Such waltzing was not easy: Stories (Illinois short fiction)

WEAVER, GORDON

University of Illinois Press

FIRST PAPERBACK EDITION, First Printing, University of Illinois Press #533-6, © 1974. Published concurrent with hardcover. One of the first four original books in the University of Illinois Press' Short Fiction Series. Stories include: 'The Day I Lost My Distance,' 'Low Blue Man.' 'Granger Hunting,' 'The Two Sides of Things,' 'I Go Back,' 'Wave the Old Wave,' 'Gold Moments and Victory Beer,' 'Cemetery in Winter,' 'When Times Sit In,' and 'Kiss in the Hand'. Disc: Digest-size paperback, 141 pages, 20 cm.

Such Waltzing Was Not Easy: Stories (Illinois Short Fiction)

Literature & Fiction

Traces developments in postwar American short fiction and discusses the most important works of a variety of modern writers

The American Short Story 1945-1980: A Critical History

History & Criticism

Twayne Pub

Very clean and tight copy. Size: 6" x 9 1/4". No marks. Binding is tight, covers and spine fully intact. All edges are clean. Not Ex-Library. All books offered from DSB are stocked at our store in Fayetteville, AR. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilogram. Category: Fiction; ISBN: 0807106941. ISBN/EAN: 9780807106945. Inventory No: 026171.

Circling Byzantium

United States

Louisiana State Univ Pr

The Way We Know in Dreams

Univ of Missouri Pr

Gordon Weaver has long been admired as a fiction writer. This collection of new and selected short fiction provides a retrospective of Weaver's illustrious literary career, which has spanned four decades and earned him many awards.
Beginning with his first published story, "When Times Sit In," vivid, authentic characters enliven this collection. "Getting Serious" follows the life of a man who spends his summers in upstate Wisconsin, goes off to war and college, and then gets married. After losing his job and family, he retreats to his summer home to take inventory: "My wife and I never talked about our failing marriage, because it was too serious and depressing a topic and because, I suppose, we thought our failure would heal itself if we left it undisturbed long enough."
Selected as a Best American Short Story in 1980, "Hog's Heart" is the poignant tale of a celebrated college football coach who, without medical evidence, is convinced he is dying. Keenly aware of his fragile state, Hog sees each day as possibly his last. Ironically, when Hog feels his team has the momentum to finally upset the legendary Crimson Tide of Alabama, death presents itself.
The title character, Pease, in "The Good Man of Stillwater, Oklahoma," believes something is coming but that he is the only one in town who can feel it. The long rains, the toad on his doorstep, swarms of locusts, drought, and nits are all signs that "It" is happening. "I cannot sleep because it is happening, and I begin to think I understand why. This should make me very afraid, but I tell myself I am a good man, no harm will come to me." His obsession ultimately costs him his job and his family.
Three previously uncollected stories continue Weaver's theme of loss: of a friend to mental illness, of a successful life, of a student in a traffic accident.
With the compilation of these stories in one volume, the reader is treated to some of the best writing available today.

Four Decades: New and Selected Stories (Volume 1)

University of Missouri

In Long Odds, Gordon Weaver's latest collection, each male protagonist struggles for moral and emotional strength to cope with a universe gone awry. Each of the eleven stories centers around a circumstance that is both ordinary and shockingly unpredictable.A small-time flop of a con man in the "psychic" business becomes dependent on his inspirational talks with a dead hustler from a bygone era. An eccentric helplessly watches a crumbling society from a table in his favorite diner. A proper Bostonian buries his black-sheep brother in rural Mississippi. A group of newly divorced men takes up daily exercise, in search of solace, in an upscale mall.Some of Weaver's characters win in the end, some fail miserably, but all of their stories depict their confrontations with self and surroundings. Each story lures the reader forward despite the potential disappointment and self-destruction that often loom just ahead for the characters. The father of a blind girl builds an elaborate Christmas light display for her as his wife watches with bewildered disapproval. A part-time college English teacher travels the freeways from job to job, and from woman to woman, to avoid the paralysis of stasis.Written in the bold, sharp style that is Weaver's trademark, Long Odds includes stories that shift in mood and tone from the serious to the comically ironic, but which are unified by a common sense of isolation as each man labors to make sense of his place in the world.Lauded by Publishers Weekly as presenting "characters whose cries are so human, raw and mordant, the reader forgets the fiction and is delivered inside the experience," Weaver skillfully introduces a level of depth and intensity to situations that may appear commonplace at first glance. This inventive collection offers a gallery of men who, outwardly ordinary, are revealed as complex in their humanity, defined as much by their sensibilities as by their actions—or their failures to act.

Long Odds: Stories (Volume 1)

In a distinguished career that has yielded four novels, ten story collections, and a volume of poetry, Gordon Weaver has maintained a distinctive literary voice that, despite its always recognizable presence, never fails to surprise longtime readers of his work. His best stories somehow manage to be witty and deadly serious at the same time.Last Stands presents people at crucial moments in their lives, the moments in which ultimate challenges are confronted, ultimate questions are asked, and definitive judgments are made. Weaver’s characters may flounder, and fail, but they are redeemed by their courage and their honesty.A hired assassin ponders his self-worth, a bartender takes his only chance for worldly success, a man buries his mother, another talks with the dead, yet another attends his high school reunion determined on vindication, and a war-weary Vietnam vet finds a place he can call home. These are stories that do not shun the darker side of Weaver’s characters, but seek the illumination of the insights needed to make their lives meaningful, if only to themselves.

Last Stands: Stories (Volume 1)

In a distinguished career that has yielded four novels, ten story collections, and a volume of poetry, Gordon Weaver has maintained a distinctive literary voice that, despite its always recognizable presence, never fails to surprise longtime readers of his work. His best stories somehow manage to be witty and deadly serious at the same time. Last Stands presents people at crucial moments in their lives, the moments in which ultimate challenges are confronted, ultimate questions are asked, and definitive judgments are made. Weaver's characters may flounder, and fail, but they are redeemed by their courage and their honesty. A hired assassin ponders his self-worth, a bartender takes his only chance for worldly success, a man buries his mother, another talks with the dead, yet another attends his high school reunion determined on vindication, and a war-weary Vietnam vet finds a place he can call home. These are stories that do not shun the darker side of Weaver's characters, but seek the illumination of the insights needed to make their lives meaningful, if only to themselves.

Last Stands: Stories

Genre Fiction

Men Who Would Be Good: A Novella and Six Stories

Another Chicago Pr

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