Night Soul and Other Stories (American Literature Series)

Best known for his complex and beautiful novels—regularly compared to those of Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, and Don DeLillo—Joseph McElroy is equally at home in the short story, having written numerous pieces over the course of his career that now, collected at last, serve as an ideal introduction to one of the most important contemporary American authors. Combining elements of classic McElroy with tantalizing stories pointing the way ahead (the spare and dangerous "No Man's Land," the lush and mischievous "The Campaign Trail"), Night Soul and Other Stories presents a wide range of work from a monumental artist.

new Stories From A Master Of American Fiction.

publishers Weekly

accomplished And Often Overlooked Literary Stylist Mcelroy (preparations For Search) Hauls Out Some Old And Some New Stories That Question What Is Knowable And What Is Being Subverted. A Teacher's Comment To A Brooklynite Arab Boy In No Man's Land That We Are All Nomads Comes To Encompasses The Peripatetic Life Of The Poet Narrator, Whose Comings And Goings Intersect With Those Of The Boy's. In Mister X, Another Banal Occurrence--an Urban Planner Riding His Bike In The Middle Of The Night Gets A Flat, Which Is Then Fixed By A Kindly Stranger--leads The Protagonist To An Alluring Acupuncturist And A Gradual, Not Incidental Shifting Of His Perceptions. Within These Fractured Narratives, The Reader Is Ushered Into What One Story Calls A Shimmer Theory Of Blasted Perceptions: In Character, A Boyhood Summer Project Takes On A Passionate New Urgency In A Grown Man's Retelling As He Imagines The Anecdote To Be A Kind Of Foreplay For His (perhaps Unfortunate) Woman Listener. Mcelroy Is Ever Nimble And Probing, And These Stories Read Like Intricate Puzzles To Be Patiently Pieced Through. (jan.)

No man's land The man with the bagful of boomerangs in the Bois de Boulogne Mister X Character Canoe repair Annals of plagiary The campaign trail The last disarmament but one Silk, or the woman with the bike The unknown kid Particle of difference Night soul. Presents a collection of short stories, including "Mister X," "No Man's Land," and "The Campaign Trail."