Murder and Other Acts of Literature - Softcover

Nadine Gordimer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0760712468 ISBN 13: 9780760712467

Publisher: Barnes Noble Books, 1997

Synopsis

Twenty -four of the world's most celebrated writers try their hands at murder in this wonderfully chilling anthology. Contributors include Louisa May Alcott, Anthony Trollope, A.A. Milne, Edith Wharton, Isak Dinesen, Virginia Woolf, Alice Walker, Rudyard Kipling, W.S. Gilbert, Muriel Spark, Maguib Mahfouz, William Trevor, T.H. White, Nardine Gordnimer, Patrick O'Brian, Isabel Allende, John Cheever, William Faulkner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Paul Theroux, James Thurber, Evelyn Waugh, and Fay Weldon.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Veteran anthologist Slung avoids the stuffiness attendant on her most distinguished predecessors in the crime-fiction-can-be- literature-too genre (Ellery Queen's Poetic Justice and The Literature of Crime) by loosening her definitions of both crime fiction and literature. Edith Wharton's nightmarish ``A Journey,'' Rudyard Kipling's decorously chilling ``Mary Postgate,'' and John Cheever's deceptively casual ``Montraldo'' are only marginally crime stories; only by stretching a point could the Waspish anecdotes of Evelyn Waugh and A.A. Milne, or the backstage fustian of Louisa May Alcott, be called literature. Yet the two dozen stories she's collected--which also include unexpected entries by W.S. Gilbert, T.H. White, Isak Dinesen, Eudora Welty (an exceptionally creepy little tale), William Trevor (ditto), Patrick O'Brian, Nadine Gordimer, Gabriel Garcˇa M rquez, Muriel Spark, Paul Theroux, Naguib Mahfouz, Alice Walker, Isabel Allende, and Fay Weldon, as well as chestnuts by William Faulkner and James Thurber--however uneven in their melding of literature and crime, are never, ever boring. Though a better title might be Famous Authors Try Their Hands at Crime (Anthony Trollope?! Virginia Woolf?!), Slung's collection is a revelation in more ways than one. (Book-of-the- Month Club main selection) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

YAAA collection of short stories by authors not usually associated with the mystery genre. Though the stories certainly qualify as murder-mystery tales and have their share of criminals, they would not be considered "high crime." Haunting images can be found in William Trevor's "The Hotel of the Idle Moon," in which an elderly servant and mistress are reduced to garret-living in her beautiful country home after stranded travelers fast-talk them out of their residence. In Naguib Mahfouz's "By a Person Unknown," the director-general of a locality, frustrated by the inability of the police to catch a serial killer, decides that if the killings are no longer mentioned in the media, life can return to normal. Alice Walker's "How Did I Get Away with Killing One of the Biggest Lawyers in the State? It Was Easy" is one of those delicious, savory tales of ironic justice. The works of 22 other authors, including Isak Dinesen, A.A. Milne, Rudyard Kipling, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, and James Thurber, can be found in this stellar collection that beautifully blends literature and murder.APam Spencer, formerly at Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Barnes Noble Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0760712468
• ISBN 13: 9780760712467
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 345
• Editor: Michele Slung