Download or read book Minor Characters Stories written by Jaime Clarke and published by Roundabout Press. This book was released on 2021-04-15 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES NEW & NOTEWORTHY SELECTION All novels are necessarily concerned with their protagonists, but what of the minor characters that fill out a novel's landscape? We can never know them as well as we should or like. The same is true for the trilogy of novels by Jaime Clarke: Vernon Downs, World Gone Water, and Garden Lakes. MINOR CHARACTERS brings together Clarke's previously published short stories featuring the supporting characters in his trilogy, as well as stories by some of today's most talented contemporary writers, who have chosen characters from the trilogy and contributed a story. With a Foreword by Jonathan Lethem, and an Introduction by Laura van den berg, this Warholian enterprise has produced a unique and stirring collection that both stands on its own and enriches the standalone novels in Clarke's trilogy. Featuring original stories by Mona Awad, Christopher Boucher, Kenneth Calhoun, Nina de Gramont, Ben Greenman, Annie Hartnett, Owen King, Neil LaBute, J. Robert Lennon, Lauren Mechling, Shelly Oria, Stacey Richter, Joseph Salvatore, Andrea Seigel, and Daniel Torday. "Clarke has done more, even, than Vonnegut in setting his characters free: he's flipped foreground and background, and at the same time invited others in to browse, and revise, and interfere with, and extend, his fictional who's who."--Jonathan Lethem, from his foreword
Download or read book Minor Characters written by Joyce Johnson and published by Methuen Publishing. This book was released on 2005-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Johnson's book is a personal memoir and a summation of the times, a story of adolescent rebellion and a desire to choose a different life. She shows how the Beat women, in deciding to break the rules and leave home as unmarried young women in the 1950s, discovered the risks and the heady excitement of trying to live as freely as the rebels they loved.
Download or read book Minor Characters Have Their Day written by Jeremy Rosen and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do genres develop? In what ways do they reflect changing political and cultural trends? What do they tell us about the motivations of publishers and readers? Combining close readings and formal analysis with a sociology of literary institutions and markets, Minor Characters Have Their Day offers a compelling new approach to genre study and contemporary fiction. Focusing on the booming genre of books that transform minor characters from canonical literary texts into the protagonists of new works, Jeremy Rosen makes broader claims about the state of contemporary fiction, the strategies of the publishing industry over recent decades, and the function of literary characters. Rosen traces the recent surge in "minor-character elaboration" to the late 1960s and works such as Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea and Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. These early examples often recover the voices of marginalized individuals and groups. As the genre has exploded between the 1980s and the present, with novels about Ahab's wife, Huck Finn's father, and Mr. Dalloway, it has begun to embody the neoliberal commitments of subjective experience, individual expression, and agency. Eventually, large-scale publishers capitalized on the genre as a way to appeal to educated audiences aware of the prestige of the classics and to draw in identity-based niche markets. Rosen's conclusion ties the understudied evolution of minor-character elaboration to the theory of literary character.
Download or read book DIY MFA written by Gabriela Pereira and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-07-08 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Get the Knowledge Without the College! You are a writer. You dream of sharing your words with the world, and you're willing to put in the hard work to achieve success. You may have even considered earning your MFA, but for whatever reason--tuition costs, the time commitment, or other responsibilities--you've never been able to do it. Or maybe you've been looking for a self-guided approach so you don't have to go back to school. This book is for you. DIY MFA is the do-it-yourself alternative to a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. By combining the three main components of a traditional MFA--writing, reading, and community--it teaches you how to craft compelling stories, engage your readers, and publish your work. Inside you'll learn how to: • Set customized goals for writing and learning. • Generate ideas on demand. • Outline your book from beginning to end. • Breathe life into your characters. • Master point of view, voice, dialogue, and more. • Read with a "writer's eye" to emulate the techniques of others. • Network like a pro, get the most out of writing workshops, and submit your work successfully. Writing belongs to everyone--not only those who earn a degree. With DIY MFA, you can take charge of your writing, produce high-quality work, get published, and build a writing career.
