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Michael Byers (1)

Autor von Long for This World: A Novel

Andere Autoren mit dem Namen Michael Byers findest Du auf der Unterscheidungs-Seite.

8+ Werke 396 Mitglieder 20 Rezensionen

Über den Autor

Michael Byers is the author of the novel Long for This World, a New York Times Notable Book. He won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for The Coast of Good Intentions. He lives in Pittsburgh with his mehr anzeigen wife and two children weniger anzeigen
Bildnachweis: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Werke von Michael Byers

Zugehörige Werke

The Best American Short Stories 2000 (2000) — Mitwirkender — 392 Exemplare
The Best American Short Stories 1997 (1997) — Mitwirkender — 352 Exemplare
The Best American Short Stories 2013 (2013) — Mitwirkender — 276 Exemplare
The Best American Travel Writing 2004 (2004) — Mitwirkender — 182 Exemplare
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 40 (2019) — Mitwirkender — 3 Exemplare

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Wissenswertes

Geschlecht
male
Nationalität
USA
Wohnorte
Ann Harbor, Michigan, USA
Ausbildung
Oberlin College
University of Michigan
Preise und Auszeichnungen
Whiting Writers' Award (1998)
Kurzbiographie
Michael Byers has taught creative writing at the MFA program of the University of Michigan since 2006. He is the author of The Coast of Good Intentions (stories) and two novels, Long for This World and Percival’s Planet. His stories have been anthologized several times in The Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Awards, and his novella “The Broken Man” was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award.

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There were times when I thought this book would never end, but it did, and then I almost felt like I wanted a little more. I did the audio edition and I was frequently disappointed in the narration. I'd like to find something else he did and try that, to know if it was just this book, or if I need to avoid him, period. Some of the portrayals of the characters were a little too much for me - I don't need huge distinctions from one to another to follow a story as a rule. And it really can impact your feelings about a character if you cringe every time he or she speaks. The story was just great at times, but not wholly consistent. I think I admire it perhaps a little more that I liked it, if that makes sense. This was truly an odd assortment of people, and the author took a lot of time and effort to connect some to the main plot. Some parts I found to be quite unique, especially with regard to Mary's illness and finish to Felix's story. I would recommend it to those who are not put off by things that develop slowly.… (mehr)
 
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MaureenCean | 14 weitere Rezensionen | Feb 2, 2016 |
A sweet book about life and death, mortality and immortality. The main character is a research physician studying accellerated aging, who happens upon a child who has the gene but is not aging.
 
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Phyllis.Mann | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Jul 13, 2015 |
When this collection came out, much was made of the fact that Michael Byers was just 28. It wasn't just the fact that a writer so young could demonstrate such talent, but also that he could write so movingly and insightfully about older characters trying to make sense of their lives after retirement or in the wake of a divorce after a decades-long marriage. At 50, I'm not quite there yet, but I can say I was equally impressed with how well he captured the mindset of people well past his age when he wrote this.

Each of these stories reads like a novel - there's no attempt at post-modern techniques or any sort of artsy short-story trickery. There's plenty of subtext in each story, but there's also enough on the surface that you won't have to scratch your head after finishing a piece and ask, "What the heck was that about?" Each piece simply delivers solid story-telling, good characters, an interesting premise that gives us a chance to see how they act under pressure, and effective clean writing that lets the story unfold on its own. The final three stories have a clever thematic link about the power and impact of illusions.

The rain, mountains, and connections to the ocean in coastal towns provide a consistent visual setting for the pieces, all of which are set in the Pacific Northwest.

The 8 stories in the collection are:

1. Settled on the Cranberry Coast - 15 pp - A retired schoolteacher begins to work as a carpenter and is reunited with his high school crush when she hires him to restore her house. A park ranger now, she's raising the grandchild her daughter abandoned. As he gets closer to them both, he welcomes the opportunities for a second chapter to his life.

2. Shipmates Down Under - 26 pp - A couple's young daughter comes down with a severe fever, forcing them to cancel a trip to Australia and exposing the tensions in their marriage.

3. In Spain, One Thousand and Three - 28 pp - A great exploration of the unexpected directions grief can take. Handsome Martin, a former player with the ladies, settled down when he met cello-playing Evelyn. But after they married young, she unexpectedly died of cancer. In his grief, he finds all his old urges have come back. While still thoroughly mourning Evelyn, he's lusting after every woman he sees, a desire that makes him put the moves on someone he most definitely should not. (The title comes from his watching of the movie Don Giovanni and the number of women that player supposedly slept with in Spain.)

4. A Fair Trade - 33 pp - A young teenaged girl must move in with her aunt after her father dies in WWII and her mother is incapable of raising her. Her spinster aunt lives in a remote town outside of Seattle. With few friends her age, sexual fantasies about a neighboring caretaker for an elderly couple are about all the girl has to occupy herself. Still, as she rambles about the house while her aunt works, the girl learns to enjoy a solitary life, thinking she's as independent as her aunt. That preference for being alone ends up influencing her adult life, but years later she gets a few surprises about how her aunt has lived.

5. Blue River, Blue Sun - 22 pp - A 56-year-old geology professor reels from a divorce, not sure what to do with the dull monotony of his days. Left to wonder where it all went wrong, visting malls, with all their hustle and bustle, is one of the few pleasures he finds in life. But then a secretary in his university department, bitter over her own divorce, presents an opportunity for a date. The story has a very powerful conclusion.

6. Wizard - 19 pp - A substitute teacher writes a play for a very small-time theater about Thomas Edison (a personal obsession of his) and his much younger, first wife. The playwright develops a crush on the older woman cast in the role of the wife, and while they're rehearsing the story takes an intriguing sexual twist.

7. In the Kingdom of Priester John - 8 pp - A 17-year-old boy's crazy uncle goes missing, and with insanity running in the boy's family, he wonders about his own future. (Priester John was a mythical world traveler, whose stories of intrigue in unknown worlds fascinated Europeans in the late middle ages. It applies here because during a history exam the boy has to answer a question about the legendary myths that drove European explorers to Africa. It provides a parallel to the boy's uncle who has his own delusions about reality.)

8. Dirigibles - 12 pp - An older couple lives alone on a mountain, with the wife suffering from cerebral palsy. The wife isn't eager for a visit from a man who was a co-worker of theirs on an island ferry. The husband is eager to show old home movies of their younger days, but when the man shows up, both he and the couple have surprises in store for each other.
… (mehr)
 
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johnluiz | 1 weitere Rezension | Aug 6, 2013 |
In 1928, Clyde Tombaugh ground the lens for his telescope in Kansas, wishing he was anywhere but there. In Arizona, a staff of Harvard trained astronomers prepare to resume the search for Percival Lowell's Planet X. An heir to a big business fortune decides to travel west to search for dinosaur remains. And a woman in Cambridge slowly slips into insanity while her lover watches, wishing he could do something to stop it. When Tombaugh is given the opportunity to join the hunt for Planet X, he jumps at the chance, unaware of the long life of a secret buried in Lowell Observatory, held by the widow of Percival Lowell. This secret could change the course of the journey towards finding the missing planet, and the meaning of the discovery if it is to happen.… (mehr)
 
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SalemAthenaeum | 14 weitere Rezensionen | Jun 16, 2011 |

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