Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940013960244 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Shelfstealers |
| Publication date: | 02/16/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | NOOK Book |
| Pages: | 152 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Falling Women and Other Stories
5 out of 5
based on
0 ratings.
5 reviews.
 |
As a general rule, I'm not a fan of short stories. I never feel that I'm with the characters long enough to connect with them. Ellen Herbert has either broken the mold or proven me completely wrong. Using each and every carefully chosen word, she has not only painted a vivid world, but made me feel as though I've known her characters forever. Her imagery is poetic and carries the perfect amount of tension to keep me holding my breath and turning the pages. Like a good TV series, you reach the end of one episode and can't wait for the next. I may become a fan of short stories after all.
|
|
At just under 150 pages, this is a thin book physically. But the robust individuals and the clever twists that characterize their lives provide the reader with a rich and rewarding experience.
In these twelve stories, Herbert explores the intricacies of human emotions, plumbing for (and finding) profundity in the common problems that inhabit the lives of "ordinary" people. She fills every scene with vivid and remarkable detail -- not only of the physical world but, more importantly, the innermost thoughts and feelings of her all-too-human characters.
For what it's worth, my personal favorite is "Higher Ed" -- a friendly and delightful tale with a classically ironic ending. If the people in this story don't exist (and I assume they don't), then they should! They would be fun to know.
|
|
Strong writing, compelling characters and story lines in Ellen Herbert's new book of stories "Falling Women and Other Stories" make this book a top-flight read. There's plenty of regional feeling in the settings and the language in these stories set in a "tawdry" Carolina town near a military base. I particularly liked the sense of place that emerges in Herbert's language and detail. It's so hot at night the characters in one story put their sheets in the freezer. A middle-aged woman tells a man she's attracted to "I am being as bold as a brass monkey."
Family, family stress, illness, the disillusionments of growing up, sisterhood, booze, sports and the continual presence of men (and women) in uniform figure strongly in these stories. A middle-aged woman liberated by the death of her husband puts away the bottle and realizes the person who really cares for her has been there all along. Two sisters survive a separation from their parents' troubled marriage by clinging to one another. Twins of different qualities, one beautiful, one smart, rediscover one another only after their lives take very different and perhaps equally difficult paths.
Fathers want the best for their daughters, but sometimes that means paying for college only until his little darling finds some rich boy there to marry. A homeless woman finds a way to connect with her son through basketball. A young woman with limited horizons learns from the strengths and limitations of the men she's attracted to, a soldier and a doctor, how to find her own path.
For those who have never spent that much time below the Mason-Dixon line, Herbert's characters and stories tells us that human lives, hopes and struggles are a little different down there and ultimately the same.
|
|
In these powerful pieces, Herbert artfully conveys the flaws that make us all human. Tumultuous paths, carved by the undercurrents of her characters, are irresistible to follow.
|
|
Herbert is a keen observer of small-town mid-Atlantic America with its mores and closeness. Her stories are told from many points of view: children, men and women, with equal credibility. In "The Yellow Sneaker" she catches the anguish of a mother forced to put her teenage son into foster care. In "Jazzland" she uses the rhyming action of a helicopter to signal the high and low points of the relationship between the mother (go-go dancer) and father (ex-con)of a young child.
|
Explore More Items
