Speaking with the Angel - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1573228583 ISBN 13: 9781573228589

Publisher: Riverhead Books, 2001

Synopsis

Nick Hornby...Giles Smith...Helen Fielding...Roddy Doyle...Irvine Welsh...Zadie Smith...Dave Eggers...Robert Harris...Melissa Bank...Patrick Marber...Colin Firth...John O'Farrell

Compiled by bestselling author Nick Hornby and featuring brand new stories from the hottest writers on both sides of the Atlantic, Speaking with the Angel is a fresh and funny collection that is sure to be the literary anthology of the year.

Here is a book that was inspired by a very special boy and a very special school. Some money from each copy of Speaking with the Angel sold will benefit autism education charities around the world, including The Treehouse School in London, where Nick's son Danny is a student, and the New York Child Learning Institute here in the States. This project is truly a labor of love for Hornby and the other writers involved, many of whom are Nick's friends.

These original first-person narratives come from the most exciting voices in fiction. Melissa Bank gives readers a glimpse into the mind of a modern New Yorker whose still-new relationship is a constant source of surprise in "The Wonder Spot." In Zadie Smith's "I'm the Only One," a young man recalls his strained relationship with his diva-esque sister. Dave Egger's "After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned," is told from the viewpoint of an unfortunate pit bull. Helen Fielding offers up a new twist on I've fallen and I can't get up in "Luckybitch." And in Nick Hornby's "NippleJesus," a bruiser finds out that guarding modern art is far more hazardous than controlling the velvet ropes at a nightclub. Speaking with the Angel also includes stories from Roddy Doyle, Irvine Welsh, Colin Firth, John O'Farrell, Robert Harris, Patrick Marber, and Giles Smith.

Twelve completely new stories, written by twelve undeniably imaginative voices. Speaking with the Angel is at turns clever, outrageous, witty, edgy, tender, and wicked. This is what they meant by original.

About this title

Review:

The contributors' list of this collection of freshly penned literary monologues, published to help The Treehouse Trust, a charity for autistic children, reads like a Who's Who of the richest, hippest authors in the UK--with a healthy smattering of talent from across the pond.

The editor, Nick (High Fidelity) Hornby, as well as writing a moving and very heartfelt introduction--his own child is autistic--submits one of the best efforts: "Nipple Jesus", a slyly funny parable about a security man guarding a chunk of dubious modern art. Other notable contributions come from Irvine (Trainspotting) Welsh with one of his identity-swap-stories, this time about a Scottish stud-muffin turned into an unwitting gay, and John (The Best A Man Can Get) O'Farrell, with a predictably funny, surprisingly edgy confessional from a mime artist slowly going to the dogs. Other big names included are Helen Fielding, Robert Harries, Zadie Smith, Roddy Doyle, et al.

As with many of these projects, there is a slight feeling of incestuousness; Hornby actually admits that Harries is married to his sister, and that O'Farrell went to his school. But given the goodness of the cause, it's no real reason to quibble. --Sean Thomas

About the Author:

Nick Hornby is the author of the novels How to Be Good, High Fidelity, About a Boy, and A Long Way Down, as well as the memoir Fever Pitch. He is also the author of Songbook, a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award, and the editor of the short story collection Speaking with the Angel. The recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters E. M. Forster Award for 1999 as well as the 2003 Orange Word International Writers' London Award, he lives in North London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1573228583
• ISBN 13: 9781573228589
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Hornby Nick