House of Heroes and Other Stories - Hardcover

Mary La Chapelle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517567822 ISBN 13: 9780517567821

Publisher: Crown Publishers, 1988

Synopsis

A collection of short stories populated with heroes great and small, outsiders and inmates, disfigured, disenchanted, and quietly triumphant

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

In this first collection of stories by a writer who has won several prestigious awards, the perspective is largely shaped by localethe Great Lakes region. Set amid dairyland vistas, "The Meadow Bell" has as protagonist emotionally disturbed farmer-become-cheesemaker, Lakeund Kramer. Filled with guilt and loneliness, he is comforted by envisioning a nonexistent son because "the dream and the want needed to fit together to make a good sound." In the title story, we are taken inside a group home for adolescent boys who exhibit violent behavior. Along with the narrator, Laura Wold, their night counselor, we experience an understanding tinged with fear. A perception of the lives led by the odd, or the often humiliated outsider, is brilliantly focused in "Anna in a Small Town," the story of a woman whose giantism, "the enormous fact of her," is a challenge to comformists. "The Gate House" tells of two aged, bibulous sisters, their existence hidden in a churchyard cottage, who instructs a young college student that "pain could be constant and rhythmic . . . that the comforter needed to find the rhythm and know it." In others of the 10 stories here that disclose the small victories of those often considered outside the pale, there is power and subtle craftsmanship.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Ten short stories examine the courage and loneliness of misfits in a society that demands conformity. In "Faith," an emotionally troubled girl attaches herself to a vulnerable psychologist. In "Superstitions," a small child takes on responsibility for her younger, epileptic brother. "Understanding" makes us look at an very old woman through the eyes of her ancient poodle. Other characters include a giant woman in a small town, residents of a shelter for disturbed adolescents, a pair of recovering alcoholics. La Chapelle writes with humor, and her compassion is contagious. This first collection is recommended for public libraries.Maurice Taylor, Brunswick Cty. Lib., Southport, N.C.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown Publishers
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0517567822
• ISBN 13: 9780517567821
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 243