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Title details for Sweet Land Stories by E.L. Doctorow - Available

Sweet Land Stories

by E.L. Doctorow
Joshua Swanson
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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One of America’s premier writers, the bestselling author of Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, The Book of Daniel, and World’s Fair turns his astonishing narrative powers to the short story in five dazzling explorations of who we are as a people and how we live.
Ranging over the American continent from Alaska to Washington, D.C., these superb short works are crafted with all the weight and resonance of the novels for which E. L. Doctorow is famous. You will find yourself set down in a mysterious redbrick townhouse in rural Illinois (“A House on the Plains”), working things out with a baby-kidnapping couple in California (“Baby Wilson”), living on a religious-cult commune in Kansas (“Walter John Harmon”), and sharing the heartrending cross-country journey of a young woman navigating her way through three bad marriages to a kind of bruised but resolute independence (“Jolene: A Life”). And in the stunning “Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden,” you will witness a special agent of the FBI finding himself at a personal crossroads while investigating a grave breach of White House security.
Two of these stories have won awards as the best fiction of the year published in American periodicals, and two have been chosen for annual best-story anthologies.
Composed in a variety of moods and voices, these remarkable portrayals of the American spiritual landscape show a modern master at the height of his powers.
Cover art: Polkys (detail), 1985, watercolor ( c ) Andrew Wyeth

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 14, 2014

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780804163835
      • File size: 142188 KB
      • Duration: 04:56:13

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This new audio edition of Doctorow's 2004 collection of short stories is a treat for fans of the genre. Narrators John Rubenstein and Joshua Swanson both do an admirable job of bringing the stories and their characters to life. Whether the point of view is first person or third, they succeed in their portrayals of people on the fringes of society, living under the radar and using their wits to survive. They speak with the confidence of people who see their actions as neither right nor wrong but simply what their circumstances dictate. There's not much sweetness in these gloomy stories; both narrators deliver their narratives with a straightforward acceptance of the dark sides of this not so sweet land. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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