We'll Always Have Paris: Stories - Hardcover

Bradbury, Ray

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061670138 ISBN 13: 9780061670138

Publisher: William Morrow, 2009

Synopsis

“After more than a half century at the game, Bradbury still hasn’t lost his masterful touch.” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“His stories and novels are part of the American language.” — Washington Post

Fahrenheit 451. The Martian Chronicles. The Illustrated Man. Dandelion Wine. Something Wicked This Way Comes… these are just a few of the vast collection of master works by Ray Bradbury, one of the best-known and most beloved of American writers. We’ll Always Have Paris, his new collection of stories gathered together for the first time, is a treasure trove of Bradbury gems—eerie and strange, nostalgic and bittersweet, searching and speculative… and a joyous celebration of the lifelong work of a literary legend.

About this title

About the Author

In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. An Emmy Award winner for his teleplay The Halloween Tree and an Academy Award nominee, he was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, among many honors.

From the Back Cover

Over the course of a storied literary career that has spanned more than half a century, Ray Bradbury has taken us to wonderful places: across vast oceans to foreign lands, onto summer porches of small-town America, through dark and dangerous forests where predators wait, into the hypnotic mists of dream, back to a halcyon past to remember, forward into an exhilarating future, and rocketing through outer space.

In We'll Always Have Paris—a new collection of never-before-published stories—the inimitable Bradbury once again does what few writers have ever done as well. He delights us with prose that soars and sings. He surprises and inspires, exposing truths and provoking deep thought. He imagines great things and poignantly observes human foibles and frailties. He enchants us with the magic he mastered decades ago and still performs flawlessly. In these pages, radio voices become indomitable flesh and the dead arise to recapture life. There is joy in an eccentric old man's dance for the world and wonder over the workings of humankind's best friend, O Holy Dog. Whether he's exploring the myriad ways to be reborn, or the circumstances that can make any man a killer, or returning us to Mars, Bradbury opens the world to us and beckons us in.

Get ready to travel far and wide once again with America's preeminent storyteller. His tales will live forever. We will always have Bradbury—and for that reason, we are eternally blessed.

Reviews

Adult/High School—Renowned for his numerous novels and short-story collections, Bradbury has once again created a book that will both entertain and stretch readers' imaginations. Never before published, these 22 selections explore the extraordinary experiences of ordinary people. The author's talent for devising eerie and emotionally moving plots is evident in "The Reincarnate," in which a dead man attempts to reunite with his wife but discovers that he cannot recapture the past, and in "When the Bough Breaks," in which the ghostly cry of an unknown baby challenges a couple's decision not to have children. Much more than traditional science fiction, the collection contains a variety of other genres including chilling psychological thrillers such as "The Murder" and "Ma Perkins Comes to Stay," and bittersweet romances such as "We'll Always Have Paris" and "Doubles." Short-story fans will revel in this superb compilation, which elicits quick yet powerful emotions. Teens who appreciate unique, well-crafted tales will enjoy it. English and literature teachers will find a wealth of instructional opportunities in this book, either as a stand-alone collection or as a companion to Bradbury's other works or the collections of other authors. This is a must-have for short story collections and any school library in which Bradbury is part of the curriculum.—Lynn Rashid, Marriots Ridge High School, Marriotsville, MD
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In a career spanning 60-plus years, dozens of story collections, and classic novels such as Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury has proven to be a seemingly inexhaustible font of ideas. While many of these never-before-published tales have the feel of dusted-off sketches, the vast majority are happily recovered gems that once again showcase Bradbury’s versatile imagination. “Massinello Pietro” recounts the fate of a noisy shopkeeper whose neighbors don’t realize how much they need him until he is jailed as a public nuisance. In “A Literary Encounter,” a bibliophile adjusts his relationship to his wife according to the style of the author he is currently reading. The title piece describes a curious romantic encounter its married narrator has with a stranger one night on the streets of Paris. Perhaps the volume’s standout, however, is “Fly Away Home,” a story about the loneliness encountered by Mars’ first astronauts that could have easily been an outtake from The Martian Chronicles. Bradbury fans can only hope there are more like it still in his archives. --Carl Hays

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

We'll Always Have Paris

StoriesBy Ray Bradbury

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 Ray Bradbury
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780061670138

Chapter One

Massinello Pietro

He fed the canaries and the geese and the dogs and the cats. Then he cranked up the rusty phonograph and sang to the hissing "Tales from the Vienna Woods":

Life goes up, life goes down,
But please smile, do not sigh, do not frown!

Dancing, he heard the car stop before his little shop. He saw the man in the gray hat glance up and down the storefront and knew the man was reading the sign which in large, uneven blue letters declared the manager. Everything free! Love and charity for all!

The man stepped halfway through the open door and stopped. "Mr. Massinello Pietro?"

