Product Description
Double Down is a true story, a terrifying roller-coaster ride deep into the heart of two men, and into the world of floating Gulf Coast casinos. When both of their parents died within a short time of each other, the writers Frederick and Steven Barthelme, both professors of English in Mississippi, inherited a goodly sum of money. What followed was a binge during which they gambled away their entire fortune-and more. And then, in a cruel twist of fate, they were charged with cheating at the tables.

Told with a mixture of sadness and wry humor, and with a compelling look at the physical aura of gambling-the feel of the cards, the smell of the crowd, the sounds of the tables-Double Down is a reflection on the lure of challenging the odds, the attraction of stepping into the void. A cautionary tale (the brothers were eventually exonerated), it is a book that, once read, will never be forgotten.

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Customer Reviews (44)

"We just wanted to be children again.."
Either the authors were very brave for opening up to the world about their horrible gambling addiction, or they found a way to re-coup their losses by writing this book.At any rate, this book was a wonderful story that explains how a person can be "normal" one day, then suddenly fall into the grips of casino "gaming."What was amazing to me is the fact that both brothers were involved equally, and essentially gambled as a team.

The story weaves back and forth between the family life of these two men, and their obsession with casino gambling, attempting to make sense of it all.They don't stop until their inheritance is completely gone,then are acused of cheating.

For anyone who has visited a casino, their description of the lure of the bright lights, being treated like royality, making friends, "earning" free luxury rooms, meals, prizes, having someone to talk to, laugh with, etc is right on.They did a good job of explaining how the staff interacts with the patrons, and how one can "zone out" in a casino in an attempt to fell like an innocent child again.

I felt the book was well written, and flowed. It is a MUST READ for anyone who has ever thought of visiting a casino, and for anyone who regularly visits one.They could not have said it plainer - the casino's are not there to GIVE you money, but to TAKE your money.Visiting again and again will not allow you to win back large amounts of lost money, nor will it take you back to a time in your life that was fun and comfortable.

Very Interesting
The double-authorship of the Barthelme brothers makes their recounting of their addictive past with gambling provides for a fascinating memoir. At first glance, this book may seem to be merely a pop-fiction story, but the journey these two brothers goes through is deep and many-faceted.

I read this book as a required text for a college course on American culture, and how society views luck and chance. The book worked well as our final text, but it can also be read for entertainment! At times, it reminded me of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing (with the obscene amounts of drugs). Definitely a book to read, and then pass on to a friend!

A must read!!!
Excellent! A wonderfully entertaining story, beautifully told. The only problem, I wish it had gone another 100 pages! This is one of those stories you wish someone would develop into a screenplay for a movie!
Final thoughts: BUY THIS BOOK! You wont be disappointed!

Of Nepotism and Naivete
First, the obvious:neither Barthelme brother would have cushy college-teaching jobs had not their eldest brother, Donald, been a trendy post-modernist icon. The younger brother, Steven B., has managed to publish exactly one (1) book of short stories; Rick, the larger, plumper one, has some sort of gossamer reputation among those who like trailer-park fiction.There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of better writers with better qualifications who would kill and maim with gleeful abandon for jobs at Southern Mississippi -- and who would devote themselves to those jobs, and to their students, rather than run off two or three times a week to squander Daddy's money at the blackjack tables [disclaimer: the undersigned thinks she is one of those "better writers"]. That said, this slender volume does indeed fascinate: I read it straight through in five hours, and so will most readers of a literary bent. The brothers B. have in fact done me a service, one years of shrink visits and antidepressants have failed to do -- in one stroke, they have made me glad, glad, glad that I abandoned the academy, failed to obtain a Ph.D., and find myself teaching high school English thirty years after my Iowa fiction MFA. Theirs is a cautionary tale, of what may happen to smart people with minimal reality contact and few, if any, day-to-day responsibilities. The cavernous lack of common-sense knowledge they display in their forays to the Gulf Coast casinos would be inconceivable to anyone who's punched a clock or handled an insurance claim.They are actually surprised to find that casinos have a corporate identity! Gee, they thought those people were their friends ... gahh!As for the dead father they apparently despised, I felt sorry for D. Barthelme Sr.His hard work, his habits of deep thinking and attention to detail, become monstrosities in the ham-hands of his two youngest sons, who in fifty-plus years on this planet have not managed to obtain perspective one. The book is good -- the descriptions of gambling's intoxications, the minute processing of each foolish and silly and self-deluding thought as it arises, are executed with consummate skill -- and yet one can't help concluding, as the memoir shrinks down upon itself into a puddle of anticlimax, that six months or so in prison would have been good for these men, taught them a painful life-lesson or two. Crucial to an understanding of the brothers' plight is the fact that neither Barthelme bothered to have children, thus giving themselves the right to be babies forever. They are not so much perpetual adolescents as they are pre-pubescent (wife and girlfriend notwithstanding), mired forever in Fiftiesland where, if you want to be a cowboy, you just put on the hat and yell, "Bang-bang!" They are not intellectual -- or accomplished -- enough for the ivory-tower defense they so quickly assume; what they are, are second- and third-tier journeymen blessed with a famous name and a glib ability to sling the relativist Crisco. While one may end up wishing Barthelme Sr., who unlike his sons appeared to be able to distinguish right from wrong, had willed his inheritance somewhere else, this reviewer is grateful for the folly of his heirs. A job at Southern Mississippi may be gravy, but that thin gruel isn't nourishing.Real life is the real meat.

A story of loss
Double Down is a terrific book about loss. Frederick and Steve Barthelme are brothers who moved to Mississippi to become college professors. They come from a very close knit family, and when it is unwoven from the death of their Mother and Father, a gambling addiction is triggered. Steve and Frederick become regulars at The Grand, a local casino, and they start going at least once a week and spending the whole night there all the way into early morning. After blowing all of their inheritance from their parents, they are acussed of cheating. They were indicted and charged with a felony, and forever kicked out of their favorite casino. This didn't stop their gambling addiction, however it did slow it down. They make fewer trips, to another casino and are less intense gamblers.

The book was well written and for the most part it kept my attention. Some parts they seemed to ramble off about their parents and family, and it gets slow. The accounts of their gambling binges keep you wanting more. They know they should stop, but keep throwing their money in anyway. I recommend this to everyone who is intrested in gambling. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

One of the Greater Writers of American Literature
A timeless, heartfelt collection of stories, Moon Deluxe is both entertaining for warm hearts and hopeful for cold. The stories end so fast that you don't have time to draw judgement, but you can only imagine what happens next, if you please. Every page has the ability to make you wonder about the reccesses of society, emotions, experience, hardships, and evenn the most casual of circumstances. It also carries with it a very introverted aspect of the human psyche as well, exploring the level of carelessness we profess about our own lives, and above all, the mortal coil and what lies beyond that linear perspective. Do we just birth and die, or, is there more to life? You never know what you're going to happen upon the next page -- that's the monument that Frederick Barthelme has built up upon the pages of the New Yorker, the point of reference for Moon Deluxe. It's a fascinating group of tales that will haunt you until you sleep, carry on with you until you die in your subconscious. You would be wise to not ever let go of such a treasurable book. If your shtick is the bright lights burning on a cool day or night, the urban getaway of a faux-liberal landscape of most of these stories, you'll fit right in with the etherealistic feel of every environment of each story, whether you're forced into a person's view or watching from the sidelines, the workings of a travelling mythos.

