Butter
Novellas, Stories and Fragments
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- 3,99 €
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- 3,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
'A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers' Tayari Jones, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE
'Gayl Jones is a literary legend' - Yara Rodrigues Fowler, author of THERE ARE MORE THINGS
'Her prose is intricate, mesmerizing, and endlessly inventive and subversive' Deesha Philyaw, author of THE SECRET LIVES OF CHURCH LADIES
Gayl Jones's long career began with her blistering 1975 debut, Corregidora, which was edited by Toni Morrison, and she is increasingly recognised as one of the great literary writers of the twentieth century. In this new collection of short fiction, Jones's unique talents are displayed in a range of settings and styles, from the hyper-realist to the mystical, in novella-length stories, intricate multi-part narratives and in compelling fragments.
Endlessly inventive, challenging and surprising, Jones writes about our diverse world. Her characters are spies, photographers, baristas, cartoonists and revolutionaries; her settings are historical and contemporary, in Europe and the Americas. With sharp observation, wit and poignancy, Jones explores complex identities and unorthodox longings.
'Jones's writing powerfully blends narrative and lyricism . . . Her imagination seems to thrive on outstripping one's expectations' Margo Jefferson
'Every Jones publication is a major event, but this one is particularly precious . . . Jones's settings, which span time and geography, vary as much as the identities of her protagonists, which include women and men, Black, brown, and Indigenous people, artists and spies. The common threads are creativity and devastating insight' Oprah Daily, 'The Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2023'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jones follows her Pulitzer shortlisted The Birdcatcher with a collection of glorious stories and rough fragments. The long title story follows Odelle, a photographer and mixed-race daughter of the vaunted British war photographer Remunda Eadweard as she prepares to photograph Remunda, who was absent for much of her childhood. In "Sophia," the eponymous married narrator leaves the U.S. for some "elbow room" in Spain, where she recalls her youth among leftist revolutionaries in Mexico ("When I was with them, I suppose, for the first time I felt like a real person"). In Spain, a man follows her, and Jones coyly suggests he might be a private investigator hired by Sophia's husband. There is wit and more hints of intrigue in "A Spy Story," a brief sketch of an encounter between two Black women at a Connecticut farmhouse, one of whom is rumored to have been a spy during the Algerian War. When the narrator, a safety consultant for playgrounds, says, "People are always surprised I'm Black," the rumored former spy responds, "Welcome to the club." Among the 11 fragments, "Cultural Pluralism" sticks out for Jones's sympathetic if clunky attempt to give voice to a young Vietnamese woman whose Black American father brings her to the U.S. in the 1980s. For the most part, though, these stories sing. This is a gift for Jones's fans.