Download or read book Pieces of Eight written by Steve Goble and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1723—Spider John is almost home, free of the horrors of the pirate life, free of the violence, free of the death. The wife and baby he left behind almost a decade ago are almost within reach. But then a murder aboard Minuet uncovers a deeper conspiracy, and soon Spider and his friends—curmudgeonly Odin, swashbuckling young Hob and alluring Ruth Copper— find themselves in the midst of flintlock smoke and bloodshed. The violence follows Spider ashore to Nantucket, where the loving reception he’d dreamed of turns out to be something utterly unexpected. Soon, Spider is running for his life and confronting cutthroats and thieves — while hiding from islanders who think he left a man dead on a widow’s front step. The solution? Find the killer. The consequences? Those could change Spider John’s life forever.
Download or read book The One vs the Many written by Alex Woloch and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-09 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does a novel focus on one life or many? Alex Woloch uses this simple question to develop a powerful new theory of the realist novel, based on how narratives distribute limited attention among a crowded field of characters. His argument has important implications for both literary studies and narrative theory. Characterization has long been a troubled and neglected problem within literary theory. Through close readings of such novels as Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, and Le Père Goriot, Woloch demonstrates that the representation of any character takes place within a shifting field of narrative attention and obscurity. Each individual--whether the central figure or a radically subordinated one--emerges as a character only through his or her distinct and contingent space within the narrative as a whole. The "character-space," as Woloch defines it, marks the dramatic interaction between an implied person and his or her delimited position within a narrative structure. The organization of, and clashes between, many character-spaces within a single narrative totality is essential to the novel's very achievement and concerns, striking at issues central to narrative poetics, the aesthetics of realism, and the dynamics of literary representation. Woloch's discussion of character-space allows for a different history of the novel and a new definition of characterization itself. By making the implied person indispensable to our understanding of literary form, this book offers a forward-looking avenue for contemporary narrative theory.
Download or read book The Thief s Daughter written by Victoria Cornwall and published by Choc Lit Limited. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A woman driven to crime finds love with a man of the law in this tale of eighteenth-century Cornwall, “full of twists and turns” (Buried Under Romance). England, 1779. Though many citizens of Cornwall have resorted to smuggling as their only means of survival, Jenna Cartwright has determined to always abide the law. But when her brother is sent to debtor’s prison, Jenna must do whatever it takes to free him. Housekeeping by day for one Jack Penhale, she joins a gang of violent brigands each night on Cornwall’s rocky coast. A professional thief-taker, Jack knows to keep his business private, even from his charming new housekeeper. He has come to Cornwall to find the criminals who killed his father, but his mind keeps returning to Jenna’s innocent, bewitching smile. As their lives become entangled, and the worlds of justice and crime collide, the love-struck pair must decide where their allegiances lie. This “striking” tale of passion and survival brings to life an unforgettable time and place in history (Historical Novel Society).
Download or read book The Third Eagle written by R. A. MacAvoy and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young warrior’s coming of age journey across space leads him to a vitally important—and mortally dangerous—mission. When the warrior Wanbli came of age, he cast his lot among the stars and left the world where he’d been born. Left it, he thought, forever. His odyssey led him to one ship, then another, and to another still. It brought him face to face with the far-flung members of the universe’s Seven Sentient peoples. And, finally, it brought him to the colony ship Commitment. There, Wanbli learned the true purpose of his life—a mission so vital that it required risking the lives of everyone on the ship and the future of his home world. His mission meant returning to that world, but only if he could survive the deadly machinations of those who sought to stop him.
Download or read book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society written by Mary Ann Shaffer and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2009-05-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beloved, life-affirming international bestseller which has sold over 5 million copies worldwide - now a major film starring Lily James, Matthew Goode, Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Courtenay and Penelope Wilton To give them hope she must tell their story It's 1946. The war is over, and Juliet Ashton has writer's block. But when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey – a total stranger living halfway across the Channel, who has come across her name written in a second hand book – she enters into a correspondence with him, and in time with all the members of the extraordinary Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Through their letters, the society tell Juliet about life on the island, their love of books – and the long shadow cast by their time living under German occupation. Drawn into their irresistible world, Juliet sets sail for the island, changing her life forever.
