like, the individual parts are terrific, but put together, the whole is 100x greater than the sum of its part.
There's one story, I think it's called Low Tide, and it's a lovely memory of a day at the beach in 1939. The author is an adult with young children, but there's a hint of evil somewhere lurking - then we realize it's the rise of Nazism when the hamburger seller comments about bad times coming and `that German paperhanger.' At the end of the story, Doerr comments that she wanted time to stand still long enough for her to paint and frame Low Tide, a metaphor for peace and innocence. Lord, I get goosebumps all over again, just trying to paraphrase it for this review.
Buy it. Read it. Give it as a gift. Then read it again yourself, and again.
Wow.

5.0 out of 5 stars Short Stories, October 30, 2010

By 

Garden Bird "garden bird" (Newberg, OR) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Tiger in the Grass: Stories and Other Inventions (Paperback)

I have enjoyed all of Harriet Doerr's books. Her personal history is also interesting. she has her own special style.