The Roy Stories
, by GIFFORD, BARRY
- ISBN: 9781609804978 | 160980497X
- Cover: Paperback
- Copyright: 10/1/2013
Barry Gifford has been writing gritty, American tales for the past forty years. His novels, stories, poetry, and films have helped shape the American neo-noir genre. The New York Times Book Review says that he "can sum up in a few words the cruelty, horror, and crushing banality that shape an entire life.”
Andrei Codrescu calls Gifford “a great comic realist,” while Pedro Almodóvar likens him to the surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel, and Jonathan Lethem describes his style as “William Faulkner by way of B-movie film noir, porn paperbacks, and Sun Records rockabilly.”
In The Roy Stories Gifford brings his signature style to a collection of tales following the character of Roy, who has made appearances in a number of Gifford’s previous story collections. Roy lives a mystical kind of life, skinning crocodiles in Southern Florida at age nine in the 1940s and playing in the back alleys of Chicago in the 1950s. This deep-feeling boy observes every detail in his surroundings with a sense of dark humor and an openness that will clutch readers tightly by the heart and lead them on a historical journey.
Andrei Codrescu calls Gifford “a great comic realist,” while Pedro Almodóvar likens him to the surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel, and Jonathan Lethem describes his style as “William Faulkner by way of B-movie film noir, porn paperbacks, and Sun Records rockabilly.”
In The Roy Stories Gifford brings his signature style to a collection of tales following the character of Roy, who has made appearances in a number of Gifford’s previous story collections. Roy lives a mystical kind of life, skinning crocodiles in Southern Florida at age nine in the 1940s and playing in the back alleys of Chicago in the 1950s. This deep-feeling boy observes every detail in his surroundings with a sense of dark humor and an openness that will clutch readers tightly by the heart and lead them on a historical journey.
The author of more than forty works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into over twenty-five languages, BARRY GIFFORD writes distinctly American stories for readers around the globe. From screenplays and librettos to his acclaimed Sailor and Lula novels, Gifford’s writing is as distinctive as it is difficult to classify. Born in the Seneca Hotel on Chicago’s Near North Side, he relocated in his adolescence to New Orleans. The move proved significant: throughout his career, Gifford’s fiction—part-noir, part-picaresque, always entertaining—is born of the clash between what he has referred to as his “Northern Side” and “Southern Side.” Gifford has been recipient of awards from PEN, the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Library Association, the Writers Guild of America and the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. His novel Wild at Heart was adapted into the 1990 Palme d’Or-winning film of the same name. Gifford lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
CONTENTS
Preface.................................................................... 15
The Vast Difference....................................... 17
Alligator Story ............................................................................. 19
The Vast Difference.................................................................. 25
The Birdbath ............................................................................... 29
Real Bandits ................................................................................ 33
The Red Stuebaker ................................................................ 36
The Trumpet................................................................................40
Unspoken ..................................................................................... 44
Haircut ........................................................................................... 48
The Invention of Rock ’n’ Roll................................................ 51 Infantry.......................................................................................... 54
Drifting Down the Old Whangpoo......................................57
The Wicked of the Earth........................................................60
Christmas Is Not For Everyone............................................ 63
Memories from a Sinking Ship.............. 65
Memories from a Sinking Ship ............................................. 67
A Good Man to Know..............................................................70
The Forgotten .............................................................................73
Mrs. Kashfi.................................................................................... 76
The Old Country........................................................................ 79
The Monster ................................................................................. 81
The Ciné........................................................................................ 82
Dark Mink ..................................................................................... 86
Nanny ............................................................................................ 89
Island in the Sun ......................................................................... 91
An Eye on the Alligators ........................................................ 94
The Piano Lesson......................................................................96
The Lost Tribe............................................................................. 97
The Lost Christmas...................................................................101
My Catechism............................................................................103
Sunday Paper ........................................................................... 106
The Origin of Truth ................................................................. 108
The Trophy...................................................................................112
The Aerodynamics of an Irishman......................................117
A Rainy Day at the Nortown Theater................................119
Renoir’s Chemin montant dans les hautes herbes ....... 121
Forever After ............................................................................. 122
The Mason-Dixon Line............................................................125
The Wedding ............................................................................. 128
The Pitcher .................................................................................129
A Place in the Sun.....................................................................131
The Winner.................................................................................133
The God of Birds ...................................................................... 137
Sundays and Tibor.................................................................. 140
Poor Children of Israel ...........................................................143
The Man Who Wanted to Get the Bad Taste
of the World Out of His Mouth.....................................145
Johnny Across...........................................................................148
The Secret of Little White Dove.........................................154
The Delivery...............................................................................158
The Deep Blue See ................................................................. 160
Radio Goldberg ........................................................................162
Why Skull Dorfman Went to Arkansas............................166
Wanted Man...............................................................................170
10 the roy stories
The Bucharest Prize ................................................................ 174
Blows with Sticks Raining Hard..........................................177
The Chinaman ............................................................................181
The End of Racism...................................................................183
Way Down in Egypt Land.....................................................187
Bad Things Wrong....................................................................191
Detente at the Flying Horse.................................................194 Shattered.....................................................................................198
A Day’s Worth of Beauty .................................................... 200
The Peterson Fire................................................................... 204
Door to the River ................................................................... 206
Sailing in the Sea of Red He Sees a
Black Ship on the Horizon..............................................210
Wyoming............................................................. 213
Cobratown .................................................................................. 215
Chinese Down the Amazon..................................................218
Bandages ....................................................................................219
Soul Talk ..................................................................................... 223 Skylark......................................................................................... 225
Flamingos ..................................................................................228
Wyoming ....................................................................................230
Saving the Planet....................................................................232
A Nice Day on the Ocean .................................................... 233
Perfect Spanish........................................................................235
Seconds ...................................................................................... 237
Roy’s World...............................................................................239 Nomads....................................................................................... 242
Ducks on the Pond.................................................................245
Sound of the River..................................................................247
Red Highway.............................................................................249
Lucky ............................................................................................ 251
K.C. So Far (Seconds/Alternate Take).............................253
Concertina Locomotion........................................................255
Imagine .......................................................................................256
The Geography of Heaven...................................................258
Man and Fate ........................................................................... 260
Where Osceola Lives.............................................................262
The Crime of Pass Christian................................................264
Cool Breeze...............................................................................267
Night Owl...................................................................................269
Islamorada .................................................................................270
On the Arm................................................................................ 273
Look Out Below....................................................................... 275
The Up and Up.........................................................................277
Black Space.............................................................................. 280
Fear and Desire........................................................................282
God’s Tornado..........................................................................284
Sad Stories of the Death of Kings.... 287
The Age of Fable.....................................................................289
The Great Failure......................................................................291 Irredeemable............................................................................. 293
Sad Stories of the Death of Kings ....................................296
The Sultan.................................................................................300
The Liberian Condition ........................................................ 304
Six Million and One.................................................................307
War and Peace...........................................................................311
Chop Suey Joint .......................................................................314
Significance ................................................................................ 318
Einstein’s Son............................................................................320
The Albanian Florist...............................................................324
The Weeper...............................................................................328
The Swedish Bakery................................................................331
The Man Who Swallowed the World...............................335
Ghost Ship ................................................................................ 340
Caca Negra................................................................................343
Roy’s First Car..........................................................................347
El Carterista...............................................................................350
Crime and Punishment .........................................................354
The American Language......................................................357
Lonely Are the Brave ............................................................ 360
Force of Evil..............................................................................364
The Choice.................................................................................367
Bad Girls ...................................................................................... 371
The Sudden Demise of Sharkface Bensky.....................376
Portrait of the Artist with Four Other Guys................. 380
The Starving Dogs of Little Croatia.................................383
In the Land of the Dead........................................................387
The Secret of the Universe..................................................389
Far from Anywhere .................................................................391
Rain in the Distance ...............................................................395
Bad Night at the Del Prado.................................................398
The Theory of the Leisure Class ....................................... 403
Innamorata ............................................................................... 406
The Exception ......................................................................... 409
Close Encounters of the Right Kind .................................413
Blue People ................................................................................418
Call of the Wild ....................................................................... 420
Arabian Nights .........................................................................424
Last Plane out of Chungking..............................................426
The Vanished Gardens of Córdoba..................................428
Benediction ...............................................................................429
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