Samuel Johnson Is Indignant - Hardcover

Davis, Lydia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0970335598 ISBN 13: 9780970335593

Publisher: McSweeneys Books, 2001

Synopsis

Presents a collection of short fiction that explores the various ways in which human beings perceive each other and themselves, from a couple that suspects their friends think them boring to a funeral home that receives a letter rebuking it for linguistic errors.

About this title

About the Author

Lydia Davis is the author of the story collection ALMOST NO MEMORY and BREAK IT DOWN, and the novel THE END OF THE STORY. Her stories have been translated into French, German, and Spanish and widely published in literary magazines, among them The New Yorker, McSweeney's, City Lights Review, Conjunctions, Grand Street, Harper's and The Paris Review. She is a noted translator from the French of works by Maurice Blanchot, Michel Butor, Pierre Jean Jouve, Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, and others. Her awards include the Guggenheim, the Lannan Foundation Award, the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Award and a Chevalier from the French government. She lives in upstate New York and teaches at Bard College.

Reviews

To herald a Davis book as "the usual" may sound like faint praise, but the writer's loyal fans know that it is anything but. In this latest collection, Davis (Almost No Memory; The End of the Story) doesn't disappoint: the 56 stories paragraph-long meditations, stories in sections and humorous one-liners showcase the wordplay and distillation of meaning that have become her stylistic hallmarks, offering up crisp twists on familiar themes. In "The Meeting," a woman's corporate encounter sparks an internal identity crisis and rant; the childbearing conundrum is nailed in "A Double Negative." Relationships are probed in stories ranging from "Old Mother and the Grouch," with its fancifully imagined characters, to the brief "Finances," which gives voice to the messy issue of domestic equality. There are riffs on mown lawns and the use of the word "cremains" by a funeral parlor, and spooled-out ponderings on domestic priorities, selfishness and boring friends. Communication and language are paramount in Davis's world: an elderly man searches for his brother a language researcher in a hostile environment in "In a Northern Country," and a one-sided question-and-answer session in "Jury Duty" is the more revealing for what is omitted. The title story is an example of the author's famous one-liners that provide initial quick humor, then cause the reader to think again. And a longer story about Marie Curie, told in sections, fascinates with its interior imaginings. Eclectic and astute, Davis continues to find new ways to tell us the things we need to know. (Oct.) Forecast: Davis attracts a cultish core audience, and the low price of this hardcover title should make it an attractive impulse purchase.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: McSweeneys Books
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0970335598
• ISBN 13: 9780970335593
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200