Had I a Hundred Mouths: Short Stories 1947-1983 - Softcover

Goyen, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1852421207 ISBN 13: 9781852421205

Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 1988

Synopsis

An anguished voice inhabits the stories collected in Had I a Hundred Mouths; it is the voice of crazed outsiders that William Goyen knew from his childhood in East Texas. Like his contemporaries Flannery O?Connor and Carson McCullers, Goyen?s writing is deeply rooted in the myths and spells of his birth place: 'Those Texas wetlands are my wildness. They have haunted me and become my place in all my work.? In Goyen?s writing, these magical, intense experiences are expressed in a magical prose whose rhythm refracts the brutal isolation of his characters. Had I a Hundred Mouths makes available for the first time to the British reader some of the great short stories of the twentieth century.

About this title

Product Description:

Short Stories 1947-1983

Stories of blood, kinship, sex, nature and gossip set in Texas and the South - Searing prose

Review:

?William Goyen has always been the most mysterious of writers. He is a poet, singer, musician as well as a storyteller; he is a seer; a troubled visionary... All serious art celebrates mystery, perhaps, but Goyen?s comes close to embodying it? Joyce Carol Oates, from the Introduction ?There are stories of lust and craziness, of the love and hurt families cause one another and can?t help causing. On every line, Goyen establishes himself as a unique American writer, one whose vision could not have grown up anywhere else. We are fortunate to have this posthumous collection. More than any book I?ve read this year, one wants to say, ?Get it. Read it. Then you?ll see.?? Dallas Times Herald ?A short story by WIlliam Goyen is like one by no other writer. His voice is unmistakble, arising from a colloquial, storytelling tradition and refined into a language that is unique. These stories possess a density that is out of step with the current style fot lean, stripped-down narratives. Like the East Texas woods, where so much of the action occurs, there is a lushness, almost a novel-like richness to even the briefest tale? Houston Post

About this edition

• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 1852421207
• ISBN 13: 9781852421205
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288