They Whisper - Hardcover

BUTLER, Robert Olen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0436202107 ISBN 13: 9780436202100

Publisher: Henry Holt, 1994

Synopsis

The author's seventh novel. Limited Edition of 150 numbered and signed copies. Should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. There is no ISBN. A handsome production by James Cahill Publishing: Regular-sized volume format. Hard marbled boards with pale-blue leather overboards and titles on spine, as issued. Text by Robert Olen Butler. Details the rich, erotic life of Ira Holloway, an ordinary 40-year-old guy. "The most interesting aspect is the stream-of-consciousness 'I' of Ira that becomes the 'I' of various women, yielding a novel told from many points-of-view. Butler's women are vivid. Fiona emerges as his most significant other, becoming his wife and a mother to his son. She concludes the novel a la Molly Bloom, in a soliloquy to the spirituality of sex: She is in love with Jesus, a sexual Jesus. There are many such strange and marvelous passages in Butler's novel" (John Mort). Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1993 for "A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain". One of the finest living American writers. 2007 ModernRare.com

About this title

From Booklist

Butler, who won the Pulitzer Prize last year for his tales of Vietnamese in the Louisiana bayou, Good Scent from a Strange Mountain , shifts his attention to sex. His narrator, Ira Holloway, must "wrestle with the profound mystery of [his] attraction to women." The real mystery is why Butler, who delivered such a straightforward tale of homelessness in The Deuce (1989), has suddenly discovered the prose poem and gone gaga over vaginas, nipples, armpits, navels, and--particularly--toes. If there's a story here at all, it's one of obsession: as a schoolboy, Ira sneaks into the girls' restroom after hours. He writes testimonials concerning his sexual prowess (and sensitivity) on the stall doors, attributing them to the various objects of his fantasies. His graffiti is witty and forms a transition into the most interesting aspect of They Whisper: the stream-of-consciousness "I" of Ira that becomes the "I" of various women, yielding a novel told from many points of view. Butler's women are vivid, although they invariably people "the other"; Ira's lover, Fiona, emerges as his most significant other, becoming his wife and a mother to his son. She concludes the novel, { }a la Molly Bloom, in a soliloquy to the spirituality of sex--she is in love with Jesus, a sexual Jesus. There are many such strange and marvelous passages in Butler's novel, but Ira never solves his mystery, and Butler never manages to tell a story. John Mort

From Library Journal

Butler has already published six novels to subdued response, but his first collection of stories, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain ( LJ 5/1/92), won the Pultizer Prize. This new novel details the rich, erotic life of Ira Holloway, an ordinary 40-year-old guy.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0436202107
• ISBN 13: 9780436202100
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 333