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: Excellent Short Stories with Believable Characters
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Whore's Child" is an unbelievably touching collection of short stories that showcase Richard Russo's ability to portray various characters as vulnerable, human and sympathetic. The title story is about an elderly nun that enters a creative writing class and proceeds to give a very sad retelling of her life since she was a very little girl. Surprisingly, the ending is not what you might expect as you are reading the story. It speaks to Mr. Russo's creativity that he can deliver this story with so much detail that you can feel the pain that the characters are expressing.
"Monhegan Light" is a story of a man's journey into the past to learn about the secrets that his wife kept from him. He wants to learn about the man that was her lover. In exploring her past he discovers much about her lover and even more about himself. This journey makes you feel sympathy for all the characters involved. To me, it is amazing that Mr. Russo can accomplish this with such apparently unsympathetic characters.
"The Farther You Go" is a story about a man who has to help out a daughter who is having trouble with her marriage. As he goes about helping her part with her abusive husband, he discovers his own feelings towards his wife and the fact that his wife appears to know him better than he has ever understood. The story is a touching view into two marriages--one that has worked and one that hasn't.
"Joy Ride" is another view of a failed marriage. A woman that is unhappy with her life and husband decides to take a cross country trip with her son to escape the husband she no longer loves. She never makes it to her destination, but she and her son discover much about themselves through the experience. I did not enjoy this story as much as the other ones, but it is not bad if judged on its own.
"Buoyancy" is about a trip that a husband and wife make to an island after his retirement from a long career in academia. This is the same island that they travelled to thirty years before. I like this story because it also results in the husband and wife discovering how much they are a part of each other's life and how important they are to each other. I would have called the story, "Bookends."
"Poison" is about two couples discussing and thinking about their lives. They are each dissatisfied in one way or another, yet they are held together by the bonds that comfort and familiarity create between friends and husband and spouses. The fact that the story takes place near a beach lends a certain feeling to the story--almost as if life comes in waves.
"The Mysteries of Linwood Hart" is a short story about a boy dealing with some of the stresses of growing up. He has to deal with a father and mother who are separated, a father who prefers not to get along with his brothers and a coach who is in love with his mother. All this takes place while the ten year old is experiencing confusion about his place in the world. The conclusion of the story unravels a seemingly complicated life and simplifies it almost instantly. The way this happens remains a partial mystery to Linwood--one that he is beginning to understand.
I recommend this book. Every story is touching, well written and thought provoking. Mr. Russo is an amazing writer and I look forward to reading more of his work.
Summary of The Whore's Child: Stories
To this irresistible debut collection of short stories, Richard Russo brings the same bittersweet wit, deep knowledge of human nature, and spellbinding narrative gifts that distinguish his best-selling novels. His themes are the imperfect bargains of marriage; the discoveries and disillusionments of childhood;the unwinnable battles men and women insist on fighting with the past.A cynical Hollywood moviemaker confronts his dead wife?s lover and abruptly realizes the depth of his own passion. As his parents? marriage disintegrates, a precocious fifth-grader distracts himself with meditations on baseball, spaghetti, and his place in the universe. And in the title story, an elderly nun enters a college creative writing class and plays havoc with its tidy notions of fact and fiction. The Whore?s Child is further proof that Russo is one of the finest writers we have, unsparingly truthful yet hugely compassionate and capable of creating characters real that they seem to step off the page.
In The Whore's Child, Richard Russo's first collection of short fiction, the 2002 Pulitzer Prize-wining author of Empire Falls explores difficult emotional territory while retaining the assured wisdom and humor of his best work. Infidelity, self-reflection, and the fallibility of memory come into consideration in this entertaining and perceptive collection. The book's titular story sets the tone for the whole: an elderly nun crashes a college writing workshop and composes her own life story, sharing the details of her childhood growing up in a convent as the abandoned daughter of a prostitute. As her troubling story unfolds, the class realizes the fictions she has unknowingly imposed upon it. Other stories examine familial relationships and responsibility: the bittersweet "Joyride" follows the desperate road trip of a mother and son, each running from troubles they won't admit to. The collection's best and most lighthearted story, "The Mysteries of Linwood Hart," explores the daydreaming, curious mind of 10-year-old Linwood as he ponders the self-defeating behavior of his family, the desires of inanimate objects, and his perceived place at the center of the universe. Russo surveys these subjects with skilled ease and accuracy, communicating a quiet understanding of his characters and their personal yet universal concerns. Russo, like Flannery O'Connor, has a gift for conveying the absurdity and severity of everyday life with brutal honesty, humor, and compassion:
It was an awful place, but Lin understood it was as perfectly real as every place else in the world, which was large beyond imagining, containing every single place he himself had ever been or never would see in his entire life.Uncommon in its natural insight, The Whore's Child recognizes the often unwelcome realities of experience and is all the more exceptional for it. --Ross Doll
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