3.0
On the Yankee Station
ByPublisher Description
Wiliam Boyd, winner of the Whitbread and Somerset Maugham Awards, introduces unlikely heroes desperate to redeem their unsatisfying lives.
From California poolsides to the battlegrounds of Vietnam, here is a world populated by weary souls who turn to fantasy as their sole escape from life's inequities. Stranded in an African hotel during a coup, an oafish Englishman impresses a young stewardess with stories of an enchanted life completely at odds with his sordid existence in "The Coup." In the title story, an arrogant, sadistic American pilot in Vietnam underestimaets the power of revenge when he relentlessly persecutes a member of his maintenance crew. With droll humor and rare compassion, Boyd's enthralling stories remind us of his stature as one of contemporary fiction's finest storytellers.
From California poolsides to the battlegrounds of Vietnam, here is a world populated by weary souls who turn to fantasy as their sole escape from life's inequities. Stranded in an African hotel during a coup, an oafish Englishman impresses a young stewardess with stories of an enchanted life completely at odds with his sordid existence in "The Coup." In the title story, an arrogant, sadistic American pilot in Vietnam underestimaets the power of revenge when he relentlessly persecutes a member of his maintenance crew. With droll humor and rare compassion, Boyd's enthralling stories remind us of his stature as one of contemporary fiction's finest storytellers.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesOn the Yankee Station Reviews
3.0
“Probably the first book of short stories I bought, read, and liked. There are two stories featuring Morgan Leafy, the comic anti-hero of Boyd's first novel A Good Man in Africa. Some are spikily comic monologues, as with 'Not Yet, Jayette' or 'The Care and Attention of Swimming Pools', which exploit American slang and stupidity with equal success.
'Long Story Short' is the only piece of metafiction I have ever cared for. 'Killing Lizards' and 'Histoire Vache' are inspired apprentice pieces about teenagers questing for acceptance and sex. The only story that left me in the cold was 'Alpes Maritimes' - a story not included in earlier editions of the book.
I still remember many of this collection's images and phrases, even though over twenty years have passed since I first bought it. A Scottish creek is the 'colour of unmilked tea'; a woman feels her eyes 'spangle' with tears at the sight of her vulnerable teenage lover.
Perhaps not as sophisticated or as consistently polished as Boyd's later collections, but this early one snagged in my mind, when they did not.”
About William Boyd
William Boyd’s first novel, A Good Man in Africa, won a Whitbread Prize and a Somerset Maugham Award; his second, An Ice-Cream War, was awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Brazzaville Beach won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; and The Blue Afternoon won the Los Angeles Times Prize for Fiction. Boyd lives in London.
Other books by William Boyd
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