Black Tickets
by Jayne Anne Phillips
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Jayne Anne Phillips's reputation-making debut collection paved the way for a new generation of writers. Raved about by reviewers and embraced by the likes of Raymond Carver, Frank Conroy, Annie Dillard, and Nadine Gordimer, Black Tickets now stands as a classic. With an uncanny ability to depict the lives of men and women who rarely register in our literature, Phillips writes stories that lay bare their suffering and joy. Here are the abused and the abandoned, the violent and the passive, show more the impoverished and the disenfranchised who populate the small towns and rural byways of the country. A patron of the arts reserves his fondest feeling for the one man who wants it least. A stripper, the daughter of a witch, escapes from poverty into another kind of violence. A young girl during the Depression is caught between the love of her crazy father and the no less powerful love of her sorrowful mother. These are great American stories that have earned a privileged place in our literature. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Jayne Anne Phillip’s collection of short stories Black Tickets were touted as “original” and “the best since Eudora Welty” and “early genius” upon first publication in 1979.
In 2008, I didn’t find them to be all that compelling or original, but that may be a sign of the times. I just don’t believe that if these were published today for the first time they’d inspire the same accolades. And isn't that the test of a classic, standing the test of time?
The use of shock and rawness as a literary device used in some of these stories was valid and useful when written but have lost their effectiveness.
Phillips characters fall either to the side of immorality and their victims: the drug dealers, sluts, loners, raped, abused, show more confused, or they are the sweeter narratives of relationships between parents, children and siblings. Where she was more successful at engaging me was with the straight forward story telling of familial relationships. These classic family dramas were worthy of the accolades Snow and Souvenir. show less
In 2008, I didn’t find them to be all that compelling or original, but that may be a sign of the times. I just don’t believe that if these were published today for the first time they’d inspire the same accolades. And isn't that the test of a classic, standing the test of time?
The use of shock and rawness as a literary device used in some of these stories was valid and useful when written but have lost their effectiveness.
Phillips characters fall either to the side of immorality and their victims: the drug dealers, sluts, loners, raped, abused, show more confused, or they are the sweeter narratives of relationships between parents, children and siblings. Where she was more successful at engaging me was with the straight forward story telling of familial relationships. These classic family dramas were worthy of the accolades Snow and Souvenir. show less
Beautifully written and at least the Finnish translation by Marja Alopaeus made me believe in the power of language again. Shorter stories could almost be considered as prosaic poetry. Unfortunately the mesmerizing language didn't carry through all the stories... The moments and the feelings got through, but it was the lack of realisation that left me with nothing in the end and I will forget this book as so many others.
Not an easy book to rate- some stories were amazing while others left me feeling completely indifferent.
I think I have this because I don't know how to get rid of it. Considered by some to be erotica, it's soft and hard porn written with literary stye. Does that make it art?
27 stories
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A Rainbow of Books: Colors in the Title
570 works; 24 members
Author Information
20+ Works 3,818 Members
Jayne Anne Phillips lives in Massachusetts. (Publisher Provided) Jayne Anne Phillips was born on July 19, 1952 in Buckhannon, West Virginia. She graduated from West Virginia University (1974) and earned her M. F. A. at the University of Iowa (1978). She has taught at the University of Iowa, Humbolt State University, Radcliffe College, Boston show more University and Harvard. She was named writer-in-residence at Brandeis University in 1996. Her works, including two short story collections and several novels, have been translated into 14 languages. One novel, Machine Dreams, was nominated for the Nation Book Critics Award. She has also received the Sue Kaufman Award from the America Adademy and Institute of Arts and Letters. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Black Tickets
- Original publication date
- 1979
- Epigraph
- Our souls were clean,
but the grass didn't grow.
- Van Morrison
'Streets of Arklow'
from Veedon Fleece - First words
- My mother's ankles curve from the hem of a white suit as if the bones were water.
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Statistics
- Members
- 367
- Popularity
- 85,241
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.82)
- Languages
- 8 — Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 24
- ASINs
- 2
