The Whore's Child: Stories
by Richard Russo
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Book Summary Information
Author: Richard RussoEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-07-08
ISBN: 0375726012
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of The Whore's Child: Stories
Book Review: A Great and Empathetic Story-Teller
Summary: 5 Stars
Russo is a great story teller, with great insight into the emotional complexity of characters and the relationships that consume those characters. Most of the stories are about middle-aged men in difficult relationships and circumstances. There are a few stories involving children and important female characters as well.
At the most basic level, Russon can tell a narrative -- with a beginning, middle, and end that interests the reader and with a conclusion in which the story is resolved in a way that satisfies the reader. This is an essential skill that is ignored by more artsy and allegorical modern writers at their peril. But the stories also serve a purpose. Russo has a great heart with empathy for his characters, and each story reveals something about human nature that I somehow find satisfying. Some endings are whimsical and happy, like the final lengthy story about a young boy's baseball season the occurs during his parents' estrangement; another involves the complexities of a marital relationship and the knowledge and affection unique to the long-married; and others explore the essential failures at the heart of many relationships.
The first story -- "The Whore's Child" -- is wonderfully complex in its exploration of the nature of writing as mirroring the nature of lying to oneself and coming to terms with those lies.
I have never read anything by Russo, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel "Empire Falls." Based on his short stories, he is a writer of the first rank, and I'd like to read more.
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