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Following the best-selling Everybody's Fool, a new collection of short fiction that demonstrates that Richard Russo - winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls - is also a master of this genre.
Russo's characters in these four expansive stories bear little similarity to the blue-collar citizens we're familiar with from many of his novels. In "Horseman," a professor confronts a young plagiarist as well as her own weaknesses as the Thanksgiving holiday looms closer and closer: "And after that, who knew?"
In "Intervention," a realtor facing an ominous medical prognosis finds himself in his father's shadow while he presses forward--or not.
In "Voice," a semiretired academic is conned by his increasingly estranged brother into coming along on a group tour of the Venice Biennale, fleeing a mortifying incident with a traumatized student back in Massachusetts but encountering further complications in the maze of Venice.
And in "Milton and Marcus," a lapsed novelist struggles with his wife's illness and tries to rekindle his screenwriting career, only to be stymied by the pratfalls of that trade when he's called to an aging, iconic star's mountaintop retreat in Wyoming.
"Starred Review. "Some writers have less fuel in the tank than others," one of his characters laments, but Russo himself is chugging along just fine." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. Getting into the minds of Russo's characters, no matter their background, is a singularly satisfying journey. Very few writers so thoroughly embrace human foibles, or present them in such an accepting and empathic manner." - Booklist
"Russo develops these stories with smooth assurance, allowing readers to discover layers of meaning in his perfectly calibrated narration." - Publishers Weekly
"A bit uneven but with many high points, this collection is not as engaging as the author's world-class long fiction, but still, be aware, this is Richard Russo." - Library Journal
This information about Trajectory was first featured
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Pic: Elena Siebert
Richard Russo is the author of ten novels, most recently Somebody's Fool, Chances Are…, Everybody's Fool and That Old Cape Magic; two collections of stories; and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which, like Nobody's Fool, was adapted into a multiple-award-winning miniseries; in 2017, he received France's Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine. He lives in Portland, Maine.
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