Tales of the Heart: Dreams and Memories of a Lifetime - Hardcover

Petrakis, Harry Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1566632439 ISBN 13: 9781566632430

Publisher: UNKNO, 1999

Synopsis

In this warmhearted and luminous collection of his nonfiction writings, Harry Mark Petrakis carries his readers on an odyssey that spans a lifetime. He begins in the intimate province of the family, with memories of childhood, young love, and early marriage; the experience of raising children; the aging and death of parents. Darker sketches tell of gambling obsessions and life in the streets and the risk of death. In reports on travels, Mr. Petrakis turns a sharp eye on England, the Middle East, and his Greek homeland. Whether he is recalling the world of his family or the world grown large, he writes with a novelist's eye and a poet's language. Readers of Mr. Petrakis's work over the years know they will not only see the landscape and the people but come away with a greater understanding of how dreams and memories play a revelatory role in our lives. Kurt Vonnegut has said of Mr. Petrakis's fiction: “I have often thought what a wonderful basketball team could be formed from Petrakis's characters. Every one of them is at least 14 feet tall.” And John Cheever wrote: “I've always thought Harry Mark Petrakis to be a leading American novelist.” Tales of the Heart sustains his position as one of our finest, most affecting authors.

About this title

About the Author

Twice shortlisted for the National Book Award, Harry Mark Petrakis has written affectionately of the Greek-American experience for almost forty years. His celebrated novels and short-story collections include A Dream of Kings, Lion at my Heart, Pericles on 31st Street, The Hour of the Bell, and Ghost of the Sun. He lives and writes in Chesterton, Indiana, outside of Chicago.

From Library Journal

Novelist Petrakis, a National Book Award finalist for A Dream of Kings (LJ 7/66), continues the chronicle of his life begun with Stelmark (LJ 10/15/70) and Reflections (1983). Here, rather than setting down a conventional autobiography, he focuses on a series of events and people who shaped him as a man and as a writer. The book is divided into three parts: family, community, and the world. In various chapters, a single action (viewing a photograph, a chance encounter, a particular sight or scent) triggers a memory. Through specific events in the life of an American writer of Greek heritage living in Chicago, the reader is reminded of his or her own memories of family, school friends, neighborhood life, or travel. This touching, warmhearted, and life-enhancing collection of essays belongs in all public and undergraduate libraries.AMorris Hounion, New York City Technical Coll. Lib., Brooklyn
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: UNKNO
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1566632439
• ISBN 13: 9781566632430
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224