Island
The Complete Stories
By Alistair Macleod
(Vintage, Paperback, 9780375713040, 448pp.)
Publication Date: March 12, 2002
Categories: Literary, Short Stories (single author)
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The sixteen exquisitely crafted stories in Island prove Alistair MacLeod to be a master. Quietly, precisely,
He has created a body of work that is among the greatest to appear in English in the last fifty years.
A book-besotted patriarch releases his only son from the obligations of the sea. A father provokes his young son to violence when he reluctantly sells the family horse. A passionate girl who grows up on a nearly deserted island turns into an ever-wistful woman when her one true love is felled by a logging accident. A dying young man listens to his grandmother play the old Gaelic songs on her ancient violin as they both fend off the inevitable. The events that propel MacLeod's stories convince us of the importance of tradition, the beauty of the landscape, and the necessity of memory.
Alistair MacLeod lives in Windsor, Ontario, and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
“A great writer…. Talent like his needs no hype.”–The New York Times Book Review
“The work of a superb…patient craftsman.”–The Boston Globe
“This stormy Cape Breton Island…is a place you will never forget, illuminated by a writer whose name you will always remember.”–San Francisco Chronicle
“A remarkable reading experience…. MacLeod clearly has a distinctive literary voice… His writing is seamless, rather like a Heifetz CD or a Sinatra or Fitzgerald song…. His stories are artfully crafted.”–The New York Times
“MacLeod writes of bonds of love and family that transcend time and distance and all the circumstantial dividers that life imposes, and does it with as much heart as any writer ever has.”–The Dallas Morning News
“An extraordinary excursion in exquisite prose that will satisfy and sustain you for many years.”–The Tampa Tribune
“Like the poignant lament of a Scottish piper…. A masterful evocation of a displaced people caught between past and present.”–Kirkus
“A treat for anyone who loves good writing.”–Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“MacLeod is, in the truest sense, the bard of his native Cape. His stories are strong, deep, and as powerful as the sea: absolutely memorable.”–Andrea Barrett
“Each story is charged with a place and way of life both alien and somehow familiar…. The honest emotion is as sensually rendered as the blood, salt, and waterlogged wood of Cape Breton…and every word feels true.”–Frederick Busch
"One of the great undiscovered writers of our time." -- Michael Ondaatje
"It's hard to think of anyone else who can cast a spell the way Alistair MacLeod can." -- Alice Munro
"Alistair MacLeod is a wonderfully talented writer." -- Margaret Atwood
"This stormy Cape Breton Island . . . is a place you will never forget, illuminated by a writer whose name you will always remember." -- San Francisco Chronicle
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Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet Jamie Ford Random House |
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Miles from Nowhere Nami Mun Riverhead |
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American Buffalo Steven Rinella Spiegel & Grau |
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The Piano Teacher Janice Y. K. Lee Viking |
