Synopses & Reviews
Roy is a lover of adventure movies, a budding writer, and a young man slowly coming of age without the benefit of a father. Surrounding himwhether to support him or to drag him underis the adult world of postwar Chicago, a city haunted by violence, poverty, and the redeeming power of imagination. Here are charlatans, operators, alien abductees, schoolyard nudists, and fast girls with only months to live. At the center of it all is a boy learning to navigate the compromises, disillusionments, and regrets that come with the territory of living. Mixing memoir and fiction, the forty-one short stories in Barry Giffords first book for young adults bring a cityand a boys growing consciousnessto vivid, unflinching life.
The author of more than forty published works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into twenty-eight languages, Barry Gifford is the recipient of awards from the American Library Association, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Writers Guild of America, and PEN. His novel Wild at Heart was made into a film by David Lynch, which won the Palme dOr at the Cannes Film Festival, and his novel Perdita Durango was made into a feature film by Alex de la Iglesia. Inspired by his own childhood in Chicago, Sad Stories of the Death of Kings is Giffords first young adult novel.
Review
"Barry Gifford's Sad Stories of the Death of Kings gleams like a stolen silver dollar; one boy's search for wisdom among the hustlers, criminals, and wise guys that reads as evocatively as anything out of Nelson Algren. These stories, sometimes only a page or two, riddled with sharp, subtle dialogue, all glow with the devastating, sometimes gruesome wisdom of Sherwood Anderson and Flannery O'Connor."—Joe Meno, author of Hairstyles of the Damned
Review
"Barry Gifford's Sad Stories of the Death of Kings gleams like a stolen silver dollar; one boy's search for wisdom among the hustlers, criminals, and wise guys that reads as evocatively as anything out of Nelson Algren. These stories, sometimes only a page or two, riddled with sharp, subtle dialogue, all glow with the devastating, sometimes gruesome wisdom of Sherwood Anderson and Flannery O'Connor."Joe Meno, author of Hairstyles of the Damned
"Roy grows up through his encounters with the melancholic detritus of life. Like Gifford, he always finds the warm hearts beating beneath the sadness."Booklist
Giffords work falls into two camps: the edgy, wildly eccentric stories, full of weirdness and perversity but portraying characters who exude a bedrock humanity (Arise and Walk, 1994, or Baby-Cat Face, 1995), and the more realistic, coming-of age tales that find young innocents thrust with open eyes into a world of pain (Wild at Heart, 1989, and the semi-documentary fictional memoir” A Good Man to Know, 1992).
His latest collection of stories falls squarely into the second category. Like A Good Man to Know, it takes place in Chicago in the 1950s and draws heavily on Giffords youth. Most of the stories feature a young teenager, Roy, observing the troubled lives of the people he sees in his meanderings around the city. Whether its a washed-up fighter with whom Roy plays chess, or a tired stripper who counsels him not to end up like these bums come into this dive dont do nuthin but tell each other sad stories of the death of kings,” Roy grows up through his encounters with the melancholic detritus of life. Like Gifford, he always finds the warm hearts beating beneath the sadness.
Bill Ott
Synopsis
A vivid and unflinching portrait of a fatherless adolescent boy coming of age within the violent humanity of 1960s Chicago.
Synopsis
Roy is a lover of adventure movies, a budding writer, and a young man slowly coming of age without the benefit of a father. Surrounding him—whether to support him or to drag him under—is the adult world of postwar Chicago, a city haunted by violence, poverty, and the redeeming power of imagination. Here are charlatans, operators, alien abductees, schoolyard nudists, and fast girls with only months to live. At the center of it all is a boy learning to navigate the compromises, disillusionments and regrets that come with the territory of living. Mixing memoir and invention, the forty-one short stories in Barry Gifford's first book for young adults bring a city—and a boy's growing consciousness—to vivid, unflinching life.
About the Author
The author of more than forty published works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into twenty-eight languages, BARRY GIFFORD writes distinctly American stories for millions of readers around the globe. For more information, visit www.BarryGifford.com.