American Falls The Collected Short Stories

by GIFFORD, BARRY

• ISBN13: 9781583224700
• ISBN10: 158322470X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-03-05
• 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. In the title story, a Japanese-American motel operator chooses not give up a total stranger, a black man wanted for murder, when the police come searching for him. In "Room 584, The Starr Hotel," a man rants his outrage at an amorous couple in the room next door before he himself is arrested for having committed multiple murders. "The Unspoken" recounts the confessions of a man without a mouth who tells about the woman who loved him. And in this collection's longest fiction, a novella called "The Lonely and the Lost," a small town's talented and colorful inhabitants solve their problems as best they can until it comes time for the devil to reap what they have sown. Dark and light intermix in masterful chiaroscuro, dark becoming light, light revealing sinister or brooding complexity. No simple endings, only happy beginnings.

Author Biography

Barry Gifford's novels have been translated into twenty-two languages. His book Night People was awarded the Premio Brancati in Italy, and he has been the recipient of awards from PEN, the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Library Association, and the Writers Guild. David Lynch's film based on Gifford's novel Wild at Heart won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990, and Barry Gifford's novel Perdita Durango was made into a feature film in 1997. Gifford co-wrote with director David Lynch the film Lost Highway, also released in 1997. His most recent books include The Phantom Father: A Memoir (named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year); and Wyoming, a novel (named a Best Novel of the Year by the Los Angeles Times), which has been adapted for the stage and film Gifford lives in the San Francisco Bay area

Table of Contents

``I Wish I'd Made it Up'': A Note to the Reader	9	(4)
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 (Il 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	(6)
The Yellow Palace	151	(14)
For This, We Give Thanks	165	(4)
The Lost Christmas	169	(4)
Winner	173	(6)
The Lonely and the Lost	179