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Flying to America: 45 More Stories
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Product Description
This collection presents all of Barthelme's previously unpublished and uncollected short fiction, as well as work not published in his two compendium editions, Sixty Storiesand Forty Stories. Highlights of Flying to America include three unpublished stories, “Among the Beanwoods,” “Heather,” and “Pandemonium”; fourteen stories never before available in book form-from his first published story, “Pages from the Annual Report” (1959), to his last, “Tickets” (1989); and the long out-of-print Sam's Bar, with illustrations by Seymour Chwast. With Flying to America, fans and new readers alike have the huge pleasure of a new collection from one of America's great literary masters.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #431391 in Books
- Published on: 2007-10-28
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 432 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Along with Kurt Vonnegut, Barthelme (1931–1989) was one of the great 20th-century American absurdists. The 45 stories in this collection include stories Barthelme himself excluded from his two major collections, Sixty Stories and Forty Stories, and little that went previously unpublished. Packed with whimsical facts, Emma Green Is 81, which was the lead story in Barthelme's first book, concerns the verbose narrator's testy desire that Emma continue to finance the Journal of Tension Reduction, of which he is the editor. In Pandemonium, the story Barthelme was working on when he died, two unidentified voices finish each other's sentences as they lament that their staging of the Eve myth has been eclipsed by a sporting event. Barthelme registered the sexual revolution and the feminist response, both of which he treated via an ironic use of stereotypes: in Perpetua, a woman walks out of her marriage to a put-upon, unprepossessing, baffled man named Harold. And typical of several humorous riffs is Marie Marie, Hold on Tight, concerning a protest staged against the human condition outside a church. Even the lesser of Barthelme's funhouse mirrors reflect the world's tragicomic essence. (Nov.)
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Customer Reviews
A fine supplement for those who already own the original books
This volume of 45 stories completes the canonization of Donald B. If you already own each of his individual works, then this would be the only way to squeeze out a little more of his unique word magic. The rubric "previously uncollected" draws a surprising number of stories from *Come Back, Dr. Caligari* (1966), DB's first book of stories. If you haven't read that, go directly to Caligari, since his profound, twinkling, knowing humor is on perfect display, and the number of stories from Caligari excluded from either 60 Stories or 40 Stories may reveal Barthelme's own self-doubt regarding his freshman effort. If you already own the original books, some interesting items can be found: his first published story (many characters draw their names from typefaces, besides the beloved Baskerville); a couple of unpublished stories in various stages of polish; and several stories that are not in any of the collected volumes. Although the book description claims to include *Sam's Bar*, with illustrations by Seymour Chwast, the actual published version does NOT include that story.
