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The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel
The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel gathers together the complete work of a writer whose voice is as singular and astonishing as any in American fiction.
Scribner
May 2006
432 pages
ISBN: 0743289463
Hardcover
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Fiction | Literature and Fiction
Hempel, fiercely admired by writers and reviewers, has a
sterling reputation that is based on four very short
collections of stories, roughly fifteen thousand stunning
sentences, written over a period of nearly three decades.
These are stories about people who make choices that seem
inevitable, whose longings and misgivings evoke eternal
human experience. With compassion, wit, and the acutest eye,
Hempel observes the marriages, minor disasters, and moments
of revelation in an uneasy America. When Reasons to Live, Hempel's first collection, was
published in 1985, readers encountered a pitch-perfect voice
in fiction and an unsettling assessment of the culture. That
collection includes "San Francisco," which Alan Cheuse in
The Chicago Tribune called "arguably the finest short story
composed by any living writer." In At the Gates of the
Animal Kingdom, her second collection, frequently compared
to the work of Raymond Carver, Hempel refined and developed
her unique grace and style and her unerring instinct for the
moment that defines a character. Also included here, in
their entirety, are the collections Tumble Home and The Dog
of the Marriage. As Rick Moody says of the title novella in
Tumble Home, "the leap in mastery, in seriousness, and sheer
literary purpose was inspiring to behold.... And yet," he
continues, "The Dog of the Marriage, the fourth collection,
is even better than the other three...a triumph, in fact." The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel is the perfect
opportunity for readers of contemporary American fiction to
catch up to one of its masters. Moody's passionate and
illuminating introduction celebrates both the appeal and the
importance of Hempel's work.
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