In 14 sublime stories, Edward P. Jones turns an unflinching eye to the ordinary citizens of Washington, DC: men, women, and children caught between the old ways of the South and the temptations that await them in the city. With the legacy of slavery just a stone's throw behind them and the future uncertain, Jones' cornucopia of characters will haunt the reader for years to come. Hear the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Circle Award-winning author discuss his new story collection with Harper's Contributing Editor Wyatt Mason. Carmen de Lavallade reads a selection from the book.
Edward P. Jones was born in Washington, DC in 1950. His first short story collection, Lost in the City, won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was short-listed for the National Book Award in 1992. His first novel, The Known World, received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was also a finalist for the National Book Award. A recipient of a Lannan Foundation Award and a 2004 MacArthur fellow, Jones' stories have been published in The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and Callaloo.
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"I was glued to each of the 14 stories included in this collection. My favorite was “A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a Downtown in Peru." I loved the complicated characters in his simple stories. Can't wait to read his other two works. " — Suga (4 out of 5 stars)
"I was glued to each of the 14 stories included in this collection. My favorite was “A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a Downtown in Peru." I loved the complicated characters in his simple stories. Can't wait to read his other two works. "
" This is a book of short stories. Read the first - it was okay, the second didn't hold my interest and the third I started I stopped reading. Not really that interesting to me. "
" a group of short stories, the first one takes place in DC around 1900, about black families. "
" He weaves a good tale but sad. "
" The character development in this book is so good. But alas short stories........they always leave me hanging. Really each of these stories could have been a full length novel & I would have just kept reading. "
" The thing I admire most about Edward P. Jones is his ability to compress time. Also, the characters and their situations are carefully nuanced, bending expectations of race and gender, often in a comical, piercing way. "
" A set of short stories. Most of them did not feel like they had endings. Hard to listen to, as I couldn't always identify when one story was ending and another one starting. "
" It's a great collection of short stories "
" Couldn't finish it. There were so many characters and story lines that I lost interest. I'd much rather here one story to the finish. "
" this guy may be the finest writer alive. "
Edward P. Jones, a New York Times bestselling author, has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and the Lannan Literary Award for The Known World; he also received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2004. His first collection of stories, Lost in the City, won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was short-listed for the National Book Award. His second collection, All Aunt Hagar’s Children, was a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award. He has been an instructor of fiction writing at a range of universities, including Princeton. He lives in Washington, DC.
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