The Livability Raymond, Jon

A collection of rich, powerfully human stories from the author of "The Half-Life" and the movies "Old Joy" (one of the finest American films of the year ("New York Times") and "Wendy and Lucy."

From the Publisher:
A volume of short works by the author of The Half-Life includes pieces that employ sensory language to impart everyday human struggles with frustrations, longings, and mood swings, in a collection that features such protagonists as a tired widower struggling to overcome his wife's accidental death and a pair of friends reconnecting on a trip to the woods. Original. 30,000 first printing.A volume of short works includes pieces that employ sensory language to impart everyday human struggles with frustrations, longings, and mood swings, in a collection that features such protagonists as a tired widower struggling to overcome his wife's accidental death and a pair of friends reconnecting on a trip to the woods.

Annotation:
Jon Raymond's short stories owe a clear debt to Raymond Carver, both in their use of drab Pacific Northwest locales, and in their spare, subtle, suddenly piercing plotlines. There's an overriding sense of isolation and the failure of friendship in stories like "Old Joy" in which two old friends take a hiking trip to a forest hot spring, and find that their lives and attitudes have drifted inexorably apart, and "Train Choir" in which a homeless women hunts for a lost dog, her only companion. Both of these stories have been made into beautiful independent films by Kelly Reichardt (OLD JOY and WENDY AND LUCY).

Praise

"Jon Raymond is a master at re-creating those feelings of unease and confusion that arise when relationships are at their most precarious....poignantly restrained stories..." - Tom Roberge 12/01/2008 & 01/01/2009

"A sense of fragility pervades these characters' lives, and as the upsets that threaten each of them simmer, Raymond reveals how close failure (and worse) lingers." (starred review) 10/13/2008

BloomReach Content

The Livability Stories (Paperback)

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