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Had a Good Time:Stories from American…
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Had a Good Time:Stories from American Postcards (original 2004; edition 2004)

by Robert Olen Butler

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1812149,460 (3.52)11
Fiction. Literature. Short Stories. Historical Fiction. HTML:

"Gloriously imaginative and utterly hypnotizing short stories" inspired by vintage twentieth-century postcards, from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author (Booklist, starred review).
For many years, author Robert Olen Butler has collected picture postcards from the early twentieth centuryâ??not so much for the pictures on the fronts but for the messages written on the backs, little bits of the captured souls of people long since passed away. Using these brief messages of real people from another age, Butler here creates fully imagined stories that speak to the universal human condition.
In "Up by Heart," a Tennessee miner is called upon to become a preacher, and then asked to complete an altogether more sinister task. In "The Ironworkers' Hayride," a young man named Milton embarks on a romantic adventure with a girl with a wooden leg. From the deeply moving "Carl and I," in which a young wife writes a postcard in reply to a card from her husband who is dying of tuberculosis, to the eerily familiar "The One in White," in which a newspaper reporter covers an incident of American military adventurism in a foreign land, these short stories are intimate and fascinating glimpses into the lives of ordinary people in an extraordinary age.
"A wonderful collection."â??The Atlantic Monthly… (more)

Member:Cavalier80
Title:Had a Good Time:Stories from American Postcards
Authors:Robert Olen Butler
Info:Atlantic Monthly Pr.,2004 (2004), Hardcover
Collections:Books I've Read, Your library
Rating:***
Tags:fiction, short stories

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Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards by Robert Olen Butler (2004)

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This book was disappointing. None of the stories or characters rang true. ( )
  jeniferbal | Oct 21, 2008 |
Showing 2 of 2
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For Elizabeth Dewberry
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My fifth day at the hotel I pretty near ran down John Stanford Barnhill in the corridor past the second floor library.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Fiction. Literature. Short Stories. Historical Fiction. HTML:

"Gloriously imaginative and utterly hypnotizing short stories" inspired by vintage twentieth-century postcards, from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author (Booklist, starred review).
For many years, author Robert Olen Butler has collected picture postcards from the early twentieth centuryâ??not so much for the pictures on the fronts but for the messages written on the backs, little bits of the captured souls of people long since passed away. Using these brief messages of real people from another age, Butler here creates fully imagined stories that speak to the universal human condition.
In "Up by Heart," a Tennessee miner is called upon to become a preacher, and then asked to complete an altogether more sinister task. In "The Ironworkers' Hayride," a young man named Milton embarks on a romantic adventure with a girl with a wooden leg. From the deeply moving "Carl and I," in which a young wife writes a postcard in reply to a card from her husband who is dying of tuberculosis, to the eerily familiar "The One in White," in which a newspaper reporter covers an incident of American military adventurism in a foreign land, these short stories are intimate and fascinating glimpses into the lives of ordinary people in an extraordinary age.
"A wonderful collection."â??The Atlantic Monthly

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From Pulitzer Prize-winning Robert Olen Butler comes a collection of stories that together were named a Best Book of the Year by the Chicago Tribune. For many years Butler has collected picture postcards fromj the early twentieth century-not so much for the pictures on the fronts but for the messages written on the backs, little bits of the captured souls of people long since passed away. These postcards became the basis of this collection of stories.
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