The magic striptease - Hardcover

Garrett, George P

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385050348 ISBN 13: 9780385050340

Publisher: Doubleday, 1973

Synopsis

A collection of three novellas, The Magic Striptease, ranges in moods from comic to grim. The title story is of Jacob Quirk a talented mimic, who is able to transform himself into anyone and anything, including a postman, cop, laundryman, and crook. The second story, The Noise of Strangers, tells the story of Sheriff Jack Riddle, and his struggle to determine justice and regulate the law. The final story, The Satyr Shall Cry is told with multiple viewpoints, and illustrates a grisly double murder in Paradise Springs, Florida.

About this title

About the Author

George Garrett lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife, Susan. His numerous books include novels, such as The King of Babylon Shall Not Come Against You, Death of the Fox, and Do, Lord, Remember Me; poetry collections, most recently Days of Our Lives Lie in Fragments; and works of criticism, short fiction, and biography. Among his many honors are the Rome Prize and the T. S. Eliot Award. He is Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing, Emeritus, at the University of Virginia.

Review

"Ridiculous, extravagant, and successful....The reader wonders what in the world is going to happen next--and keeps flipping the pages."

"A loose-fitting collection of three stories by a prolific poet, novelist, and playwright: a low-key fantasy about a magical impressionist who discovers that disguises are really a search for true self; an impressionistic portrait of the enforcers and exploiters of the law in the rural South; and an amusing shaggy-dog account of a Florida tent revival meeting which escalates into a patchwork of grotesquerie and bizarre coincidence."

"Distinctive in matter and manner, ranging in mood from comic to grim, these vignettes might have been written by different authors, except for the constants of Garrett's realistic, imaginative dialogue and dazzling quick-sketch portraiture....[They] will leave the reader high on the art of this raconteur."

"All three of the novellas in The Magic Striptease move Garrett's readers onto ambiguous and revealing moral ground, each in its own distinctive way.... The book is a small masterpiece, quite as brilliant as the major novels of Garrett's Elizabethan trilogy."

Edition details

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1973
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385050348
• ISBN 13: 9780385050340
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272