A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me - Softcover

Gates, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1781254915 ISBN 13: 9781781254912

Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 2015

Synopsis

A woman moving calamitously into middle-age; a musician taking in a friend with terminal cancer; a failed actor moving to the country: cynical, unreliable, sinking into middle age or alcoholism, dealing with physical decline or mediocrity, Gates's characters are a dark reflection of our own urban and suburban lives. Terrifyingly self-aware, overcome by the burdens of the human condition, they find their impulses pulling them away from comfort into distraction or catastrophe. But wherever it is they're going - and sometimes it's nowhere fast - they won't go gently.

Relentlessly inventive, by turns comical, caustic and tragic (and often all three together) but always moving, the novella and ten short stories which make up
A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me reinforce David Gates as 'a true heir to both Raymond Carver and John Cheever.' (New York Magazine).

About this title

Review:

Dark and funny, bleak and brilliant ... David Gates makes me sick with envy (Nick Hornby)

David Gates is a wonderful writer. The stories in A Hand Reached down to Guide Me are fully realised, entertaining, gripping, astute, painful, wise, outrageous and funny - all at the same time (Geoff Dyer)

[Gates's stories are] nimbly crafted ... rendered with meticulous emotional detail and an astringent sense of the absurdities and self-indulgences of contemporary life. (The New York Times)

Brutal, viciously intelligent and full of reckless, difficult love for its characters ... gripping, sophisticated, gasp-inducing (Ben Marcus)

A true heir to both Raymond Carver and John Cheever (New York Magazine)

Where has David Gates been all of my life? How is it that I've missed a writer who transforms all our failures and foibles into tales so gripping they read like great mystery novels? A Hand Reached Down To Guide Me is as unflinching as fiction gets, one of those books that feels like a discovery from the first page to the last. (Adam Ross)

Malice and goodness duke it out in the dark hearts of David Gates's characters ... [He] isn't one to pass judgments. He just sends devastatingly original dispatches from the heart of darkness ... It broadens the spectrum of truthfulness and emotion for which he is known [and] captures both the unfettered love and flashes of rage. (Janet Maslin The New York Times)

Deliciously wicked ... The naughty musings most of us choose to ignore compel Gates's characters to act ... These people mock their demons and, when called to account, exhibit such complexity, humor and intelligence that you'll savor every page. (Kristy Davis More magazine)

While David Gates' style is different, the tone edgier, he shares Richard Ford's understanding of the self-destructive aspects of human nature...Gates' strengths are sharp, witty dialogue, sexual tension and subtlety. Also, a non-judgmental tone, even when his characters do something devastatingly cruel. (Afric McGlinchy Irish Examiner)

The irreverent and confident prose of this American writer is bewitching. The collection begins with Banishment, a novella that reminds this reader, at least, of wry American authors - Updike, Roth, McInerney - who write of jaded men and smart women, literature, sex and booze all in one breath ... Gates's landscapes are deliciously detailed - you can feel the sofa fabric, read the newspapers, smell the bourbon - but his tours de force are his sublime characters. You will fall in love with (or hate) every damn sexy, well-read, disillusioned one of them. (Imogen Lycett Green Daily Mail 2015-08-21)

Book Description:

The master of suburban tragicomedy returns triumphantly with a collection of wry, hilarious stories of individuals coming up against life's complications

About this edition

• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1781254915
• ISBN 13: 9781781254912
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320