Delightful, funny, wise, wonderful stories
Here's a writerwhose style and substance are perfectly matched.While some of the plots will make you laughoutloud, the characters arepoignant.Highly recommended. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Tonight's special: blackened chicken and failed marriage
"Moon Deluxe" has the sexier title, but Frederick Barthelme's second collection cuts just as deeply and then some.The characters are people who are trying their best to do the decent thing, but can't quiteshake the urge to do the wild and crazy thing.Romance collides with love,safety breeds ennui, material comforts and cultivated irony fend off, butcan't cure, yearning and restlessness.Heartbreak is the frequent result. Tight and subtle as the stories are, Barthelme's prose style is oftendazzling and virtuosic in a way which should make any reader think twiceabout calling them "minimalist."Some of the shorter numbers("Trick Scenery," "Cut Glass") have the lyricism andcondensed energy of poetry. But don't let me spoil it for you.Go out andread it yourself. ... Read more

Product Description
The purpose of this study is to review the criticism surrounding Barthelme's fiction and to engage in a closer reading of Barthelme's texts in order to see beyond the highly engaging surface of the prose to the interrogation of contemporary morality in which Barthelme is engaged. There truly are more ways than one to heaven. As between minimalism and its opposite, I pity the reader - or the writer - too addicted to either to savor the other. John Barth: The ultimate concern of any writer/critic/thinker who is concerned with literature may be not the literature itself so much as the fact of reading, which is at least as important as and in some ways more intriguing than literature itself. If there were no readers, after all, the work of literature would be like the tree falling in the forest with no human ear to hear it. Does it make a sound? Does it make a noise? Who cares? And so I turn to reading itself - what it is, what it does, and what it means. If by reading one means, as do at least some of today's students, the physical act of viewing text and very little else, then it is probably an activity without real importance.It can be used to fill time, but so can other equally disengaged activities. If it means, as it still does to many, the active intellectual and emotional involvement of a reader in a fictional word created by a writer, then reading means both entertainment (an aspect of the creative act of writing that is too seldom acknowledged) and the exercise of considerable craft on the writer's part. On the reader's part, it means both genuine engagement with the fiction itself and an implicit acceptance of the writer's rules of engagement - factors that may subsumed under the heading "willing suspension of disbelief."This is not, necessarily the same thing as engagement with the writer's text - an exercise that involves a somewhat different set of definitions and employment of some kind of critical apparatus, so that the "text" (perhaps) assumes a life independent of its writing; "reading" then operates in the service of deriving meaning(s) from that textual artifact.And if reading means the (act of) interpretation of text, then it implies a readerly interest or agenda that may or may not be concerned with the characters who inhabit the story, either as "people" or as constructs, with the dramatic energy of the work, with the symbolic richness that supports or undercuts the story's apparent direction, or even with the theme (that old fashioned word!) of the story. Equally possible, if we are concerned with reading as interpretation, is a preoccupation with the text-as-artifact, with the story-as-artifact, with the meaning of the text-as-artifact, with the implications of spatial arrangement of the text...and so on. Construction, in this line of investigation, may well be more significant than meaning. And so the further I go, the more confusing and prolific the possibilities become. In that respect, even this particular piece of text is rather like life and also rather like critical theory. I do not suggest that the work of the critic supersedes that of the writer, but neither to I wish to suggest that writing (if it is to mean anything at all) can exist, in some very real sense, without its readers.Once upon a time, I was certain I could name and define the major (and many less than major) movements of Western literature. Today, I am not sure I can name the major movements in American literature since World War II. I am not even sure all of them have been named. As a younger reader, I believed that with my contemporaries I lived in the modern age and that literary modernism might well turn out to be the sine qua non of literary development. What, after all, could possibly succeed the Hemingways, the Faulkners, the Hellers who dominated the literary stage of the day? The answer is (no great surprise) that they were succeeded by what came next, by other writers. Their modern world was also replaced by what came next - new wars, new inventions, new schisms and newer literature. That is how time works, on art as surely as on individuals, on tradition, and on land forms. Among my personal favorites of those who succeeded the modernists I number a disparate company that includes Toni Morrison, Hubert Selby, Larry Brown, Tobias Wolff and such other lights as Raymond Carver, Linda Hogan, Ron Rash, and John Edgar Wideman.The list contains, in addition to these writers of fiction, poets Linda Pastan and Stephen Dunn, literary novelist Michael Cunningham and pulp writers like Lawrence Block. Nor can I fairly leave out science fiction writers Karen Joy Fowler and Eleanor Arnason. The literary landscape is too varied and too complex for me to map it in convincing detail; it is changing even as I write. As succeeding waves of writers established themselves, the literary landscape they were shaping often seemed not to make very much sense, a fact of which John Hughes is clearly cognizant, for his effort in this study of the minimalist fiction of Frederick Barthelme is in part to make sense of the evolution of style and convention in American literature and, at the same time, to consider the subject matter by which the literature makes itself known. Hughes urges his readers to recognize that the minimalist work of Frederick Barthelme shows his readers what is, and in doing so shows them something about their world, - the malls, the apartment complexes, the highways, the parking lots.Even the detritis of broken-down piers and abandoned airplane hangars - in a way that reveals the unique and specific beauty of those things. If there is a morally prescriptive element in Barthelme's fiction, it is one that encourages an acceptance of [that] world in all its tacky, garish, and ultimately satisfying glory (138).While Hughes offers a big "if" in this passage, he also offers a big possibility that encompasses and embraces not only Barthelme's achievement, but the inevitability of change in the literary landscape. The world itself is changing. The ways in which we perceive and understand that world, and its literature, must change as well. As Hughes acknowledges, the pedagogical touchstones of plot, character, setting, and theme have acquired new meaning - or new meanings - as the critical establishment has armed itself for and addressed itself to the onslaught of new things in world. We have moved from the modern to the post-modern to the post-post-modern or whatever it is we now inhabit. Within this broil, Hughes gives us some sense of continuity and a place in the spectrum that is occupied by Frederick Barthelme, and this is no small achievement.It is almost certainly signification that Frederick Barthelme began his writing career as a metafictionist and then retooled as a minimalist; this fact alone does much to account for the meaning Hughes elucidates in Barthelme's minimalist work. There is much here to enjoy - not least the comparative close reading of T. S. Eliot's Prufrockian narrator and the more contemporary Prufockian figures in Barthelme's stories and novels. Hughes's elucidation of the major themes of the minimalist canon of Frederick Barthelme also point to a keen awareness of social and political history and the ways in which they have affected the literature of at least one strand of American writing. In this, Hughes builds an excellent case for the defense of minimalist writing - a case every reader would do well to consider, especially if that reader has been watching the literary scene for the past thirty or forty years. Ultimately, in terms of canonical acceptance, personal response may not matter all that much, but for the life of literature in the living culture it matters a great deal. A reader myself, I have not much cared for all the literary developments of the past forty years.Some I have loved and some not. None would allow me the ease of indifference. When I read Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, they are still beautiful and full of a kind of desperation. I do not see them, particularly, as modernist or minimalist, though it seems to me that both labels may be applied. When I read Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" I am still moved, and (if the story is doing its work) not really conscious of literary categories. What makes the work of these writers so valuable, I suspect, is that a career in the academy and several years training as a critic have not rendered me immune to it, something that may well turn out to be true of the minimalist fiction we owe to Frederick Barthelme. Carver's and Hemingway's stories still move me with their beauty and their emotional strength. As a reader (a reader-by-nature, if you will), I am happiest when that is the case. As a critic, I am happier when I understand something new about the stories - about, perhaps, the relative lack of ornamentation, the apparent simplicity of the language - that I had not realized on earlier readings.I am even happier when I can start to see a "history" of literary development, from early to late Hemingway, from the forties to the seventies and eighties. These, like all preferences, seem to me to best be accounted for by personal taste, which (along with far more impressive forces) shapes the history of literature. What makes literary criticism like this work by John Hughes valuable is that it allows us to see something larger about the work of Frederick Barthelme than we would likely see alone - its place in the evolving consciousness of the writer and the reader and its place in the continuous movement of American letters. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Absurdity in Everyday Events
This novel is a great portrayal of the absurd in everyday events.It points out the craziness of the day-to-day through events surrounding the separation of a southern suburban couple.Some quotes from the book that will give you as much an idea about its contents as any comments i might make:

