The Rainbow Stories

by William T. Vollmann

Overview

The debut collection of stories from the National Book-Award winning author of Europe Central

From a writer who has won comparison with Thomas Pynchon and William S. Burroughs comes thirteen unnerving and often breathtaking stories populated by punks and angels, skinheads and religious assassins, streetwalkers and fetishists—people who live outside the law and and the clear light of the every day. Set in landscapes as diverse as ancient Babylon, India, and the seamy underbelly of San Francisco, these daring and innovative tales are laced with Vollmann's fertile imagination. The Rainbow Stories ushers us into a world that bears an awful yet hypnotic resemblance to that of our deepest nightmares, confirming Vollmann's reputation as a dark visionary of contemporary fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140171549
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/01/1992
Series:	Contemporary American Fiction Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	560
Sales rank:	179,031
Product dimensions:	5.49(w) x 8.44(h) x 1.22(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

William T. Vollmann is the author of ten novels, including Europe Central, which won the National Book Award.  He has also written four collections of stories, including The Atlas, which won the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction, a memoir, and six works of nonfiction, including Rising Up and Rising Down and Imperial, both of which were finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  His journalism and fiction have been published in The New Yorker, Harpers, Esquire, Granta, and many other publications.

Hometown:

Sacramento, California

Date of Birth:

July 28, 1959

Place of Birth:

Santa Monica, California

Education:

Attended Deep Springs College and Cornell University

Editorial Reviews

"A bold and strenuous collection . . . Vollmann's gifts include passion, amplitude, a deep love and knowledge of the underside of urban life in San Francisco, and a dark and gruesome humor." —The Washington Post

"Rainbow suggests the extraordinary range and fire of Vollmann's style. . . . He writes with a fierce and bright-hued sensibility." —Los Angeles Times

"A domineering display of a rare talent . . . Vollmann is staking out an intelligent universe worth exploring for thirty more years." —Chicago Tribune

From the Publisher

This stunning collection consists of 13 knockout stories, ranging in length from a few pages to a short novel, corresponding idiosyncratically to the colors of the spectrum. With an intensity and dexterity previously evinced in You Bright and Risen Angels , Vollman shifts mood from the leisurely, almost-detached account of the brutal contemporary San Francisco streetlife of skinheads (``White Knights'') and prostitutes (``Ladies and Red Lights'') to the surreal ``Scintillant Orange,'' in which we meet three biblical martyrs to Babylonian Nabuchadnezzar's fiery furnace. ``Indigo Engineers'' juxtaposes mechanized objects of destruction, built for a sort of performance-art piece, with the just-following-orders mentality of Nazis. A serial killer with a dual personality murders winos with Drano in ``The Blue Yonder,'' which documents the lives of alcoholics living in shelters or parks. Whether recounting a tale of a band of Indian thugs a la Munchausen, laconically noting episodes in personal relationships or dealing with the relentless realism of skinheads and hookers, Vollman writes with deadpan humor, self-assurance and incredible ability. (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

These long, interlocking short stories comprise an anthropological field report from San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, 20 years after the Summer of Love. The author's stated goal is simply to retell--``unaltered, unverified''--the stories told to him by down-and-out street people such as Brandi the prostitute, Marisa the neo-Nazi bootwoman, and Carolina the saintly wino. Much of the action takes place offstage, in trauma centers, detox wards, and autopsy labs, with extensive footnotes citing relevant textbooks of pathology and criminal justice. This is a far more coherent book than Vollmann's first novel, You Bright and Risen Angels ( LJ 5/15/87), and clearly places him in the front ranks of contemporary authors. Highly recommended, but definitely not for the squeamish.-- Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles

Library Journal