3.5
Trajectory
ByPublisher Description
This dazzling collection of four stories features characters bound together by their parallel moments of reckoning with their pasts—and proves the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls is also a master of the short story.
“Beautiful…. Will abruptly break your heart.” —The New York Times
The characters in these four expansive stories are a departure from the blue-collar denizens that populate so many of Richard Russo’s novels. In “Horseman,” a young professor confronts an undergraduate plagiarist—as well as her own regrets. In “Intervention,” a realtor facing a serious medical prognosis finds himself in his late father’s shadow. “Voice” gives us a semiretired academic who is conned by his estranged brother into joining a group tour of the Venice Biennale. And “Milton and Marcus” takes us into a lapsed novelist’s attempt to rekindle his screenwriting career—a career that depends wholly, at a crucial moment, on two Hollywood icons (one living, one dead).
Look for Richard Russo's new book, Somebody's Fool, coming soon.
“Beautiful…. Will abruptly break your heart.” —The New York Times
The characters in these four expansive stories are a departure from the blue-collar denizens that populate so many of Richard Russo’s novels. In “Horseman,” a young professor confronts an undergraduate plagiarist—as well as her own regrets. In “Intervention,” a realtor facing a serious medical prognosis finds himself in his late father’s shadow. “Voice” gives us a semiretired academic who is conned by his estranged brother into joining a group tour of the Venice Biennale. And “Milton and Marcus” takes us into a lapsed novelist’s attempt to rekindle his screenwriting career—a career that depends wholly, at a crucial moment, on two Hollywood icons (one living, one dead).
Look for Richard Russo's new book, Somebody's Fool, coming soon.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities35 Reviews
3.5

Rynorr
Created 8 months agoShare
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“Would have been a 5* for me, but had trouble connecting with the last of the four stories.”

Sophie
Created 10 months agoShare
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Chad J
Created 10 months agoShare
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“I would sit on a bar stool all day just to listen to Russo tell me stories. He's just got that sly, self-deprecating voice that makes you feel completely at home coupled with a great blue collar empathy and sensibility. His prose is not pretentious, but rather it has a certain charisma that sucks you into the rhythms of his language.
This particular collection is a welcome read since it is only 4 stories long, each varying from about 40-90 pages. This allows Russo to eschew the popular trend to give only a small slice of life or end essentially in media res (I understand the term is usually used for beginnings of stories rather than the end). While I fully comprehend and enjoy the use for this common style popularized by Carver especially, I appreciate that this 4 stories are fully satisfying and stand well enough on their own.”

Barb
Created over 1 year agoShare
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Christie
Created over 2 years agoShare
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About Richard Russo
RICHARD RUSSO is the author of nine novels, most recently 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.
Other books by Richard Russo
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