Us He Devours - Softcover

Hall, James B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811218961 ISBN 13: 9780811218962

Publisher: New Directions, 1964

Synopsis

These fourteen stories are the work of a writer whose exploitation of the language for artistic effect is extraordinary. The visionary, the poetic, the humorous and the surrealistic inform each story, and yet there is no terror merely without responsible intelligence. A maiden lady steals from a bank to buy gifts for a goat which appears at night outside her window; a young married couple “adjust” to our world of time payments and credit; a writer makes his living by selling parts of his own body to unsuspecting insurance companies; a “bandit” is obsessed by the contents of freezers, and steals to feed a river; a doctor takes his dying, extroverted old father away from the home place, and in the process sees the first intimations of his own death. We see the “have nots,” the middle class, artists and professors all caught in worlds they do not fully apprehend. Taken together these stories present a complex view of a hard world.

About this title

About the Author

James Byron Hall (b. 1918) is an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. He attended Miami University, the University of Hawaii and the University of Iowa. Hall has received many awards, including the Drue Heinz Prize and the Oregon Institute of Literary Arts poetry award in 1992.

Edition details

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 1964
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811218961
• ISBN 13: 9780811218962
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 194