"Did she tell you about holding her sister's twenty-two on me? Or the time she cut my ankles with the peeler?" (p. 77)

"For some reason I was thinking of the feeling you get when you're handling a particularly sharp knife in the kitchen and suddenly, without really thinking about it, it's almost as it you're afraid of what your hand will do, afraid that it wants to push the point slowly into your eye." (p. 139)

"She had been a model before she married and wore no make-up except lipstick - - a thick, wet red that made her lips glisten like tiny pillows carefully plumped and arranged." (p. 57)

Do these quotes pique your fancy?Do they make you stop and smile?Or wonder about what comes next?Then I think this book is for you.It makes for some damn good reading.

better read something else
I finally read the book, bought it about 8 years ago, tried more than once to finish it. Finally got myself up to do so and was pretty disappointed. Boring, too far from any reality, characters unbelievable. ... Read more

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Frederick Barthelme's most powerful novel to date, Two Against One is the portrait of a marriage gone awry. On Edward's fortieth birthday, his estranged wife Elise appears unannounced at his door, triggering a series of events that will involve the couple in a bizarre triangle. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Modern Novel.
"Two Against One" gives a somewhat detached third-person account of the story of Edward, whose wife Elise returns after a six month absence for a not-so-tumultuous-as-you-might-think weekend.The situation is this: Elise acts as though nothing has changed between them during this time. After all, they're still husband-and-wife. She talks to friends as if the separation never took place, sleeps in his bed, talks about Edward as someone more intimate with him than even himself, etc. Later we learn that she wants to re-engage the marriage. But what that will mean and entail she leaves up to Edward. Oh, and there's a catch, she's in a relationship with another man that she is not in a position to end. So for Edward to take her back and resume an active marriage he will have to do so with a third person who he will also sort of be married to, or who at the very least he must live and share his wife with. The situation is further complicated by the appearance of Elise's pseudo-boyfriend Roscoe, Edward's nymphomaniac ex-girlfriend Kinta, and a nosy but concerned friend Lurleen. This turns both the marital situation and Edward's own existential shadowboxing into a community ordeal.

This could be handled as a modern relationship comedy, and it would be awful. But though there are lots of funny moments, and though the characters sometimes seem like they'd feel at home in a sitcom, Barthelme is a better writer than that. Instead, the characters appear to be acting the part of a relationship comedy that they've somehow walked into. At the same time there is an overwhelming sense of discomfort and a feeling that this relationship comedy may be messier than they are prepared for, and they know it.

Edward is confronted by the I suppose ever-present threat of what love may potentially require of a person, as well as the possibility that he may not be able to meet those requirements. He is confronted with his own sexual problems (never entirely specified), as well as Elise's sexual exploits with other men. He is forced to face the possibility that he may just hate women. And he has to argue his case in front of a whole cast of characters.

The novel is ambitious, and reading it I felt the weight of so many "crises of modernity" squeezing as much as could be had from the prose. Fans of Douglas Coupland (I am not one) will go mad for this. "Two Against One" covers a lot of Coupland-overused territory, addressing suburban life, consumerist living, the sexual revolution, gender politics, and morality (particularly different people's incompatible moral codes). Ultimately the book deals with the pursuit of happiness in the modern world. And yes, before you ask, I do feel that the scope and ambition of "Two Against One" detract from our intimacy with the characters, the story, and the author, and I do feel that a sense of realism is expunged in favor of functionality to a subtext far larger than the mere text. And yes, I do feel this is a problem. I came to this book after something like seven readings of "Moon Deluxe," which has the aforementioned intimacies and realism in spades. "Moon Deluxe" allows the reader to consider and judge such big issues on their own when faced with what seem like fairly unremarkable situations and realistic characters who appear, I dunno, effected by their settings, but not artifacts of it. "Two Against One" never approached heavy-handedness, but by overtly raising big issues (sometimes this is done literally in the dialogue, sometimes it is simply inevitable given the situations), even if not confronting them, it is difficult to read the characters or situations outside the context of these big issues. Maybe this is the novel's greatest strength, but unfortunately it prevents the characters from ringing true, turns the specific global, and comes off as calculated. ... Read more

Product Description
Finally restored to print, Frederick Barthelme's classic novel about love, marriage, and one man's search for something more.

Peter Wexler is unhappy. He's forty and obsessed with what's wrong in the world, including his marriage, a "thirtysomething" version of Ozzie and Harriet. Deciding a change of scenery might help put his life back in order, Peter leaves his wonderful wife and their ten-year-old son in search of a resolution to the confusion, estrangement, fatigue, and adultery that have confounded his life.

