The Panic Hand - Hardcover

Carroll, Jonathan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312146981 ISBN 13: 9780312146986

Publisher: St Martin's Press, 1996

Synopsis

The twenty stories collected here transmit the same intense charges of intellect and emotion that characterize Carroll's longer works. Among the many pleasures are: "Friend's Best Man" - An award-winning story about a dog that teaches its owner the real and very frightening meaning of "The Animal Kingdom." "Black Cocktail" - A short novel about a high-school kid who never grew up - literally. "The Sadness of Detail" - What are we to do when contacted by angels? What are we to do when one makes an offer we can't refuse? "A Flash in the Pants" - Original to this volume - a story about a beautiful stranger and a house that remembers all too well its previous owners.

About this title

Review:

"I want you frowning now, knowing something is very wrong with your parachute even before actually pulling the cord and praying it opens. P.S. It won't." So Jonathan Carroll addresses his readers in this much-awaited collection of 20 stories. Author of several wry and dark novels, Carroll has a considerable following, but his books are difficult to pigeonhole, so some horror and fantasy readers are still unfamiliar with him. This collection shows off his talents admirably, in tales that range from bittersweet sadness over God's failing memory, to a disturbing friendship between a dog and a dying child, to a macabre fantasy about how men and women manipulate each other. As The New York Times put it, "Carroll's world is one that is subtly out of kilter, and which can take a turn for the sinister at any time." This volume is winner of the 1996 Bram Stoker Award for Best Short Story Collection.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A first collection from the American-born author (who now lives in Vienna) of eight previous novels, including such highly praised fantasy work as The Land of Laughs (1980) and A Child Across the Sky (1990). The volume, previously published in Great Britain, where it won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection, is a mixed bag. Carroll at his best explores the psychological and social consequences of ``impossible'' situations (an ``imaginary friend'' who comes to life when his playmate reaches adulthood, a house that ``remembers'' its former occupants) with a deadpan clarity that's reminiscent less of any contemporary writers than such past masters of the genre as Saki and John Collier. He has a real gift for seductive titles (``The Sadness of Detail,'' ``The Dead Love You''), arresting opening sentences (``The first thing Beizer did after hearing he was going blind was to buy a camera''), and comically arbitrary details (a rock group named ``Rattlesnake Orgasm,'' a taking dog that's said to have a voice ``kind of like Paul McCartney''). But though his stories often sparkle with crisp dialogue, their wit is frequently vitiated by colorless narrative prose and the imperfect development of some sketchy premises. The real gems here include two novellas: ``Uh-Oh City,'' in which an academic couple's energetic housekeeper turns out to be God (or at least an aspect of Him) and ``Black Cocktail,'' a strange tale of symbiosis and conflict spun from the notion (well concealed till late in the story) of how a human soul is constructed and what this implies about the nature of friendship and sexual attraction. Best of all is the story ``Friend's Best Man'' (winner of a World Fantasy Award), about an amputee's bewildered relationship with a dying girl and a dog that can predict the future. Carroll's weaker stories are slight and uninvolving, but his best are among the finest fantasies being written today. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martin's Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0312146981
• ISBN 13: 9780312146986
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 295