LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
If you are familiar with Eugenides’ work then these, his first collection of short stories, are probably what you would expect, i.e. not happy. They are about love, envy, regret, desire, illness and death. Only one, Baster, has any humour, albeit black. The rest are about people falling towards ruin or tragedy. Some have intriguing twists but most you must enjoy largely for the fine writing, great atmosphere and deep emotions. One, Air Mail, which has a description of the protagonist’s life slipping away is stunning and very sad. He is a much praised, prize-winning author and these certainly show his ability. ~ Sarah Broadhurst
Sarah Broadhurst
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Fresh Complaint Synopsis
Jeffrey Eugenides's bestselling novels have shown that he is an astute observer of the crises of adolescence, sexual identity, self-discovery, family love, and what it means to be an American in our times.
The stories in Fresh Complaint continue that tradition. Ranging from the reproductive antics of Baster to the wry, moving account of a young traveler's search for enlightenment in Air Mail (selected by Annie Proulx for The Best American Short Stories 1997), this collection presents characters in the midst of personal and national crises. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people's wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art collapse under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood; and, in Bronze, a sexually confused college freshman whose encounter with a stranger on a train leads to a revelation about his past and his future. Narratively compelling, beautifully written, and packed with a density of ideas that belie their fluid grace, Fresh Complaint proves Eugenides to be a master of the short form as well as the long.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780007447886 |
| Publication date: |
1st October 2017 |
| Author: |
Jeffrey Eugenides |
| Publisher: |
Fourth Estate Ltd an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Press Reviews
Jeffrey Eugenides Press Reviews
'Eugenides is a big and a big-hearted talent' Jonathan Franzen
`Eugenides is blessed with the storyteller's most magical gift, the ability to transform the mundane into the extraordinary' New York Times
From the reviews of `The Virgin Suicides':
`One of the finest novels in many years - a Catcher in the Rye for our time' Observer
From the reviews of `Middlesex':
`Superb ... a warm and beautifully written novel that illuminates part of the human soul' Sunday Times
From the reviews of `The Marriage Plot':
`With breathtaking insight, Eugenides teases out the emotional truths at work here. This is a complete and complex work ... this is a book about how to find somebody to love and be loved by' The Times
Author
About Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Eugenides — winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Middlesex — was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1960, the third son of an American-born father whose Greek parents immigrated from Asia Minor and an American mother of Anglo-Irish descent. Eugenides was educated at public and private schools, graduated magna cum laude from Brown University, and received an MA in English and Creative Writing from Stanford University in 1986. Two years later, in 1988, he published his first short story.
His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Yale Review, Best American Short Stories, The Gettysburg Review and Granta's ‘Best of Young American Novelists’. His first novel, The Virgin Suicides, was published in 1993, and has since been translated into fifteen languages and made into a major motion picture. His second novel, Middlesex, was published in paperback in September 2003 and has been selected by Waterstone's as one of their top 100 books of the last 25 years.
Eugenides is the recipient of many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and The National Foundation for the Arts, a Whiting Writers' Award, and the Harold D. Vursell Award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters. In the past few years he has been a Fellow of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm of the DAAD and of the American Academy in Berlin.
Jeffrey Eugenides lives in Berlin with his wife and daughter.
Author photo © Karen Yamauchi
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