In the Heart of the Heart of the Country & Other Stories (Nonpareil Books, #21)

Rating:
Summary: Please Keep Early Gass in Print, Vote 2
Review: Early William H. Gass is essential. This fairly straightforward book is early Gass. Gass after Omensetter is a very personal taste. Fame, even the tiny minor academic variety, infects human beings oddly. Gass only had a few stories to tell. This book matters. Please keep the great early Gass alive/available & do not worry much about the later still quite interesting but arrogant blatting.

Rating:
Summary: Five stories, only one particularly memorable
Review: If I were to recommend any of the stories from this book, it would be the first one, "The Pederson Kid." It is the only one of the five that follows a consistent and well-developed story line, which is about several members of a family who endeavor to rescue a neighboring family during a horrendous blizzard. It is colorfully written and loaded with lots of snow related imagery. In the other stories Mr. Gass largely substitutes atmosphere for a plot point, to wit a housewife who examines in descriptive detail the myriad insects she has collected. Perhaps that is the author's point: being a member of the post-modernist school of writing, Mr. Gass tries to create a certain kind of poetry at the expense of plot and character development. On that level his imagery does attain a certain kind of beauty, but after a while it was not enough to sustain my interest in these stories.

Rating:
Summary: Five stories, only one particularly memorable
Review: If I were to recommend any of the stories from this book, it would be the first one, "The Pederson Kid." It is the only one of the five that follows a consistent and well-developed story line, which is about several members of a family who endeavor to rescue a neighboring family during a horrendous blizzard. It is colorfully written and loaded with lots of snow related imagery. In the other stories Mr. Gass largely substitutes atmosphere for plot, to wit a housewife who examines in descriptive detail the myriad insects she has collected. Perhaps that is the author's point: being a member of the post-modernist school of writing, Mr. Gass tries to create a certain kind of poetry at the expense of plot and character development, to the extent there is such in short stories. On that level his imagery does attain a certain kind of beauty, but after a while it was not enough to sustain my interest in these stories.

Rating:
Summary: Makes Me Think Of
Review: William Gass. No one else but William Gass.