Download or read book A Thousand Splendid Suns written by Khaled Hosseini and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2008-09-18 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting and powerful story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship and an indestructible love
Download or read book Mr Timothy written by Louis Bayard and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Courting Mr. Lincoln comes a different kind of Christmas story featuring a grown up Tiny Tim, this breathless flight through the teeming markets, shadowy passageways, and rolling brown fog of 1860s London would do Dickens proud for its surprising twists and turns, and its extraordinary heart. It's the Christmas season, and Mr. Timothy Cratchit, not the pious child the world thought he was, has just buried his father. He's also struggling to bury his past as a cripple and shed his financial ties to his benevolent "Uncle" Ebenezer by losing himself in the thick of London's underbelly. He boards at a brothel in exchange for teaching the mistress how to read and spends his nights dredging the Thames for dead bodies and the treasures in their pockets. Timothy's life takes a sharp turn when he discovers the bodies of two dead girls, each seared with the same cruel brand on the upper arm. The sight of their horror-struck faces compels Timothy to become the protector of another young girl, Philomela, from the fate the others suffered at the hands of a dangerous and powerful man.
Download or read book The Book of Unknown Americans written by Cristina Henríquez and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning novel of hopes and dreams, guilt and love—a book that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be American and "illuminates the lives behind the current debates about Latino immigration" (The New York Times Book Review). When fifteen-year-old Maribel Rivera sustains a terrible injury, the Riveras leave behind a comfortable life in Mexico and risk everything to come to the United States so that Maribel can have the care she needs. Once they arrive, it’s not long before Maribel attracts the attention of Mayor Toro, the son of one of their new neighbors, who sees a kindred spirit in this beautiful, damaged outsider. Their love story sets in motion events that will have profound repercussions for everyone involved. Here Henríquez seamlessly interweaves the story of these star-crossed lovers, and of the Rivera and Toro families, with the testimonials of men and women who have come to the United States from all over Latin America.
Download or read book The Red Tent written by Anita Diamant and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1997-09-15 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the Book of Genesis, Dinah shares her perspective on religious practices and sexul politics.
Download or read book Vernon Downs written by Jaime Clarke and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charlie Martens is desperate for stability in an otherwise peripatetic life. An explosion that killed his parents when he was young robbed him of normalcy and he was shuttled from relative to relative, left alone to decipher the world he encountered in order to cobble together an answer as to how he would live. Ever the outcast, Charlie recognizes in Olivia, an international student from London, the sense of otherness he feels and their relationship seems to promise salvation. But when Olivia abandons him, his desperate mind fixates on her favorite writer, Vernon Downs, who becomes an emblem for reunion with Olivia. Charlie's quest takes him from Phoenix to New York City and when chance brings him into proximity to Vernon Downs, he quickly ingratiates himself into Downs's world. Proximity invites certain temptations, though, and it isn't long before Charlie moves dangerously from fandom to apprentice to outright possession.
Download or read book The Lottery written by Shirley Jackson and published by The Creative Company. This book was released on 2008 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A seemingly ordinary village participates in a yearly lottery to determine a sacrificial victim.
Download or read book The Binding written by Bridget Collins and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE Proclaimed as “truly spellbinding,” a “great fable” that “functions as transporting romance” by the Guardian, the runaway #1 international bestseller "A rich, gothic entertainment that explores what books have trapped inside them and reminds us of the power of storytelling. Spellbinding.” — TRACY CHEVALIER Imagine you could erase grief. Imagine you could remove pain. Imagine you could hide the darkest, most horrifying secret. Forever. Young Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a strange letter arrives summoning him away from his family. He is to begin an apprenticeship as a Bookbinder—a vocation that arouses fear, superstition, and prejudice amongst their small community, but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse. For as long as he can recall, Emmett has been drawn to books, even though they are strictly forbidden. Bookbinding is a sacred calling, Seredith informs her new apprentice, and he is a binder born. Under the old woman’s watchful eye, Emmett learns to hand-craft the elegant leather-bound volumes. Within each one they will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, a binder can help. If there’s something you need to erase, they can assist. Within the pages of the books they create, secrets are concealed and the past is locked away. In a vault under his mentor’s workshop rows upon rows of books are meticulously stored. But while Seredith is an artisan, there are others of their kind, avaricious and amoral tradesman who use their talents for dark ends—and just as Emmett begins to settle into his new circumstances, he makes an astonishing discovery: one of the books has his name on it. Soon, everything he thought he understood about his life will be dramatically rewritten. An unforgettable novel of enchantment, mystery, memory, and forbidden love, The Binding is a beautiful homage to the allure and life-changing power of books—and a reminder to us all that knowledge can be its own kind of magic.