Natural Selection is an intimate novel about a man getting smart, and getting there a little later than he should have. It's caustic and subtle, slick and funny, charming, deeply melancholy, and more than anything else, true. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The meaningless malaise of middle-age angst
Books about white male mid-life crisis are so plentiful that they are nearly a genre unto themselves. In "Natural Selection," Barthelme applies his minimalist style to yet another entry in this genus: the story of the 40-year-old, once-divorced, twice-married husband and father Peter Wexler. This 1990 novel, if it is read by future generations at all, will probably be remembered for its unexpectedly shocking and seemingly senseless ending, but it is--intentionally or not--mostly a deeply cynical satire of the media-manufactured epidemic of middle-age malaise.

Wexler, who without really trying or caring has become successful at a meaningless job he despises in a public relations firm, has a wonderful wife and an understanding son, but he's deeply unhappy with the world. His anger and depression is unfocused but it's usually set off by little things: "a guy at the office for lying, or somebody on TV for a specious argument, or a politician for unscrupulous ads, or a magazine article riddled with manipulative distortions." After failing to keep his promise to his wife and son to stop complaining so much, he moves into separate quarters, with both comic and tragic consequences.

On the one hand, Barthelme's prose works best with Wexler's interior monologues, in which the wayward suburbanite tries to shake himself of his day-to-day angst. Wexler knows he loves his wife and his son in spite of the tedium of his existence but can't help but wonder if that's all there is to life. On the other hand, the dialogue is a plastic patois, a parody of middle-class speech that fails to give the remaining characters in the novel any substance and lends a sense of unreality to the conversations that dominate the book. Put simply: nobody talks like that. (Wexler son, in particular, speaks like a nine-year-old Tucker Carlson, sans bowtie.)

As parody, this banter sometimes works, but the overall effect is to render the book's explosive finale nearly meaningless. In Barthelme's manipulative hands, Wexler realizes too late the obvious moral of this story: he's been valuing and enjoying the wrong things in life; the cup has always seemed half empty when it has, in fact, been nearly full. But one can almost smell the smug tone of Barthelme's writing (you want something to whine about, I'll give you something to whine about), and the reader, who has never seen the cast of the supporting characters as much more than satirical sounding boards for Wexler's imagined psychoses, is left emotionally stranded alongside a Houston highway when Wexler finally learns his lesson. ... Read more

Product Description
A New York Times Notable Book In this darkly funny story, Ray and Jewel Kaiser try (and push) their luck at the Paradise casino. Peopled with dazed denizens, body-pierced children, a lusty grocery-store manager, and hourly employees in full revolt, this is a novel about wising up sooner rather than later--"a wise and funny tale" (New York Times Book Review) that is "masterfully observed" (John Barth). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

just one more
Life is just rolling along, everything's GREAT!!!! until they decide to set foot in the casino. The expected mayhem ensues within a relatively short period of time. Nothing ever is as it seems, and Bob finds out that his biggest "loss" was really his biggest way out of everything.

this guy knows
Barthelme nails the perfect disasters of a gambling addict.His compassion, detail and heart sit Ray and Jewel down on either side of me as we bet ourselves into bliss and oblivion.I'd write more but I don't want to give anything away...except to say that I've never read as clear and tender a description of the workings of the mind of anyone in love with the action.

Riverboat Gambling
I just finished this book last night, ten years after it was first published.A friend recommended it and since I was a huge fan of Double Down by the same author, I immediately purchased it and read it in one night.The characters are all very likeable, colorful, but never particularly struck me as real and I couldn't tell you why.Barthelme writes beautifully, no doubt about it.His prose is detailed, descriptive and certain scenes are easily visualized, even for a person who has never been in that part of the country.I agree with the reviewer that the most exciting part of the book is when Ray and Jewel are actually in the casino. At one point when Ray is there by himself and bankrupting his future, my palms were sweating and I felt like I was right there with him.The book was wonderful until the last chapter, which felt endless and despite all the descriptive prose, incomplete.But by that time, I no longer cared how it turned out for Ray, Jewel and RV.Had it not been for the last chapter, I would have given this book five stars.

Losing It
The night after I finished this book I found myself before a slot machine in a small casino. I had a feeling and put a quarter in. I won and won again. I stuffed the quarters in my pockets but there were no buckets available. When I lost two quarters in a row I left. Unfortunately this was a dream and I awoke empty handed. Bob the Gambler is a beautifully observed, enviably perfect novel by a master who doesn't seem flashy because he stays within his means. It is also a surprisingly, even surreally loving story.The novel centers around the fissioned nuclear family of down-on-his luck Biloxi architect Bob Kaiser, a plump transplant moved by the Mississippi coastal decay before it was invaded by "gussied-up Motel 6 hotel rooms [and] an ocean of slicked-back hair," his pretty, witty, and wonderful wife of nine years Jewel, who is tough and stable, and yet the first to thirst for casino action, Jewel's daughter RV, an amazingly rendered, very sweet fourteen year old mid-90's teenager whom Bob adores, and Frank, the family dog. All the principals, as well as Bob's mother, whom we meet later in the book, are expert at the art of the cryptic tough-talking but secretly loving epigram. One of the great charms of this book is the depths of love of the family members both concealed by and revealed by their fragmented banter and quips. There are some wonderful moments and descriptions of daily life and teenage rearing, the euphoric swirl of casino gambling, and the decrepit Mississippi coast. The lasting impression one is left from this book, aside from the controlled brilliance of Barthelme's prose, is in my opinion a meditation on the meaning of money vis-à-vis love. Bob's wife's name, Jewel, is a token of facets of wealth unobtainable by any number of markers or wild infatuation-like risks; theirs, an irreducible love that includes and absorbs others (such as RV) in its understated wake, is the multicolored antithesis of liaisons such as those between David Duke (who make a cameo appearance)-and a sprightly young thing-of any coupling that can be price tagged, exchanged, or discarded. The casino and noncasino lights that surround Jewel, in her preternatural (and perhaps ultimately unrealistic, or at least extremely rare) stability, enact a preciousness beyond money and its temporary accumulations. They symbolize the nonmonetary values of the gift of being, the privilege not of accumulating but of existing-of the privilege of being alive, a spectator of phenomena in a world whose mortal decay, far from being its downfall, guarantees the preciousness of the light show it displays. Anyone who has taken junkets to Atlantic City may have noticed how on the flight there everyone chatters; they are full of excitement on hope. The way back is different. Everyone, or almost everyone has lost. They are quiet-until the plane lands, at which point they clap. Why? Because, although they have lost their money, they are newly appreciative of the far more precious gift of being alive. That is the mini-miracle, the lottery ticket, the stiff Barthelme hits for us in this wonderful paean to human frailty and true, tough love. In a way, Barthelme, his heart bigger than any red chip, says in this book the exact opposite of comedian Steven Wright's quip, "You can't have everything, where would you put it?"Barthelme says (with mathematician Paul Erdos) you do have everything, you have it all, already-you are infinitely rich.

