Twelve Post-War Tales
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
An exquisite new collection of stories from the Booker Prize–winning author, about lives shaped and haunted by war
Here are the soldiers and doctors and veterans, wives and lovers and children, who have been affected in ways both subtle and profound by the cataclysms of our times. In the aftermath of World War II, a young Jewish private, stationed in Germany, seeks the truth about lost family members. In the 1960s, a father focuses on his daughter’s wedding even as the Cuban Missile Crisis approaches the brink of global disaster. On September 11th, a maid working for U.S. Embassy staff in London wonders if her birth on the day of the Kennedy assassination determined the course of her life. And at the height of pandemic lockdown, a respiratory disease specialist comes out of retirement and is faced with a formative childhood memory.
These stories show history in the making, the reverberations of each personal loss and triumph set across the sweep of decades. Tender, humane, rich with humor, grief and moments of grace and contemplation, Twelve Post-War Tales is a collection of masterpieces in miniature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The stories in this perceptive collection from Swift (Last Orders) follow ordinary people impacted by historic tragedies. In "The Next Best Thing," a German official, asked by a British soldier in 1959 to help locate his Jewish relatives who went missing during WWII, is reminded of his experience as a POW in England. The 72-year-old doctor at the center of "Blushes" comes out of retirement to treat Covid-19 patients and recalls his 10th birthday party when he was diagnosed with scarlet fever. In "Zoo," a Filipino maid at the U.S. embassy in London develops an obsessive relationship with a young charge and takes him to the zoo on 9/11. "Fireworks" explores the stubbornness and unspoken trauma of a WWII bombardier who insists his daughter's wedding proceed despite the ongoing Cuban Missile Crisis, while "Passport" follows an octogenarian woman who, while renewing her passport, remembers being orphaned in London during the war. Swift amply shades in the various ways his characters are affected by the long shadow of war or disaster. These finely tuned tales lend new meaning to the phrase "conflict resolution."
