The conflicts between love and hate, good and evil, and life and art are explored in a portrait of Alaric Darconville, a twenty-nine-year-old professor at Quinsy College--a woman's college in Virginia--who falls in love with and is jilted by one of his students

Darconville's Cat

Literature & Fiction

THEROUX, ALEXANDER

United States

DOUBLEDAY

Later Stories

Nominated twice for the National Book Award, proposed as well for the 1973 Pulitzer Prize by the late Guy Davenport (juror with Edmund Fuller, Herman Kogan), a master of prose and a genius in his own right, Alexander Theroux has been highly praised by everyone from Saul Bellow to Cormac McCarthy, from Anthony Burgess to Robertson Davies, from Norman Mailer to John Updike, from Andrew Wyeth to Will Friedwald, from Jacques Pepin to Robert Crumb. Davenport fondly wrote of his subject, "As Nigel Nicolson wrote of James Pope Hennessy, I would say of Alexander Theroux - 'He dipped his fingers deep into the treasury of the language, dishing out strange words like rubies, and his sentences, paragraphs, chapters, finish, when another writer's might simply end.' No page of his does not blaze like jewels in Ali Baba's cave."\nAlexander Theroux now comes to us in full flame with Later Stories, a collection of 13 new explosive narratives, only one which has been previously published, the third and last volume of this series, including Early Stories and Fables. His genius for plot, the power of his sparkling invention, the unsparing brilliance of his satire, the unforeseen twists and force of irony he wields, along with the astounding philosophical sense that inform his insights, are truly matchless. No scenario is predictable. Intrigue underpins the tale of an enigmatic Iraqi writer who is sought out with devastating consequences. We encounter an opinionated feminist poet from Maine, merciless in her impatience but eminently quotable. An operatic tenor in Italy faces down a waistline problem. A greedy diamond merchant flees Nazi-occupied France only to meet with grave consequences. Why in one story does a ballerina refuse to appear at curtain calls? What, in another, is the unforeseen and final turn of fate in the life of a young, seemingly unredeemable English thug? How do books and reading effect the life of young Filipina orphan brought to New Hampshire? We are presented a masterful college lecture on a French painter that amounts to a personal confession. We meet a group of seminarians who to pass the time seek a playful diversion. False piety figures in several tales with catastrophic results. And we are treated to a new saga of the Mayflower pilgrims.\nWith the turn of each page, we find again Theroux's love affair with language, his passion for the perfect phrase, a scholar's pressing need to inform.\nAs literary critic Larry McCaffery in "A Rose to Look At"in Some Other Frequency writes, "Of contemporary fiction writers, only Alexander Theroux comes close to [poet and novelist Robert] Kelly in terms of being able to articulate his concerns within the full range of words and storytelling skills available to writers."

Literary

Tough Poets Press

Fables

Fables, the second volume to be published of Theroux's short stories, truly among his richest and thought-provoking, is a compilation of among his most imaginative, daring, whimsical, highly inspired, and characteristically unconventional work. It will be followed by the third and last of the triad, Later Stories.This collection, which includes pieces long and short, including two ballads, has been much anticipated by his faithful readers. In these narratives, Theroux has mastered in the originality of sheer invention the folklorish, even fairy-tale quality, of the moral fable, touching in his chronicles on the tried-and-true plots of romance, mythology, mystery, puzzles, secrets, and questions of intrigue without making any of the pieces didactic or overly doctrinal. We encounter in this gathering an assemblage of little sagas, epics, and apologues an intrepid explorer deep in the Amazon jungle seeking a black orchid for Queen Victoria. A disturbed German violin student undergoes in the course of his lessons a strange and unpredictable response to a rare, priceless instrument. A love story in old China finds two sweethearts in the dire peril of a venomous court intrigue. The ancient linen wrapping of Egyptian mummies leads to a weird conspiracy that takes place, unpredictably, in the state of Maine. The neuroses of a mother-hating son have ghastly consequences in his own marriage. Nothing can match for weird enchantment the wizard-architect named Vinegarfly.At the turn of every page a surprise awaits in these unforgettable stories, where, in his own right proving a wizard himself of the language, Theroux handles words like Fabergé his eggs, for, in a final analysis, language once again is his subject. As David Bowman observed in the New York Times, "Alexander Theroux . . . is one of America's premier frotteurs, to use a French term the impeccable James Salter applies to someone who 'rubs words in his hand.'"

Fables, the second volume to be published of Theroux's short stories, truly among his richest and thought-provoking, is a compilation of among his most imaginative, daring, whimsical, highly inspired, and characteristically unconventional work. It will be followed by the third and last of the triad, Later Stories.\nThis collection, which includes pieces long and short, including two ballads, has been much anticipated by his faithful readers. In these narratives, Theroux has mastered in the originality of sheer invention the folklorish, even fairy-tale quality, of the moral fable, touching in his chronicles on the tried-and-true plots of romance, mythology, mystery, puzzles, secrets, and questions of intrigue without making any of the pieces didactic or overly doctrinal. We encounter in this gathering an assemblage of little sagas, epics, and apologues an intrepid explorer deep in the Amazon jungle seeking a black orchid for Queen Victoria. A disturbed German violin student undergoes in the course of his lessons a strange and unpredictable response to a rare, priceless instrument. A love story in old China finds two sweethearts in the dire peril of a venomous court intrigue. The ancient linen wrapping of Egyptian mummies leads to a weird conspiracy that takes place, unpredictably, in the state of Maine. The neuroses of a mother-hating son have ghastly consequences in his own marriage. Nothing can match for weird enchantment the wizard-architect named Vinegarfly.\nAt the turn of every page a surprise awaits in these unforgettable stories, where, in his own right proving a wizard himself of the language, Theroux handles words like Fabergé his eggs, for, in a final analysis, language once again is his subject. As David Bowman observed in the New York Times, "Alexander Theroux . . . is one of America's premier frotteurs, to use a French term the impeccable James Salter applies to someone who 'rubs words in his hand.'"

Early Stories

Alexander Theroux has taught at Harvard, MIT, Yale, and the University of Virginia, where he took his doctorate in 1968. He is the author of four highly regarded novels, Three Wogs (1972), Darconville's Cat (1981), An Adultery (1987), and Laura Warholic (2007), as well as Collected Poems (2015) and other books of non-fiction. Both Three Wogs and Darconville's Cat were nominated for the National Book Award.\nEarly Stories, the first book of Theroux's fiction to be published in fourteen years, constitutes an addition to one of modern American literature's most lauded and entertaining bodies of work. It is also the first volume in his story triad (Fables and Later Stories soon to follow).\nNobody writing today has a keener instinct for obsession, hypocrisy, sexual jealousy, envy, human folly, the lineaments of vanity, greed, and romantic disappointment, and, yes, grace. A feast of comic joy awaits you in this long-awaited collection. Here, the sword arm of satire is swung high! We encounter an intractable woman who refuses to divulge the secret to her spaghetti sauce. A tourist discovers a modern Nestor in an English pub. An idealistic teacher who is also a broken-hearted lover leaves us speechless over his overwhelming fixation. A hide-bound feminist goes to Italy to learn pasta making. A beautiful Bostonian, becoming a fashion model, achieves a much different goal. What is the effect of summer camp on a sensitive youngster? How does a hunt in Cracow for the alpenstock of great Copernicus end up a comic farce? Does a young boy with a genius IQ fulfill his promise? What happens when a collector discovers the rarest autograph in American letters?\nNothing prepares the reader for the twists and turns of these unsparing but brilliantly plotted stories. Language is, however, the subject, the splendid gift of one of the nation's word-masters, a magician who fashions words out of his fingertips. Satire, it is said, swipes off the noggin but leaves the head in place. Here, the head still manages to find its voice- to our great and continuing pleasure.