Pietro nodded vigorously, smiling. "Come in. Do you want to arrest me? Do you want to throw me in jail?"

The man read from his notes. "Better known as Alfred Flonn?" He eyed the silver bells on Pietro's shirtsleeves.

"That's me!" Pietro's eye flashed.

The man was uncomfortable. He looked around a room crammed full of rustling birdcages and packing crates. Geese rushed in through the back door, stared at him angrily, and rushed back out. Four parrots blinked lazily on their high perches. Two Indian lovebirds cooed softly. Three dachshunds capered around Pietro's feet, waiting for him to put down just one hand to pet them. On one shoulder he carried a banana-beaked mynah bird, on the other a zebra finch.

"Sit down!" sang Pietro. "I was just having a little music; that's the way to start the day!" He cranked the portable phonograph swiftly and reset the needle.

"I know, I know." The man laughed, trying to be tolerant. "My name's Tiffany, from the D.A.'s office. We got a lot of complaints." He waved around the cluttered shop. "Public health. All these ducks, raccoons, white mice. Wrong zone, wrong neighborhood. You'll have to clean it up."

"Six people have told me that." Pietro counted them proudly on his fingers. "Two judges, three policemen, and the district attorney himself!"

"You were warned a month ago you had thirty days to stop this nuisance or go to jail," said Tiffany, over the music. "We've been patient."

"I," said Pietro, "have been the patient one. I have waited for the world to stop being silly. I have waited for it to stop wars. I have waited for politicians to be honest. I have waited—la la la—for real estate men to be good citizens. But while I wait, I dance!" He demonstrated.

"But look at this place!" protested Tiffany.

"Isn't it wonderful? Do you see my shrine for the Virgin Mary?" Pietro pointed. "And here, on the wall, a framed letter from the archbishop's secretary himself, saying what good I've done for the poor! Once, I was rich, I had property, a hotel. A man took it all away, my wife with it, oh, twenty years ago. Do you know what I did? I invested what little I had left in dogs, geese, mice, parrots, who do not change their minds, who are always friends forever and forever. I bought my phonograph, which never is sad, which never stops singing!"

"That's another thing," said Tiffany, wincing. "The neighborhood says at four in the morning, um, you and the phonograph . . ."

"Music is better than soap and water!"

Tiffany shut his eyes and recited the speech he knew so well. "If you don't have these rabbits, the monkey, the parakeets, everything, out by sundown, it's the Black Maria for you."

Mr. Pietro nodded with each word, smiling, alert. "What have I done? Have I murdered a man? Have I kicked a child? Have I stolen a watch? Have I foreclosed a mortgage? Have I bombed a city? Have I fired a gun? Have I told a lie? Have I cheated a customer? Have I turned from the Good Lord? Have I taken a bribe? Have I peddled dope? Do I sell innocent women?"

"No, of course not."

"Tell me, then, what have I done? Point to it, lay a hand on it. My dogs, these are evil, eh? These birds, their song is dreadful, eh? My phonograph—I suppose that's bad, too, eh? All right, put me in jail, throw away the key. You will not separate us."

The music rose to a great crescendo. He sang along with it:

Tiffa-nee! Hear my plea!
Can't you smile; sit awhile, be my friend?

The dogs leaped about, barking.

Mr. Tiffany drove away in his car.

Pietro felt a pain in his chest. Still grinning, he stopped dancing. The geese rushed in and pecked gently at his shoes as he stood, bent down, holding his chest.

At lunchtime, Pietro opened a quart of homemade Hungarian goulash and refreshed himself. He paused and touched his chest, but the familiar pain had vanished. Finishing his meal, he went to gaze over the high wooden fence in the backyard.

There she was! There was Mrs. Gutierrez, very fat, and as loud as a jukebox, talking to her neighbors on the other side of the lot.

"Lovely lady!" called Mr. Massinello Pietro. "Tonight I go to jail! Your war is fought and won. I give you my saber, my heart, my soul!"

Mrs. Gutierrez came ponderously across the dirt yard. "What?" she said, as if she couldn't see or hear him.

"You told the police, the police told me, and I laughed!" His hand flirted on the air, two fingers wiggling. "I hope you will be happy!"

"I didn't call no police!" she said indignantly.

"Ah, Mrs. Gutierrez, I will write a song for you!"

"All of them other people must've called in," she insisted.

"And when I leave today for jail, I'll have a present for you." He bowed.

"I tell you it wasn't me!" she cried. "You and your mealy mouth!"

"I compliment you," he said sincerely. "You are a civic-minded citizen. All filth, all noise, all odd things must go."

"You, you!" she shouted. "Oh, you!" She had no more words.

"I dance for you!" he sang, and waltzed into the house.

Continues...

Excerpted from We'll Always Have Parisby Ray Bradbury Copyright © 2009 by Ray Bradbury. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061670138
• ISBN 13: 9780061670138
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224