Legend of a Suicide: Stories (P.S.) - Softcover

Vann, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061875848 ISBN 13: 9780061875847

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2010

Synopsis

"The reportorial relentlessness of [David] Vann's imagination often makes his fiction seem less written than chiseled. A small, lovely book has been written out of his large and evident pain."--New York Times Book Review

In Legend of a Suicide, his heartbreaking semi-autobiographical debut story-collection, David Vann relates the story of a young man trying to come to terms with the guilt and pain of his father's suicide. The wild outback of the author's native Alaska acts as the ideal backdrop for this collage of six stories--a novella and five shorts--and mirrors the author's own psychological wilderness. From "an important new voice in American literature" (Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain) comes an unforgettable exploration of the tragic gaps between one boy and his father.

About this title

Review:

"The most powerful, and pure, piece of writing I have read for a very long time. This book squeezes more life out of the first 100 pages than most books could manage in 1,000, which is pretty impressive, considering it's a book about death."--Ross Raisin, author of Out Backward

"David Vann's dark and strange book twists through natural forces and compressed emotions towards an extraordinary and dreamlike conclusion. One of the most gripping debuts I've ever read."--Philip Hoare, author Leviathan, winner of the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize

'This is my 'One to watch'. . . . It's stunning, beautifully written, with genuine surprises and a complexity which makes you retrace your steps, wonder what really happened and ponder over the whole scenario for days. I loved it. It's Richard Yates, Annie Proulx territory, and highly recommended."--Sarah Broadhurst, The Bookseller (UK)

"Headlong narrative pacing, a memorable train-wreck father who gives Richard Russo's characters a run for their money, and a sure, sharp, inviting voice. So hard to put down that I am thinking of suing David Vann for several hours of lost sleep."--Lionel Shriver, author of So Much For That and The Post-Birthday World

"The reportorial relentlessness of Vann's imagination often makes his fiction seem less written than chiseled. A small, lovely book has been written out of his large and evident pain.--Tom Bissell, New York Times Book Review

"The book is as dark, stormy, and beautiful as the ragged Aleutian coast."--National Geographic Adventure

"His legend is at once the truest memoir and the purest fiction. . . . Nothing quite like this book has been written before."--Alexander Linklater, London Observer

"Vengeful yet sorrowing and empathetic, plausible yet dreamlike, and completely absorbing."--Christopher Tayler, The Guardian

"A reckoning. . . . A message of profound sympathy and sadness, anger and regret, Legend of a Suicide is the melting away of one man's past and the reshaping of tragedy into art. . . . [It] journeys unflinchingly into darkness."--Greg Schutz, Fiction Writers Review

"A truly great writer."--Irish Sunday Independent

About the Author:

Published in twenty languages, David Vann's internationally bestselling books have won fifteen prizes, including best foreign novel in France and Spain, and have appeared on seventy-five Best Books of the Year lists in a dozen countries. He's written for the New York Times, Atlantic, Esquire, Outside, Sunset, Men's Journal, McSweeney's, and many other publications, and he has been a Guggenheim, Stegner, and NEA fellow.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0061875848
• ISBN 13: 9780061875847
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272