Wonderful
I read this book as soon as it came out, have recommended it to friends, and just now purchased another copy as a gift.It's one of the best books I've read in years.The characters are so acutely observed, the dialogueso on target, that I got carried away with it.The well-written gamblingscenes made my hands sweat at points.And the ending -- the ending isabsolutely perfect. ... Read more

Product Description
Set amidst the tatters of  post-Katrina Gulf Coast Mississippi, Waveland is a brilliantly observed portrait of our times from one of the most incisive novelists at work today.
 
Partially retired architect Vaughn Williams does what he can to remain "viable." Battling the doldrums of midlife, he teaches an occasional class, reads the newspapers, scours the Internet, and thinks obsessively about his late father. When his ex-wife seeks refuge from her hotheaded boyfriend, Vaughn and his girlfriend, Greta, agree to let her move in, perhaps a little too cavalierly. Add in Vaughan’s annoyingly successful younger brother, who carries a torch for Vaughn’s ex-wife, and lingering suspicions about Greta’s involvement in her husband’s murder and the result is an emotionally resonant tale of mortality, love, regret, and redemption that only Barthelme could unwind.


From the Trade Paperback edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

A Modern Classic
What a cast of characters: Gail a ditsy gal of the times, Vaughn her ex whom she has asked to leave after twenty years, Greta his new amour, who may or may not have shot her abusive husband Bo in the head, Eddie, the Desert Storm veteran friend of Greta who is missing a hand, lives in her garage and may be gay, Newton, Vaughn's successful younger brother, their deceased Father whom Newton says he never liked and whom Vaughn feels he's let down all entangled in the aftermath of Katrina, perhaps the perfect metaphor for the crazy world we all find ourselves in.
This is the modern American novel we all wish we had written. I've learned that Frederick Barthelme's style is considered minimalist. I think of it more as "Dense Simplistic." That's because he is able to express a whole lot in a few words using everyday people in everyday situations. For instance, the possibility that one of the main characters has shot her husband in the head while he was sleeping; happens all the time, just turn on the TV. And of course the TV is always on and, just like the rest of us, the characters all disdain the waste land that it presents, but go right on watching.
But lo and behold, life among the ruins still allows the possibility of Phoenix risings form the ashes. I love a happy ending.

Michael D. Edwards, Author of the recently released "Royal Ryukian Blues" a memoir of Okinawa.

A modest novel, yet ambitious in its own way
"Waveland" is a modest novel, yet its protagonist grapples with the meaning of life, and the nature of love and family bonds.Vaughn is likable and has a fine sense of ethics.He can also be annoying, to the reader as well as the other characters.For someone who ultimately finds contentment, his active interests are almost unrealistically limited.

Barthelme provides 3 summaries of Vaughn's views, all different of course as he evolves (p.78., p.170, p. 198). All the other characters are nicely drawn and totally credible, even Greta I think.It is not hard to understand why she would appreciate Vaughn.

Not too wavy
One of the blurbs on the back cover says "one the surface, nothing terribly significant appears to happen." This refers to different book, but the same can be said. Pleasant enough to read, but not memorable.

A portrait of survivors
Other reviewers have already noted the key character descriptions and plot elements, so I won't spend time on those in this review. What struck me most about this book are two things: Barthelme's beautiful prose, so finely crafted that the words themselves--not the simple desire to find out what happens next--propel the reader onwards; and the author's perfect grasp and rendering of what it feels like to be a survivor of life. Through the eyes of the main character Vaughn we see what life is like for someone who tried (but not quite hard enough) at being a husband, being an architect, and being a good son and brother, and who now has to deal with the damage of not having tried hard enough. Barthelme expertly weaves descriptions of post-Katrina Gulf Coast "scenery" into Vaughn's ruminations about his father's death, his failed marriage, and his current state of trying to take things easy. No reader who has experienced a difficult time could fail to be moved by the scene in the Target parking lot, in which Vaughn realizes that sitting alone in his car is the best time he has had in days. Very little happens, in terms of plot points, but everything that is needed happens to Vaughn in this book. I would say that reading it is like therapy, except that doesn't do it justice. Barthelme successfully creates a portrait of a modern-day survivor (and the other survivors in his life) that resonates with the reader. I can't think of many better ways to spend twenty-five dollars.

What constitutes survival
Important things happen in this short novel about a middle-aged architect living on the ravaged Mississippi Gulf Coast after Katrina. The confounding shambles, the absence of resources and the gathering cluster of lost souls pries loose the desperate grip on life as it's known. Letting go, in this case forced by circumstance, can be more than a mind-boggling free fall. It can land you somewhere new and better, once you find your bearings.

Vaughn Williams and his new girlfriend Greta live in a neighborhood that's been leveled. Their house survives the storm as does the house Vaughn's ex-wife Gail occupies. Little else in Vaughn's life has definition, however. His wife asks him to leave but later wants him to move back. He likes his girlfriend but feels love is an emotion he's moved beyond at his age. He watches television and expects little. He and Greta live with Eddie, a wise but lost soul, who is supposed to live in the garage but spends most of the time in the main house. They all exist like so much else post-Katrina, in a state of suspended animation.

Despite Vaughn's vocation, he's no longer compelled to create, which would seem the natural thing when living in a neighborhood of downed houses. But the desertion is profound. Everything contributes to a dull and uninteresting hollowness that presents certain challenges to the reader. Persist, if you can.

Most of the book is taken up with the struggles of the aimless. At Thanksgiving, Vaughn summarizes, a bit too well, the feeling: "When you're a person of a certain age everything changes and the world ... which used to be attractive, possibly charming at times, turns out to be a sewage hole of immense proportion, unimaginable proportion, overrun with dimwits." He calls the dinner "a tragic mimicry of holiday kitsch -- four empty husks repeating a performance that long ago lost meaning for all of us."

Katrina triggers the tearing down of Vaughn, Greta and Gail's lives. The inability to exist in a vacuum seems to be the impetus to the rebuilding. Greta designs house interiors, which complements Vaughn's expertise. But she was once a suspect in the murder of her husband, who was shot while asleep in their bed. While exonerated, suspicions never entirely dispel because her husband abused her.

More abuse occurs when Gail's boyfriend beats her, rather severely, and she winds up in the emergency room. She asks Vaughn and Greta to stay with her. They move in and Eddie stays behind to watch the dog and the house. The small, makeshift community is complete when Gail summons Vaughn's brother.

Barthelme, a former architect himself, is a southern novelist whose style has been labeled minimalist for the meandering, disaffected characters he brings to life. His descriptions of ordinary life, such as TV watching or gambling or Vaughn's guilt over the way he failed his father at the end, are pathetic and hilarious. But after 50 pages of detail about characters lacking direction, reading on becomes a question. Let faith and curiosity give you forward motion. The parts coalesce, finally, to form something so elegant and yet so simple it takes your breath away.







... Read more

Product Description
A chronicle of the divorces and recouplings of the author's own generation, Tracer is a terse, surrealistic, and moving portrait of life in America.

Martin, in the middle of a divorce, is seeking solace. Flying off to the neon-lit south Florida coastline, he settles in for some rest and rehabilitation with his soon-to-be ex-sister-in-law. Martin quickly settles into her bed too, creating a situation that is bound for trouble-especially when his ex-wife also appears on the scene. Cautiously, the threesome try to sort things out, engaging in varied rituals of mating, hating, forgetting, and forgiving. A funny and unforgettable novel about friends, family, and the kind of quirky, complicated relationships that will keep readers rapt through the final pages. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Triangles went out with Pythagoras
Frederick Barthelme, Tracer (Penguin, 1985)

When you're a writer, and your brother is a writer, you have to expect the comparisons, especially if the two of you tend to float in the same water. The particular swimming pool that is eighties literature, [urinated] in on a fairly regular basis by Papa Hemingway and Sinclair Lewis, is home to the Barthelme brothers. And as much as I hate to draw obvious comparisons and judge by them, Donald's the better writer.

Still, Fred is capable of turning a decent tale. His protagonist is on the cusp of divorce, staying in Florida with his soon-to-be-ex-wife's sister. The two never quite get romantically entangled, but they share bed space every once in a while, which makes things slightly uncomfortable when the wife shows up.

Frederick Barthelme's strength resides in his ability to create minor characters and setting; much of what goes on around the main triangle here is memorable, in ways (as much as I hate to do it again... it's the same kind of semi-dada whimsy that inhabits Donald's more notable works). The problem is that the main plot, what little there is of it, never really gets off the ground. The main characters don't have the emotional depth to hold the minimal changes in their emotional states that Frederick is trying to use to signal the way their relationships are changing towards one another. He's also guilty of giving just enough in places to be ambiguous about what events will transpire, then cutting to the next morning without us knowing exactly what went on, and then never following up.

Could've been good. Left a lot to be desired. **

A little ado about less
In this slight novella Frederick Barthelme, one of the new generation of serious Southern writers, presents a thin story that covers several days in the breakup of a marriage. Martin, the central character, leaves his homeafter his wife declares her intention to divorce him and goes to visit (wenever quite know why)his wife's sister who runs a down-and-out motel on theGulf shore of Florida. Almost immediately they begin an affair which, sincethey really know nothing about one another, is only a substitute for whateach wants in life at that moment. The wife decides to come visit. Again,the motivation for this is not clear. She knows about the affair and whenthe sisters are together they alternately attack and support one another,leaving Martin (and, I suspect, the reader)puzzled as to what is going onand where it is headed. An interesting cast of supporting characters,including the sister's ex-husband and his eccentric brother, provide thereal interest in the 'story', such as it is.

There are arresting imagesand colorful dialoge in parts of this book, but nothing binds it alltogether into any kind of emotional or intellectual whole. The scenes thatworked best would probably make a good minimalist play. Something likePinter with a bit of wry humor. But as a novel, this book is just too thinin every regard and one reaches the end knowing nothing more about thecentral characters than when the book began. It is a promise unfulfilled. ... Read more

Product Description
Del and Bud, two middle-aged brothers from Biloxi, Mississippi, have never quite grown up and regularly mess up each other's lives, as Bud chases after a glamorous life and Del chases Bud's wife, Margaret. 15,000 first printing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Blithering inanity
This book, like most fictions, is about personalities and social interactions. There is no requirement that an author create likeable personalities or nice interactions, and Barthelme demonstrates that here. Actually, he has gone out of his way to create disagreeable characters, chronically drifting and unskilled. The dialog is banal and jittery, reflecting speakers' shallowness and irrelevance. Characters talk past--not to--each other.

Sequences are unpredictable and implausible, as though lives are completely out of personal control. Needing a plotline? Invent your own. If you are looking for existential anomie, this may satisfy you, although you might save some time by just reading a bunch of newspaper classified ads.

A Keeper from Frederick Barthelme
"They left the hotel at three the next afternoon. Jen was driving, Bud and Margaret were in the back. They took a turn bt the beach long enough for a last look, then slipped back up to I-10 and headed west toward Mobile. They were riding alongside an eighteen-wheel truck that had big lemons and limes painted on its side. The traffic was surprisingly heavy, Jen pulled in behind the truck and hit the cruise control. "I'm just following this guy," she said. "Wherever he goes." (128)

This paragraph from half way through the novel serves as a good example of the forward momentum of Frederick Barthelme's narrative. Perhaps `momentum' isn't the right word, as the direction hardly seems driven by forces originating in the past. I can't think of a novel in which past, certainly fate, plays so small a role. Does Fate exist in Barthelme's cosmos? Not much would seem to be more ripe for a depiction of destiny working its strange power than the relationship between brothers (inviting as it can a veritable mess of power struggles and envy, not to mention mythic analogies reaching into the archaic past), and yet Del and Bud here experience less of this than one would have thought dramatically interesting, for all their problems. Actually, `The Brothers', really isn't all that dramatically interesting, but what is compelling is one of the most detailed descriptions of the `new South' that out-Percys Percy, where Gas-mart attendants have bellies the size of cash registers and Kmart and Audio Instinct are more prevalent than plantations.

`The Brothers' is actually a little lopsided as titles go, as all the action is centered around Del, who has just moved to Biloxi following a divorce that took place just before the novel begins. Considering the conflict that is one of the main threads of the novel (even `thread' seems too substantial), Del and Bud seem anxious to help one another. Bud tries to get Del a more respectable job at his community college. Del tries to help Bud out with his mood swings. They act, not to put to fine a point on it, brotherly.

If anything, the friction between Del and the other characters exist as a series of foils for the central relationship between the brothers, which is mysterious enough to resist an easy description of conflict, if not conflict itself. About two thirds of the way through the novel there is a minor incident between Del and his girlfriend involving a knife. Was it an accident, or wasn't it really aggression disguised as an accident? Probably Not, everyone decides - Del, the girlfriend, and perhaps even the narrator- just an accident. Nobody can say for sure, so we just won't bother to say at all.But the injury itself is real, and remains.

Society is no help. A barbecue turns into petty match of egos, simultaneously stunted and monstrous, a road trip brings everybody back to right where they started. Religion isn't what it used to be; now priests are on the lamb to shack up with girlfriends like everybody else, and trying to break into the gambling business to boot. Del and Jen play at confession, and as a result religion seems less mocked than resurrected in some strange new form. Del prays the prayers of his childhood, but of course he isn't a child anymore. Or perhaps prayer given him, at least for a moment, a child's perspective.

There are injuries of many kinds in this novel. Between husband and wife, between colleagues, between strangers and between loved ones, including, of course, brother and brother. The final scene is a funny, endearing example of the power of love and imagination, maybe love as imagination, to heal those injuries. ... Read more

Product Description
Motivated by the horrors of the L.A. riots and the spectacle of O. J. Simpson's Bronco ride, Jen and Del decide to take a road trip to Los Angeles, and their mission takes them into the heart of American culture. Reprint. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Sensation junkies
This book concerns media and traveling and cyber-culture.It is about connections where there seems to be a lack of connection because people commit outrageous acts.The main character's friend seeks to right the wrong, but in the midst of the road trip from Mississippi to Arizona, discovers that looking at the scenery and marriage may be more certain avenues of growth.

Less like a novel than a ride in someone else's mind
Perhaps he's an acquired taste, or maybe you just need an attention span longer than a Buzz Clip, but no one writes about real people, real life, and the quiet at the heart of the insane neon whirlwind of modern existencequite the way Barthelme does. He understands the tragedy of the lonelytraffic light, the way the sting of salt in the air can smell like renewal,the peculiar magic of parking lots at 3 am, the messy reality of road tripsthat don't take place in Hollywood movies. Painted Desert, like his otherworks, is less a conventional novel told to you like a bedtime story andmore a glimpse of a particular time and place, a specific person and whatthey were wearing, the awkward rhythm of a conversation with someone youcan never really know well enough. The absence of the standard narrativetropes is disorienting at first, but ultimately liberating: the first timeI read anything of his I was unnerved by how immediate it was...monthslater it still haunted me and I had to go back for more. Painted Desert islike a ride in someone else's mind: come along and take that ride, babyit's all right.

Touching revelations about America from its finest writer
Like so much of Barthelme's work, Painted Desert tracks misfit middle-aged American males through quirky metaphysical journeys into the millennium. His dialogue is clever and always rings true, his characters are charming, and the situations they face are wonderful, surreal, terrifying. His descriptions -- whether of a motel room during a storm, or a car that seems so big its passengers move their stuff from the trunk to the back seat so they won't "be as lonely", are exquisite and revealing. Only Barthelme can juxtapose the portrayal of a world of mindless violence careening out of control, with gentle humour, touching revelation and a sustaining, almost religious optimism: "Putting one foot in the Painted Desert is more satisfying, fulfilling, more rich and human and decent, than all the vengeance in the world.This country is making us into saints, making us feel like saints, and that's worth everything".And reading and re-reading Barthelme's well-crafted work is also well worth it.

Not worth finishing
I hate to be negative about books, but over the last few years I have started a bunch of books and not finished about 10% of them. Its sort of like..."who cares, why go on?" I read half of the book.The craftsmanship is not bad.But it became a chore to continue as I was not interested in the characters, plot and essentially nothing happens in the book.It may be me, but at 12AM last night I closed the book and put in on my book shelves and started another book...if anyone would like to discuss why this book is better than I say..please email me.... ... Read more

Product Description
Elroy and his wife, Clare, elect to try living separately, a choice characteristic of their relationship-fond, thoughtful, generous to a fault, and more than a little cracked. So Elroy leases a high-rise beach condo, begins hanging out with his twenty-something students, and experiences a splendid re-enchantment with the world. With his trademark precision and pitch-perfect dialogue, Barthelme elegantly lays open this interweaving of twenty-year olds with their fifty-something fellow traveler. The result is a lovely, lilting romance, and a spare yet generous masterpiece from a writer at the top of his form. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Disappointing
I bought "Elroy Nights" after reading positive reviews on the back cover, but I only reached halfway after feeling deflated and disappointed with the pace and characters. I don't expect the books I read to have a point or a plot per se, but I do expect them to contain something to consider, mull over, and be worthy of my time and effort.

"Elroy Nights" refers to the title character in the novel, an art professor at a small university in Mississippi. It starts with him feeling discontented with his life with Clare, his wife. This is what pulled me in--the descriptions of Elroy's discontent promise some future insight, or SOMETHING. But I just couldn't sympathize with the main character or find his musings anything but vague and meandering. Nothing really happened and nothing was really noted that made me think it was worth it to keep going. In the end there is nothing really original or wise about this one--avoid it.

Disappointing
I am an avid reader and writer, and I had to force myself to finish this novel.Although I appreciate the sentiments the author evokes, the reading is BORING.It seems more like a memoir, or a vehicle solely for the author to convey his personal feelings and/or experiences regarding the disillusionment of mid-life contrasted with the searching and angst of today's youth.A fertile subject matter, but the way this book is written you'd either have to be in awe of the author's personna or had almost exact similar experiences as the narrator for the book to grab you.It doesn't grab me, and I wanted to go there.Berthelme says the same thing over and over again, with the same words re-tossed, and I got it the first few times.This one should've been a short story.

No doubt Barthelme is a good writer.My problem with large portions of this book is that he seems to know this, and the writing gets a little too smart for its own good, at the expense of this reader's interest.What is frustrating is that you have to wade through stilted dialouge and ruminations for the sake of ruminating (like the technicaly great music solo that goes everywhere, but nowhere) to get to the brilliant passages - the nights the protagonist spends outside on his wife's deck, and his detailed noticing of nature with clarity he hasn't enjoyed since youth.Good stuff.

I don't enjoy writing negative reviews, and, therefore, I don't do it often.But, I guess if these pages are to serve what I assume to be their purpose, I need to be honest.This book is NOT a masterpiece.For it to be hailed as one would be unjust in my mind, given that we all have our own notions of justice.The other stuff I've read by Barthelme is better.Read some, because this guy can write.He just misses the mark here, but at least he's shooting.

Masterwork
I've been reading Barthelme since his first collection of stories - the mesmerizing 'Moon Deluxe' - and ELROY NIGHTS is his finest work yet. It's a masterpiece. Measured, beautiful, heartbreaking, and deeply felt.

If there were any justice in the world, this new novel would sweep the literary awards. My fear, however, is that publishing insiders will continue to reward their own mediocrity.

The story does travel some of the same paths as Barthelme's other work, but the language here is more mature, richer than anything else in his catalog.

As always, the characters are remarkable, smart, sassy, and brutal. And impossible not to watch.

The climax of the story is shocking, and the sweet denoument plays honest and forlorn.

