National Network for Equitable Library Service

From the pages of the New Yorker, Esquire, and the Paris Review, "Edward Hoagland's collected stories are dazzling" (Ann Beattie). Saul Bellow called him "one of the very best writers of his generation." Newsweek praised him as "a marvelous writer." Edward Hoagland, renowned travel writer and essayist, is also an extraordinary writer of fiction, as readers of his stories "The Final Fate of Alligators" and "Kwan's Coney Island" can attest. Assembled here are stories new and old, spanning from 1960 to the present.

A New York Times Notable Book: Darkly comic fables of modern life from a "major discovery" whose "writing gets in your bloodstream like a fever" (The Washington Post Book World). A housewife with a ravenous lust for the adolescent boy who mows her lawn swallows him whole. A woman nonchalantly hacks off her leg at a posh private club. A father babyproofs his house so thoroughly he never sees his wife and child. And a businessman passing through an airport risks it all to save a giant lobster from death.

Artem Samsurov, an ardent follower of Lenin and a hero of the rebellion, flees his Siberian labor camp for the sanctuary of Brisbane, Australia in 1911. Failing to find the worker's paradise and brotherhood he imagined, Artem quickly joins the agitation for a general strike among the growing trade union movement. He finds a fellow spirit in a dangerously attractive female lawyer and becomes entangled in the death of another Tsarist exile. But, Atrem can't overcome the corruption, repression, and injustice of the conservative Brisbane.

A young Catholic priest, Father Maitland raises eyebrows among the brothers of St. Peter's the moment his young cousin and new bride spend the night in his room. But even when he's trying to do the right thing, Father Maitland continuously finds himself at odds with his superiors and the strictures of the Church-a conflict that threatens to unravel his faith and his life. A fastidious and darkly satirical novel, with moments of warm humor, Three Cheers for the Paraclete won Thomas Keneally his second Miles Franklin Award.

Acclaimed literary critic George Steiner on two of the literary canon's greatest and most influential writers "Literary criticism," writes Steiner, "should arise out of a debt of love." Abiding by his own rule, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky is an impassioned work, inspired by Steiner's conviction that the legacies of these two Russian masters loom over Western literature.

This memoir takes readers around the world, from New York to Nigeria, exploring a life illuminated by novels. As a child in music class, Kathleen Hill comes upon Willa Cather's Lucy Gayheart, and the novel prepares her for a drowning death that soon occurs in her own life.

National Book Award Finalist: A stunning collection of Southern short fiction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Keepers of the House. A family hides its poverty behind a facade of gentility. A mysterious stranger sows discord in a backwoods hamlet. A man leaves prison only to be drawn back into the darkness of his past. A young bride faces the choice of informing on her husband and his family or enduring a lifetime of deceit.

New York Times Bestseller: A passionate, "no-holds-barred" story of an illicit suburban love affair from the acclaimed author of The Blackboard Jungle (TheNew York Times). Larry Cole has everything a man could want. He loves his wife, Eve, and is devoted to their two small sons. His career as an architect is both creatively satisfying and financially rewarding. His house in suburban Pinecrest Manor is attractive and comfortable. But then Larry sees a new neighbor standing at the school bus stop. Margaret Gault is young, blond, beautiful-and married.

A harrowing tale of Hollywood, Las Vegas, and a young woman in pursuit of oblivion by the New York Times-bestselling author of The White Album. Spare, elegant, and terrifying, Play It as It Lays is the unforgettable story of a woman and a society come undone. Raised in the ghost town of Silver Wells, Nevada, Maria Wyeth is an ex-model and the star of two films directed by her estranged husband, Carter Lang. But in the spiritual desert of 1960s Los Angeles, Maria has lost the plot of her own life.

The Art & Craft of the Short Story explores every key element of short fiction, including story structure and form; creative and believable characters; how to begin and where to end; and the generation of ideas; as well as technical aspects such as point of view; plot; description and imagery; and theme. Examples from the work of a wide variety are used. The author includes five of his own stories to demonstrate these topics.