Mr. Tall: A Novella and Stories - Hardcover

Earley, Tony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316246123 ISBN 13: 9780316246125

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2014

Synopsis

GREAT NOVELLA

About this title

About the Author:

Tony Earley is the author of the novels Jim the Boy and The Blue Star. His fiction has earned a National Magazine Award and appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, and Best American Short Stories. Earley was chosen for both The New Yorker's inaugural best "20 Under 40" list of fiction writers and Granta's "20 Best Young American Novelists." He lives with his family in Nashville, Tennessee, where he is the Samuel Milton Fleming Chair in English at Vanderbilt University.

Review:

"Hugely enjoyable... its loping, shaggy charm lands squarely between Theroux's dourness and Guterson's dreaminess, with a dallop of down-home Appalachian soul to boot."--Washington Post

"Earley's poetic sentences empower his stories, making them more poignant, more real, as when Jesse James's laugh causes a suburban woman to imagine "a mouth filled with cobwebs," or when, beset by a horrible flood, Jack the giant-killer's "brain began to shout the thoughts inside his head so that he might hear them." This collection reminds us that imaginative leaps may at times take readers away form what they call reality, but may just as easily bring us closer to it."--Boston Globe

"Tony Earley writes warm, funny stories that will break your heart. His humor and empathy will whisk you from beginning to end, and the sadness and regret at his stories' core will resonate in your memory... Here he has assembled a group of stories that are sad, droll and unforgettable. They are sophisticated and intricate in their construction, yet appealing and accessible--a pleasure to read, never a chore. They show Earley at his best."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Assured, evocative tales rich in humor and complex emotion."--New York Times Book Review

"Earley has grown up. Even if apple orchards still conceal secrets, mountain hollows house strange denizens, and the trains rumble reassuringly in the distance, there is undoubtedly a hard edge to this collection... Welcome, perhaps, to the Late Earley."―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Punctuated by sharp insights and wry observations on the human condition, featuring strong, idiosyncratic characters having small epiphanies in their small towns."―Kirkus Reviews

"Both funny and bittersweet, these stories offer vivid characters and imaginative scenarios."―Booklist

"Tony Earley more than measures up with Mr. Tall―Vanity Fair

"Studded with his penchant for finding enchanment in everyday lives, their folk tale patina presages the more overt magic running through his new collection of short stories... Throughout, these new fables remain tethered to Earley's trademark preoccupations--the strange alchemy by which people connect, a heartfelt grasping for what comes next."―Daily Beast

"Time has passed, but Earley's still got the magic and a lot of wisdom to go with it."―The Rumpus

"Mr. Tall is a dazzling array of short fiction pieces, each one mythic in its own way, each one peopled with characters whose unlived lives are often more vivid than their lived lives."―Charlotte Observer

About this edition

• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0316246123
• ISBN 13: 9780316246125
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256