Cover Image

Thunderstruck & other stories

by McCracken, Elizabeth,

Format: Print Book 2014
Availability: Available at 5 Libraries 5 of 5 copies

Available (5)
Location Collection Call #
CLP - Main Library First Floor - Fiction Stacks FICTION McCracken
Location  CLP - Main Library
 
Collection  First Floor - Fiction Stacks
 
Call Number  FICTION McCracken
 
 
Carnegie Library of McKeesport Fiction F MCC
Location  Carnegie Library of McKeesport
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  F MCC
 
 
Mt. Lebanon Public Library Fiction MCCRACKEN Elizabeth
Location  Mt. Lebanon Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  MCCRACKEN Elizabeth
 
 
Northland Public Library Fiction FIC McCRACKEN
Location  Northland Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC McCRACKEN
 
 
Penn Hills Library Fiction MCCRACKEN
Location  Penn Hills Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  MCCRACKEN
 
 

Summary
WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE * LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NEWSDAY

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Washington Post  *  San Francisco Chronicle * O: The Oprah Magazine * The Miami Herald * Publishers Weekly * Kirkus Reviews

From the author of the beloved novel The Giant's House-- finalist for the National Book Award--comes a beautiful new story collection, her first in twenty years. Laced through with the humor, the empathy, and the rare and magical descriptive powers that have led Elizabeth McCracken's fiction to be hailed as "exquisite" ( The New York Times Book Review ), "funny and heartbreaking" ( The Boston Globe ), and "a true marvel" ( San Francisco Chronicle ), these nine vibrant stories navigate the fragile space between love and loneliness. In "Property," selected by Geraldine Brooks for The Best American Short Stories, a young scholar, grieving the sudden death of his wife, decides to refurbish the Maine rental house they were to share together by removing his landlord's possessions. In "Peter Elroy: A Documentary by Ian Casey," the household of a successful filmmaker is visited years later by his famous first subject, whose trust he betrayed. In "The Lost & Found Department of Greater Boston," the manager of a grocery store becomes fixated on the famous case of a missing local woman, and on the fate of the teenage son she left behind. And in the unforgettable title story, a family makes a quixotic decision to flee to Paris for a summer, only to find their lives altered in an unimaginable way by their teenage daughter's risky behavior.
 
In Elizabeth McCracken's universe, heartache is always interwoven with strange, charmed moments of joy--an unexpected conversation with small children, the gift of a parrot with a bad French accent--that remind us of the wonder and mystery of being alive. Thunderstruck & Other Stories shows this inimitable writer working at the full height of her powers.
 
Praise for Thunderstruck & Other Stories
 
"Restorative, unforgettable . . . a powerful testament to the scratchy humor and warm intelligence of McCracken's writing." --Sylvia Brownrigg, The New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice)

"[A] bewitching and wise collection . . . playful, even joyful." -- O: The Oprah Magazine
 
"Stunningly beautiful . . . brilliantly moving . . . Moments of joy and pure magic flicker and pitch-perfect humor acts as a furtive SOS signal through the fog of loss." -- Los Angeles Times

"Each of Thunderstruck 's nine stories is a storm: delightful and destructive, packed with electricity, fascinating to watch unfold." -- Salon
 
"The stories here are brilliant, funny and heartbreaking. . . . Elizabeth McCracken is a national treasure." --Paul Harding, The Wall Street Journal
 
"Pure delight: one lyrical, impeccably constructed sentence after another." -- Chicago Tribune
 
"Beautifully wrought . . . As painstaking as a watchmaker, McCracken disassembles life down to its smallest parts." -- The Boston Globe
 
"The psychological punches McCracken delivers, with her keen sense of irony and mordant humor, are unforgettable." -- The Miami Herald
Contents
Something amazing
Property
Some terpsichore
Juliet
The house of two three-legged dogs
Hungry
The lost & found department of Greater Boston
Peter Elroy: a documentary by Ian Casey
Thunderstruck.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "Twenty years after her first collection of stories (Here's Your Hat, What's Your Hurry!, 1993), McCracken returns to short fiction with this collection of nine marvelously quirky, ironic, but, most of all, poignant stories. A young woman befriends a lonely, eccentric children's librarian, who is then devastated when the young woman is found murdered. An English couple who moved to France deed their house to the husband's son from his first marriage, and he later sells it out from under them, leaving them essentially homeless. A woman cares for her granddaughter in Iowa while her son, the girl's father, is dying in a Boston hospital, and neither is able to say goodbye. A woman who lives with her aging father and teenage son disappears into thin air, leaving her son reduced to stealing frozen pizzas from the corner market. Though her characters may seem strange, McCracken paints them with such rich detail that it feels as if we must know them, after all so immersed in their lives do we become in just a few pages.--Donovan, Deborah Copyright 2014 Booklist"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "McCracken's short stories are like no others. Her distinctive voice, her slightly askew manner of looking at the world, her mix of mordant humor and tenderness, her sense of life's ironies, and the jolt of electricity at the end of each tale make her work arresting and memorable. In this collection of nine short narratives (McCracken's return to short fiction 20 years after Here's Your Hat, What's Your Hurry), a feckless, improvident father mourns the unwitting example he has set for his son; a grieving mother finds solace in a neighbor's child, while that child's mother is about to undergo a tragic loss; and a librarian has to live with a disastrous memory. In the title story, a father who must come to terms with his daughter's brain injury muses: "Happiness was a narrow tank. You had to make sure that you cleared the lip." These stories, set in France, Massachusetts, Maine, and Iowa, are macabre yet anchored by precise details and psychological insight; they turn on ironic twists of fate and seesaws of luck. Readers will enjoy reading them twice-the first time quickly, because the plots are mesmerizing and strange, and the second to relish the dozens of images, apercus, and descriptions (a handsaw is "a house key from a giant's pocket"; "His hair looked like it had been combed with a piece of buttered toast"; "Amazing how death made petty disappointments into operatic insults"). McCracken transforms life's dead ends into transformational visions. Agent; Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved."
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects Short stories.
Publisher New York :The Dial Press,2014
Edition First edition.
Other Titles Short stories.
Language English
Description 223 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN 9780385335775 (hardback : acid-free paper)
0385335776 (hardback : acid-free paper)
Other Classic View