American Falls The Collected Short Stories

by Gifford, Barry

• ISBN13: 9781583225738
• ISBN10: 1583225730
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-06-03
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press

Summary

American Falls is the first major collection of short stories from Barry Gifford, master of the dark side of the American reality. These stories range widely in style and period, from the 1950s to the present, from absurdist exercises to romantic tales, from stories about childhood innocence to novellas of murder and revenge.

Author Biography

The author of more than forty works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into over twenty-five languages, BARRY GIFFORD writes distinctly American stories for readers around the globe. From screenplays and librettos to his acclaimed Sailor and Lula novels, Gifford’s writing is as distinctive as it is difficult to classify. Born in the Seneca Hotel on Chicago’s Near North Side, he relocated in his adolescence to New Orleans. The move proved significant: throughout his career, Gifford’s fiction—part-noir, part-picaresque, always entertaining—is born of the clash between what he has referred to as his “Northern Side” and “Southern Side.” Gifford has been recipient of awards from PEN, the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Library Association, the Writers Guild of America and the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. His novel Wild at Heart was adapted into the 1990 Palme d’Or-winning film of the same name. Gifford lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Table of Contents

``I Wish I'd Made it Up'': A Note to the Reader	9	(13)
American Falls	13	(16)
Wrap It Up	29	(2)
A Fair Price	31	(12)
My Last Martini	43	(8)
Cat Women of Rome	51	(6)
Romantica	57	(8)
The Old Days	65	(8)
The Tunisian Notebook	73	(22)
The Unspoken (II Nondetto)	95	(8)
Only You	103	(4)
Vendetta	107	(2)
New Mysteries of Paris	109	(12)
Room 584, The Starr Hotel	121	(6)
Two Border Stories	127	(4)
The Big Love of Cherry Layne	131	(10)
A Really Happy Man	141	(4)
The Brief Confession of an Unrepentant Erotic	145