The characters may be dark and damaged, but a posthumous selection of prose by a short-story master is raw and exhilarating.
You don’t so much read Thom Jones as climb aboard his train – or some more violently careering form of transport – and cling on desperately. This posthumous collection of 26 short stories is an assault, an avalanche of raw, grim, savage and exhilarating writing, from a man who was prey to the illness, depression, addiction and alcoholism that also beset so many of his characters. This is a dark, dark world, inhabited by damaged Vietnam vets, cancer sufferers, dedicated consumers of pills (brand names, dosages and effects are often meticulously delineated), crazy fantasists, the lost and the disappointed. And yet there is also huge energy and invention, and wild, fearless, black humour.
Esta historia es de la edición March 2 - 8 2019 de New Zealand Listener.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición March 2 - 8 2019 de New Zealand Listener.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Morning songs
On a recent early and glorious Saturday morning - it was 4°C outside I let the complaining chickens out. Chickens never stop complaining.
Upwardly mobile
Climate-friendly e-scooters are proliferating but there are stumbling blocks for users and non-users.
A potent brew
There's a correlation between moderate coffee drinking and reduced risk of colorectal cancer - but evidence of a causal link is still percolating.
Food saviours
A little bit of silliness lightens the mood on the serious topic of food waste.
Ode to old masters
The Polynesian sound and Auckland's ska-punk scene are remembered in new releases.
Weaving Welsh with waiata
Te reo meets Cymraeg in a musical project partly spearheaded by Kawiti Waetford, an opera singer with connections to Wales.
Culture warrior
Activist and scholar Ngahuia te Awek6otuku achieved several firsts in society but had to fight many battles to get there.
An age-old problem
Is our lifespan fixed, or might we be able to slow down or even abolish ageing? And what would we do if we could?
When Jim becomes James
'What would white people do to a slave who had learned to read?' This impressive reimagining of Huckleberry Finn seeks to find out.
Manhattan transfer
A Kiwi movie star led the charge for an Anzac garden atop New York's Rockefeller Centre that's still in use today.
