Gates Of Eden - Softcover

Coen, Ethan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552999792 ISBN 13: 9780552999793

Publisher: Black Swan, 1999

Synopsis

From brilliantly funny and darkly surreal pastiche, to poignantly evoked small-town lives, the stories in Ethan Coen's outstanding debut collection are instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with the award-winning Coen Brothers' films. Yet at the same time they belong in the great tradition of American fiction writing. Peopled with mobsters and hicks, and peppered with sparkling dialogue, some are delicious send-ups of genre classics by authors such as Chandler and Hammett, while others are miniatures of private desperation drawn with a humour and tenderness which places them alongside the best work of Raymond Carver. Their great achievement, however, is that they are unmistakably the work of Ethan Coen, each one meticulously crafted, exhilaratingly imaginative, breathtakingly daring and hilariously funny. Ethan Coen's first venture into writing fiction is a triumph which will be welcomed as much by lovers of great fiction as by the Coen Brothers' legions of fans.

About this title

Review

Even if it didn't contain a chomped ear and a decapitated head, Ethan Coen's debut fiction collection Gates of Eden would resemble the horrifically giggly crime films of the Coen brothers (Fargo, etc.). You've got the bleakly realistic Midwest settings: a frazzled dad driven crazy driving his kids on a camping trip in "The Boys". You've got the minutiae of the middle-class life captured down to the last speck of "abstractly speckled linoleum" ("The Old Country"). You've got comically incompetent thugs (Mafiosi spectacularly failing to bring Mob rule to Minneapolis in "Cosa Minapolidan", a college-boy boxer turned private dick in "Destiny"). You've got ghastly, amusing caricatures of showbiz moguls: The record-company guy soliloquising in "Have You Ever Been to Electric Ladyland" could be as real as his allusions to the personal foibles of Cat Stevens and Danny Thomas. Above all, you've got a mockingly self-conscious yet vibrantly original style of pulp-culture homage and spoofy, sharp, vulgar dialogue like nobody else on earth can write, except Joel Coen (who co-writes movies with brother Ethan).

In print, Coen can show off a descriptive gift that can't fit into screenplays. His fiction is bright and never boring, but not ambitious--it lacks the obbligato of grim mystery and lyricism that throbs in some of his films. It's on the light side--more like Raising Arizona than Miller's Crossing. It's also the most penetrating glimpse into a Coen brother's mystery-crammed skull since the revealing The Big Lebowski. --Tim Appelo

Review

"'These stories leap off the page to assume the quality of sound in the mind...this boy can write' Richard Williams, Guardian" (Richard Williams Guardian)

"'Set in the frigid temperatures of Minneapolis and New York, the best stories in this collection depict the shabby aspirations of Americans locked in dead-end families and middle-class anxieties...Coen's stories are as good as anything in contemporary American fiction'" (Scott Bradfield The Times Literary Supplement)

"'In Gates of Eden, Mr Coen has sounded the jagged dissonance of the American experience'" (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt The New York Times)

"'A formidable writer, possessing a keen eye for the small manifestations of deep emotion'" (Stephen Amidon The Sunday Times)

"'Coen delights in juxtaposing tone, character and setting to comic and chilling effect. But what is really on display here is his startling ventriloquism, his facility with creating distinct and authentic voices. And boy, can his characters talk. Some simply want to tell a story, some need to defend themselves, and some desperately crave understanding for their crimes, although they are aware that forgiveness is an illusion and a sense of humor a necessity...his writing is affecting and evocative'" (Jay A. Fernandez The Washington Post)

About this edition

• Publisher: Black Swan
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0552999792
• ISBN 13: 9780552999793
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288