Product Description

An American literary cult figure, Paul Bowles established his legacy with the novel The Sheltering Sky. An immediate sensation, it became a fixture in American letters. Bowles then returned his energies to the short story -- the genre he preferred and soon mastered.

Bowles' s short fiction is orchestral in composition and exacting in theme, marked by a unique, delicately spare style, and a dark, rich, exotic mood, by turns chilling, ironic, and wry. In "Pastor Dowe at TecatÉ," a Protestant missionary is sent to the far reaches of the globe -- a place, he discovers, where his God has no power. In "Call at CorazÓn," an American husband abandons his alcoholic wife on their honeymoon in a South American jungle. In "Allal," a boy's drug-induced metamorphosis into a deadly serpent leads to his violent death, but not before he feels the "joy" of sinking his fangs into his human prey. Here too are his most famous works, such as "The Delicate Prey," a grimly satisfying tale of vengeance and "A Distant Episode," which Tennessee Williams proclaimed "a masterpiece of short fiction."

Though shocking, Bowles's stories possess a symmetry between beauty and terror that is haunting and ultimately moral. Like Poe, Bowles had an instinctive adeptness with the nightmare vision. Like Hemingway, Bowles is famously unsentimental, a skilled craftsman of crystalline prose.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #894486 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

From Publishers Weekly
As elusive as his enigmatic fiction, which is epitomized by the 1949 autobiographical bestselling novel, The Sheltering Sky, Bowles (1910-2001) arguably has been venerated as much for being the mythical forerunner of the Beat Generation as for his considerable genius, both musical and literary. A darling of iconoclastic literati both here and abroad, he first became known as a composer, writing music for stage and screen. Only after his marriage to Jane Auer (herself soon to become a cultishly popular writer under the name Jane Bowles) in 1938 did he turn seriously to fiction. The exotic settings of the 62 stories collected in this landmark volume reflect the wanderings of nomadic Paul and Jane as, during the '30s and '40s, they flitted from Europe to Mexico, the Caribbean and the U.S. before finally settling in Tangiers in 1949. Over the years, Bowles's fascination with Western man's intrinsic decadence, laid bare in clashes with exotic cultures, became the signature motif of his existential fiction ("The Hours After Noon" and "Too Far from Home"). His oblique language and abrupt endings ("At Paso Rojo") are curiously confounding, and his tales are invariably charged with subterranean currents. Frankly incestuous and homosexual, "Pages from Cold Point" is almost certain to stir anew speculation about Bowles's sexual orientation. Earthy, violent and comfortable with corruption, these deeply affecting stories are distinguished by their lyrical rhythms and meticulous regard for language. The assemblage of this impressive collection marks a literary event of the highest order. (Oct.)Forecast: This definitive volume will be a must-have for all major libraries, and should attract much review attention and feature coverage. Bowles cofounded Antaeus magazine with Daniel Halpern in 1968, and soon afterward the magazine became the Ecco Press. This collection is being published to coincide with Ecco's 30th anniversary, and publisher Halpern will be available to discuss his longtime friendship with Bowles.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Raymond Carver once said that he liked short stories that had "some feeling of threat or sense of menace." He would have loved Bowles's work. These pieces, set mostly in Tangier where Bowles, an American expatriate, lived most of his life and died in 2001 are often bizarre, sadistic, and menacing. In appearance, Bowles was an elegant man, but as a narrator he was remote, pitiless, and unsympathetic, and he dealt harshly with his characters, whether Moroccan or European expatriates. In "The Garden," "Mejdoub," and "Things Gone and Things Still Here," which echo Moroccan legend and folklore, the unrelenting desert is a huge presence. In other stories, like "The Hours After Noon" and "Too Far from Home," Bowles exposes the psychological fragility of the non-African in the North African desert, where Western values are a chimera. Containing 62 stories arranged chronologically and spanning 40 years, this edition is being published as part of the 30th anniversary of Ecco Press, of which Bowles was a cofounder. Essential for larger fiction collections. Mary Szczesiul, Roseville P.L., MI
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Bowles was born in New York City in 1910 and died in 1999. He lived a long time in Morocco, a country with which he will always be identified, for Moroccan atmosphere and customs imbued his novels as well as the short stories upon which his literary reputation most firmly rests. In 1968 he co-founded Antaeus literary review with Daniel Halpern, and the magazine soon grew into Ecco Press. To coincide with its thirtieth anniversary, Ecco has compiled the first complete collection of Bowles' short stories. Not surprisingly, Morocco provides the setting for his two masterpieces, "The Delicate Prey," a shocking tale about three tribesmen crossing remote and hostile terrain, and "A Distant Episode," an equally disturbing story about a professor who is cruelly made the mutilated toy of desert nomads. The clash of alien and native cultures is a predominant theme found in Bowles' stories, worked out in various plot situations but always rendered in his trademark lucid, direct style. A necessary purchase for all active literature collections. Brad Hooper
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