Humor & Satire

Alexander Theroux has taught at Harvard, MIT, Yale, and the University of Virginia, where he took his doctorate in 1968. He is the author of four highly regarded novels, Three Wogs (1972), Darconville's Cat (1981), An Adultery (1987), and Laura Warholic (2007), as well as Collected Poems (2015) and other books of non-fiction. Both Three Wogs and Darconville's Cat were nominated for the National Book Award. Early Stories, the first book of Theroux's fiction to be published in fourteen years, constitutes an addition to one of modern American literature's most lauded and entertaining bodies of work. It is also the first volume in his story triad (Fables and Later Stories soon to follow). Nobody writing today has a keener instinct for obsession, hypocrisy, sexual jealousy, envy, human folly, the lineaments of vanity, greed, and romantic disappointment, and, yes, grace. A feast of comic joy awaits you in this long-awaited collection. Here, the sword arm of satire is swung high! We encounter an intractable woman who refuses to divulge the secret to her spaghetti sauce. A tourist discovers a modern Nestor in an English pub. An idealistic teacher who is also a broken-hearted lover leaves us speechless over his overwhelming fixation. A hide-bound feminist goes to Italy to learn pasta making. A beautiful Bostonian, becoming a fashion model, achieves a much different goal. What is the effect of summer camp on a sensitive youngster? How does a hunt in Cracow for the alpenstock of great Copernicus end up a comic farce? Does a young boy with a genius IQ fulfill his promise? What happens when a collector discovers the rarest autograph in American letters? Nothing prepares the reader for the twists and turns of these unsparing but brilliantly plotted stories. Language is, however, the subject, the splendid gift of one of the nation's word-masters, a magician who fashions words out of his fingertips. Satire, it is said, swipes off the noggin but leaves the head in place. Here, the head still manages to find its voice-to our great and continuing pleasure.

The third novel from acclaimed, award-winning Alexander Theroux is a darkly realistic tale of adultery set in contemporary New England. Christian Ford is a man who is betrayed in an adulterous affair, only to discover that he himself betrayed a woman he loved and abandoned. Throughout the story, Christian attempts to understand the dangerously paradoxical nature of human relations and to show that adultery extends beyond mere physical infidelity.

An ADULTERY

Simon&Schuster

The Primary Colors is Alexander Theroux's collection of essays on the three primary colors: blue, yellow, and red. A fascinating cultural history, these splendid essays extend to the artistic, literary, linguistic, botanical, cinematic, aesthetic, religious, scientific, culinary, climatological, and emotional dimensions of each color. Humorous, highly readable, and anecdotal, the book is virtually encyclopedic in aim. There is poetry here; there is also song, fable, opinion, literary criticism, gossip, history, and fascinating fact - a fund of curiosa, gleanings of a witty and penetrating mind. Swift is here, so is the lexicographic Dr. Johnson. The widest of readers, Theroux is raconteur, art historian, and pop culturalist, all at the same time. His book is a rich and totally captivating tour de force, a virtuoso performance of a kind that offers nothing less than a liberal education. This is a work for artist and art historian, designer and graphic artist, student and teacher, and anyone sensitive to the many and vivid nuances of color, but, best of all, it remains a complete feast for the general reader.

The Primary Colors: Three Essays

Arts & Photography

Graphic Design

Henry Holt Co.

The conflicts between love and hate, good and evil, and life and art are explored in a portrait of Alaric Darconville, a twenty-nine-year-old professor at Quinsy College--a women's college in Virginia--who falls in love with and is jilted by one of his students

Holt Paperbacks

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by THEROUX, ALEXANDER. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by THEROUX, ALEXANDER

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by THEROUX, ALEXANDER. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Darconville's Cat

Later Stories

Later Stories

Fables

Fables

Early Stories

Early Stories

An ADULTERY

The Primary Colors: Three Essays

Darconville's Cat