By Love Possessed: Stories - Softcover

Goodison, Lorna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062127357 ISBN 13: 9780062127358

Publisher: Amistad Press, 2012

Synopsis

Paperback. Pub the Date: May. 2012 Pages: 272 in Publisher: Amistad With the this highly praised collection of short fiction Lorna Goodison demonstrates why she may be one of literature's best-kept secrets In the Pushcart Prize-winning title story. Humble Dottie thinks her luck has turned when she meets Frenchie. the best-looking. if not most reliable. man in the whole of Jamaica. In The Helpweight. an accomplished woman must bear the burden of an old flame's renewed affections when he returns from a life aoad with his Irish ide in tow. And in Henry. a young boy turned out of his house to make way for his mother's lover sells roses on the street to survive. On a whim. he bites off a bloom. which he can feel burning inside his mouth like a red pepper light. hoping it will take root and beautify his own life. Poetically rendered. these and over a dozen other evocative stories ...

About this title

Review:

"Every tale . . . introduces characters that will sustain your interest far more than novels with twice the length and none of the panache of Goodison's sparkling prose."--Essence

"A matchless mosaic portrait. . . . A perfect complement to her evocative, widely admired memoir. . . . The voices come vividly off the page. . . . [Goodison] taps deeply into universal experience and offers up these lives with brutal honesty and poignant humanism."--Elle

"Alternating between flat-out humor, aching pain, and the confusion of bridging cultures, [these] stories weave around one another in a rhythmic, engaging palette of language and characters sure to remain with the reader."--Booklist

"[A] captivating and poetic collection."--Library Journal

"Goodison deals with the physical world and the words flung between her powerful characters--she's scoring a dance. . . . It's an addictive game to play, paying attention to the silences in the songs."--Daily Beast

"Few writers are as attuned as Goodison to the heartaches and triumphs of Jamaicans, especially Jamaican women. . . . Fewer writers still tell us so much about what it means to be human."--Elizabeth Nunez, author of Prospero's Daughter and Boundaries

"How Lorna Goodison manages to capture so much about human complexities in these stories is baffling. I just love this book."--Uwem Akpan, author of Say You're One of Them

"A beautifully written and evocative book. . . . Goodison finds a glittering and urgent beauty in the everyday, without shying away from a frank confrontation of those moments when the everyday is shattered by trauma."--Danielle Evans, author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self Danielle Evans, author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self

From the Back Cover:

With this highly praised collection of short fiction, Lorna Goodison demonstrates why she may be one of literature's best-kept secrets. In the Pushcart Prize-winning title story, humble Dottie thinks her luck has turned when she meets Frenchie, the best-looking, if not most reliable, man in the whole of Jamaica. In "The Helpweight," an accomplished woman must bear the burden of an old flame's renewed affections when he returns from a life abroad with his Irish bride in tow. And in "Henry," a young boy turned out of his house to make way for his mother's lover sells roses on the street to survive. On a whim, he bites off a bloom, which he can feel burning inside his mouth like a red pepper light, hoping it will take root and beautify his own life. Poetically rendered, these and over a dozen other evocative stories create a world in which pride can nourish a soul or be its ruin and where people are in turn uplifted and undone by love.

About this edition

• Publisher: Amistad Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0062127357
• ISBN 13: 9780062127358
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272