I can't recommend it enough. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Artforum International, published by Artforum International Magazine, Inc. on April 1, 2009. The length of the article is 1613 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Rider on the storm: Frederick Barthelme's sad-sack hero survived Hurricane Katrina, barely.(UP FRONT)(Waveland)(Book review)
Author: Eric Banks
Publication: Artforum International (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2009
Publisher: Artforum International Magazine, Inc.
Volume: 47Issue: 8Page: S18(1)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Frederick Barthelme, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 3902 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Product Description
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Red Krayola (formerly The Red Crayola) was a psychedelic, avant-garde rock band from Houston, Texas, formed by art students at the University of St. Thomas (Texas) in 1966. The band was led by singer/guitarist and visual artist Mayo Thompson, along with drummer Frederick Barthelme (brother of novelist Donald Barthelme) and Steve Cunningham. Their work prefigured punk and the no wave scene in 1980s New York City. They made noise rock, psychedelia and occasionally folk/country songs and instrumentals in a DIY fashion, an approach that presaged the lo-fi aesthetic of many 1990s US indie rock groups. ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Gordon Weaver, William J. Hamblin, Frederick Barthelme, Raymond Monsour Scurfield, Carol Bergé, Neil R. Mcmillen, Robert Arrington, Chester M. Morgan, Aubrey K. Lucas. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 36. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Gordon Weaver (born 1937) is an award-winning American novelist and short story writer. Born in Moline, Illinois, the fifth of the five children of Noble Rodell Weaver and Inez Katherine Nelson, his family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1941. He graduated from Wauwatosa High School in 1955. After three years service in the United States Army (1955-1958), he graduated from the University of WisconsinMilwaukee in 1961, from the University of Illinois with a MA in 1962, and from the University of Denver with a Ph.D. in 1970. He taught at Siena College 1963-1965, Marietta College 1965-1968, University of Southern Mississippi 19701975, Oklahoma State University 19751995, Vermont College1983-1989,and University of WisconsinMilwaukee 19962000. He was founding Editor of the Mississippi Review, Fiction Editor and Editor of Cimarron Review 197586, Managing Editor of the AWP (Association of Writers ... Read more

Product Description
A New York Times Notable Book for 2000

The Law of Averages collects twenty-nine stories that rattle around in the fertile field of ordinary life in America; they embrace the plain, the drab, and the dull with the same warmth as the miraculous and exquisite. These sharp and touching stories strike at the heart of our time and reveal and reflect the sometimes funny, often bizarre details that routinely disrupt the delicate balance of our lives. This is a collection of ordinary, complex pleasures. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Stories About Nothing?
These are basically stories about nothing.Not even stories really.More like observations or reports told by a loving correspondent.The author rather skillfully (or sneakily) managed to keep this sottish reader's interest even though I knew the stories weren't going anywhere.Greatness?No.Clever and well told nothingness?You betcha!An opinion: the author has little imagination, but is a very skilled storyteller.I'm not certain whether to be annoyed or impressed.

Minimalist anthology.
I haven't read any of Barthelme's novels, but have read some of his essays in the past. After reading this collection of stories, I keep thinking about a line of his (which I'm sure I'm misremembering)-- something about the best part of writing fiction being the collaboration with the reader.That's a line that can seem like a throwaway until you read Barthelme's stories. These are stories that are only robust when I as reader give them my own history to put into context and revisit.

Unfortunately, the collection was uneven to my eye. There are books of short stories which when grouped together still read like a book. This one doesn't-- it reads like an anthology. Several of the stories are so close in mood and characters that they read like versions of each other and several characters literally reappear in what clearly aren't linked stories-- a distraction when you encounter them a second time.

Barthelme is often described as an unapologetic minimalist, and it was great to read his beautifully chiselled and stripped-down prose.

You see the risk of this minimalism in some of the stories that don't quite work. All we have of the characters are their surfaces and sometimes it seems like the story leaves them at 'quirky', without giving it any depth. But when the stories work well (for instance, in the amazing story "Driver") then they work very powerfully indeed.

Hyperrealistic Chekov
Although seemingly simply written, these are some of the most sophisticated stories I have ever read. Barthelme is so even tempered, so subtly loving, and so good at fixing upon key details that bring a scene to life that his work is both a joy to read and a reward to study. His subject, the "New South," with its strip malls and pierced adolescents, is much less differentiated than Faulkner's, and much less expansive than Hemingway's grandiose global stage of writerly operations. Yet Barthelme's prose is more than up to the task of rendering this less differentiated south, and his writerly consciousness, on covert display in these finely wrought works of art whose mundane subject matter belies their grandeur, exhibits a cryptic machismo beyond Hemingway's would be all-inclusive ken. Barthelme also shines in comparison to the gargantuan novels and experiments in verbal excess now routinely turned out by the graduates of MFA programs, and predictably praised on book jackets, in what, splashing ink rather than light, amount to acts of mercantile onanism by literate but not literary employees of publishing conglomerates who mistake grandiloquence for greatness, which they imagine they can manufacture. I am guessing, but Barthelme may have gained an advantage at the beginning of his story writing career because he wanted to distinguish himself (as detailed in the Introduction) from his older brother Donald Barthelme, whose literary experiments, though widely admired, inspired him to gravitate towards a different aesthetic. The result, in its mature form, on display here is not only an aesthetic, but a human triumph: the stories, as apparently the man, never overreach and, like most great art, conceal difficult, highly wrought craft in t seemingly effortless compositions. The novel has been defined as "a mirror taken on the road." Not everyone will identify with the hyperrealistic images captured (the protagonists' recurring fetish for pretty television newscasters comes to mind), but anyone interested in art must admire the power and precision of these stories' narrative lens.

Knows how to leave you wondering
FB's style in these stories is mainly to set you up with a scene and characters (which he brings to life fairly easily and quickly) and then end the story right on the brink of when something's going to happen.. or not happen.
In many of these stories, the sexual frustration between characters is leaping off the page; just when you think something will break, it gets even more intense.Most of the stories involve a male and female as the main chars.
A handful of stories are written in 2nd person, which is extremely difficult to pull off.FB does an okay job of it, but doesn't convince me.
I enjoyed the collection and will definitely consider other works by him.

Splendid stories about ordinary people--
So many books are filled with lousy, hothouse prose, so many are overwritten or underwritten, or have no ideas other than the ideas you might hear on any newscast on MSNBC. Even books that get a lot of press seem sort of mundane and off-the-rack when compared with Barthelme's. He sees the world we live in from an odd angle, seems to like the really plain stuff that's always going on around us, and in his hands it tends to take on a magical glow. How he does it I don't quite know. Maybe it's just good writing, maybe it's the particular ideas that he elects to write about, maybe it's finding the slightly miraculous in the utterly ordinary. Anyway, it's a pleasure to read stories that have a different slant. I like the story where the meat slides down the counter, and the one where they go to the Home Depot, and the one where the girl writes her number on his arm, and the one where the big strange guy gets to drive the car. I like the crazy story about the runaway girl in the back and the story called Ed Works in which almost nothing happens. These characters have a realness about them that so much fiction misses--the people are just going though their lives and stuff is happening to them and they're reacting and sometimes it gets out of hand or there's a big moment that's really lovely and they don't miss the moment, but they don't make a religion out of it either. And best of all, these stories don't preach. That's rare these days. ... Read more