The Stonemason: A Play In Five Acts - Hardcover

9780880013598: The Stonemason: A Play In Five Acts
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 

The Stonemason is a profoundly moving drama set in Louisville, Kentucky in the 1970s, concerning several generations of a black family. McCarthy's narrator, Ben, reveals a painful episode in his family's history, grounding us at the same time in the beautiful dynamic between him and his grandfather, Papaw. Ben, Ben's father, and Papaw are all stonemasons, but in descriptions of "the trade" we learn as much about this family's capacity for love as we do about constructing sound foundations for houses, barns and bridges.

Papaw's knowledge about stonemasonry is analogous to his deep spiritual wisdom, and Ben recognizes both as he looks back on his apprenticeship in the "trade at which I thoughtmyself a master and of which I stood in darkest ignorance. And as I came to know him ... As I came to know him ... Oh I could hardly believe my good fortune. I swore then I'dcleave to that old man like a bride. I swore he'd take nothing to his grave."

Papaw's son Big Ben and great-grandson Soldier do not respond as whole-heartedly to the old man's wealth of knowledge and patient guidance and the tragedy of the story is largely rooted in this fact. Both of these characters have lost connection with the work of their hands and by association with the earth, their family, and themselves. They are profoundly dissatisfied. Of his father, Ben later wonders, "Why could he not see the worth of that which he had laid aside and the poverty of all he hungered for? Why could he not see that he too was blest?"

The Stonemason reveals afresh the mastery of character, plot, pathos, and the poetic facility for language that distinguishes Cormac McCarthy's fiction, and which recently earned him the National Book Award for his bestselling novel, All The Pretty Horses.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap:
r hailed as an American original -- and the author of the national bestsellers All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing -- comes a taut, expansively imagined drama about four generations of an African American family.

The setting is Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1970s. The Telfairs are stonemasons and have been for generations. Ben Telfair has given up his education to apprentice himself to his grandfather, Papaw, a man who knows that "true masonry is not held together by cement but...by the warp of the world." Out of the love that binds these two men and the gulf that separates them from the Telfairs who have forsaken -- or dishonored -- the family trade, Cormac McCarthy has crafted a drama that bears all the hallmarks of his great fiction: precise observation of the physical world; language that has the bite of common speech and the force of Biblical prose; and a breathtaking command of the art of storytelling.
From the Back Cover:
"McCarthy has achieved something only a few artists even attempt: He has created his own world...and made it his own -- beautiful, nightmarish, isolated." -- Wall Street Journal

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherEcco Press
  • Publication date1994
  • ISBN 10 0880013591
  • ISBN 13 9780880013598
  • BindingHardcover
  • Edition number1
  • Number of pages146
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780679762805: The Stonemason: A Play in Five Acts

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780679762805
Publisher: Vintage, 1995
Softcover

  • 9781447272168: The Stonemason

    Picador, 2014
    Softcover

  • 9780330350334: The Stonemason

    Picador
    Softcover

  • 9781131077697: Stonemason a Play In Five Acts Edition

    Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

McCarthy, Cormac
Published by Ecco Press (1994)
ISBN 10: 0880013591 ISBN 13: 9780880013598
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldenWavesOfBooks
(Fayetteville, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0880013591

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 42.89
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

McCarthy, Cormac
Published by Ecco Press (1994)
ISBN 10: 0880013591 ISBN 13: 9780880013598
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GF Books, Inc.
(Hawthorne, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. Seller Inventory # 0880013591-2-1

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 53.98
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

McCarthy, Cormac
Published by Ecco Press (1994)
ISBN 10: 0880013591 ISBN 13: 9780880013598
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Book Deals
(Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-0880013591-new

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 53.99
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

McCarthy, Cormac
Published by Ecco Press (1994)
ISBN 10: 0880013591 ISBN 13: 9780880013598
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Front Cover Books
(Denver, CO, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0880013591

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 49.70
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.30
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

McCarthy, Cormac
Published by Ecco Press (1994)
ISBN 10: 0880013591 ISBN 13: 9780880013598
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldBooks
(Austin, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0880013591

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 54.42
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.25
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

McCarthy, Cormac
Published by Ecco Press (1994)
ISBN 10: 0880013591 ISBN 13: 9780880013598
New Hardcover Quantity: 2
Seller:
Save With Sam
(North Miami, FL, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Brand New!. Seller Inventory # VIB0880013591

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 82.44
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

McCarthy, Cormac
Published by Ecco Press (1994)
ISBN 10: 0880013591 ISBN 13: 9780880013598
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Hafa Adai Books
(Moncks Corner, SC, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # Hafa_fresh_0880013591

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 112.10
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.95
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

McCarthy, Cormac
Published by The Ecco Press, New York (1994)
ISBN 10: 0880013591 ISBN 13: 9780880013598
New Hardcover First Edition Quantity: 1
Seller:
Singularity Rare & Fine
(Baldwinsville, NY, U.S.A.)

Book Description Cloth. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. First Edition. Pristine. New York: The Ecco Press. 1994. First Edition, stated. Octavo, 133 pp. One of just 7500 printed for the first edition. As New, in like jacket. Flawless and unread, sealed and laid flat since acquisition, Very Fine. See scans. An example for the collector. A play in five acts by the enigmatic author of The Crossing and winner of the National Book Award. The Stonemason is the story of several generations of a black family of stonemasons in Kentucky. A line from Act 3, Scene 1, quoted on the jacket back flap: "The reason the stonemason's trade remains esoteric above all others is that the foundation and hearth are the soul of human society and it is that soul that the false mason threatens. So. It's not the mortar that holds the work together. What holds the stone trues the wall as well and I've seen him check his four-foot wooden level with a plumb bob and then break the level over the wall and call for a new one. Not in anger, but only to safeguard the true. To safeguard it everywhere. He says that to a man who's never laid a stone that there's nothing you can tell him. Even the truth would be wrong." L13n. Seller Inventory # 000119

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 145.00
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 6.75
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

McCarthy, Cormac
Published by Ecco Press (1994)
ISBN 10: 0880013591 ISBN 13: 9780880013598
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Wizard Books
(Long Beach, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0880013591

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 253.27
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.50
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds