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Loading... Officer Friendly and Other Storiesby Lewis Robinson
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. An impressive debut collection. Robinson resides in Portland, Maine, so it's not surprising that all the stories are set in that rural northeast corner. I found the stories quirky and poignant with the dominant theme being young boys' coming-of-age. The stories didn't feel redundant, even though they are all set in the town of Point Allison. I was much more satisfied with this collection than with "You Are Not a Stranger Here" by Adam Haslett, which came out around the same time and received much more hype. I'm looking forward to reading more of Robinson's work in the future. no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0812972279, Paperback)The stories in this acclaimed debut all take place in the state of Maine—which quickly comes to stand for the state we’re all in when we face the moments that change our lives forever. Two roughneck hockey players are kicked off the team and forced to join the drama club. A young bartender at a party of coastal aristocrats has to deal with the surreal request to put a rich old coot out of his misery. Can a father defend his family if the diver helping to free the tangled propeller of their boat turns out to be a real threat?With humor, a piercing eye, and a sense that danger often lies just around the corner, Robinson gives us a variety of vivid characters, wealthy and poor, delinquent and romantic, while illuminating the mythic, universal implications of so-called ordinary life. These stories are at once classic and modern; taken together, they bring the good news that an important, compassionate new voice in American fiction has arrived. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:57 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Robinson's collection is an interesting insight just beyond the seemingly perpetual thaw of Maine, not only into local hunting or hockey cultures, but of the ever changing relationships formed in the snow, along the coast and within the forest. Often the stories deal with an emergence into adulthood, but more so the rites of passages faced by many in Maine, whatever their ages.
The stories themselves range from the creepy to the serenely cathartic, though like the weather, they're always in a state of flux hovering just around the thaw. Take for example, the stories The Diver, The Toast, and Ride ; both are increasingly unsettling to say the least, as they introduce to the reader the unfamiliar eccentricities of being foreign to the Northeast. Puckheads, Seeing the World and Fighting at Night, on the other hand, deliver a sense of fulfillment no matter what was sacrificed from each character.
One captivating attribute of the book is that as a whole, time is not necessarily linear. The setting can resemble the era of F. Scott Fitzgerald or perhaps that of last March. Whether duck hunting with one's father, evading a policeman in the snow, preparing to fight someone named Brick Chickisaw, or leaving home to fish for urchin on a whim, Robinson evokes a sense of wonder and exhilaration regardless of what era he writes. (