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From Paul Yoon, the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of Once the Shore and Snow Hunters, comes a luminous collection of short stories set throughout the world - from the Hudson Valley to the Russian Far East - across periods of time after World War II.
In The Mountain, Paul Yoon displays his subtle, ethereal, and strikingly observant style with six thematically linked stories, taking place across several continents and time periods and populated with characters who are connected by their traumatic pasts, newly vagrant lives, and quests for solace in their futures. Though they exist in their own distinct worlds (from a sanatorium in the Hudson Valley to an inn in the Russian far east) they are united by the struggle to reconcile their traumatic pasts in the wake of violence, big and small, spiritual and corporeal. A morphine-addicted nurse wanders through the decimated French countryside in search of purpose; a dissatisfied wife sporadically takes a train across Spain with a much younger man in the wake of a building explosion; a lost young woman emigrates from Korea to Shanghai, where she aimlessly works in a camera sweat shop, trying fruitlessly to outrun the ghosts of her past.
Hailed by New York magazine as a "quotidian-surreal craft-master" and a "radiant star in the current literary firmament" by The Dallas Morning News, Yoon realizes his worlds with quiet, insightful, and gorgeous prose. Though each story is distinct from the others, his restrained voice and perceptive observations about violence - to the body, the landscape, and ultimately, the human soul - weaves throughout this collection as a whole, making The Mountain a beautiful, memorable read.
"Starred Review. Yoon proves himself a literary alchemist, transforming tragedy into beauty with deft reminders of our universal connections…Yoon has undoubtedly earned membership in the exclusive coterie of today's finest writers of the short form." - Library Journal
"Starred Review. Despite his literary austerity, Yoon's dazzling use of wordplay, pacing, and the quiet authenticity of his characters to instill emotion in his audience makes him one of the most evocative writers working today. Six little mysteries that quietly capture the breadth of the human experience." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. Most often the stories are structured as montages of inner experience; moments of connection are the sparks that ignite these otherwise meditative, reflective narratives. The result is a spectacular display of intelligence and feeling." - Publishers Weekly
"Yoon's graceful prose captures both the melancholy and mystery of his characters' struggles." - Booklist
"The Mountain is atmospherically so compelling, and describes so movingly the loneliness and courage of these characters ... It's mysterious and elusive and distinctive, a brilliant collection of stories, and a unified work of art." - Daniyal Mueenuddin, author of In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award
This information about The Mountain was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Paul Yoon is the author of two story collections, Once the Shore, which was a New York Times Notable Book, and The Mountain, which was an NPR Best Book of the Year. His novel Snow Hunters won the Young Lions Fiction Award. A recipient of fellowships from the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars and the National Endowment for the Arts, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife, the fiction writer Laura van den Berg, and their dog, Oscar.
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