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Loading... Daddy Lenin and Other Stories (edition 2015)by Guy Vanderhaeghe (Author)
Work InformationDaddy Lenin and Other Stories by Guy Vanderhaeghe
   No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) triscuit | Dec 19, 2015 |  http://tinyurl.com/mzc3c65 (  ) steven.buechler | May 21, 2015 | All of the stories feature a male protagonist, sometimes with first-person, sometimes with third-person, and a lot of them are at the middle-aged or older end of the spectrum. Many are looking back on their lives to pivotal moments or memories they want to recapture. In this way they can be a bit similar, especially the stories that are set mostly in the 50s and 60s, but the collection as a whole works pretty well for a bus book or a "read a story a day on your lunch hour" book. (  )1  rabbitprincess | May 8, 2015 |
 Readers familiar with Guy Vanderhaeghe only through the bloody and frequently sombre historical novels of his ‘literary western’ trilogy (The Englishman’s Boy, The Last Crossing, A Good Man) may be surprised to find themselves smiling in amusement or laughing aloud at intervals across the nine delightful tales of Daddy Lenin. Masterful, these often lighthearted, comic scenario peppered, and nonetheless dark-tinged stories showcase the author taking a few confident steps from his pensive historian persona toward another as an amused pupil of human foibles.  Which is not to suggest that Vanderhaeghe has all that much in common with Chekhov, apart from a strain of psychological realism and a tendency to avoid pat endings. Vanderhaeghe’s central focus is on men struggling to achieve a sense of purpose or dignity in the face of external forces bent on frustrating them...The appeal to masculinity–especially in relation to women–looms large in Daddy Lenin, most especially in the collection’s best story, the blisteringly satirical Tick Tock. Contentment comes with a price, Guy Vanderhaeghe reminds us. Read this and the other eight stories in this fine collection for their narrative completeness and the truths they tell. AwardsNotable Lists
Among these nine stories: A teenage boy breaks out of the strict confines of his family, his bid for independence leads him in over his head. He learns about life in short order and there is no turning back. An actor's penchant for hiding behind a role, on and off stage, is tested to the limits and what he comes to discover finally places him face to face with the truth. With his mother hospitalized for a nervous condition and his father away on long work stints, a boy is sent to another family for his meals. His gradually building relationship with a teenage daughter who has been left handicapped from Polio opens unexpected doors to the world. In the title story, a middle-aged man meets his former adviser at university, a charismatic and domineering professor dubbed Daddy Lenin. As their tense reunion progresses, secrets from the past painfully revise remembered events and threaten to topple the scaffolding of a marriage No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.06)
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