Bücher von Elizabeth McCracken

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND THE STORY PRIZEAward-winning author Elizabeth McCracken is an undisputed virtuoso of the short story, and this new collection features her most vibrant and heartrending work to dateIn these stories, the mysterious bonds of family are tested, transformed, fractured, and fortified. A recent widower and his adult son ferry to a craggy Scottish island in search of puffins. An actress who plays a children's game-show villainess ushers in the New Year with her deadbeat half brother. A mother, pining for her children, feasts on loaves of challah to fill the void. A new couple navigates a tightrope walk toward love. And on a trip to a Texas water park with their son, two fathers each confront a personal fear. With sentences that crackle and spark and showcase her trademark wit, McCracken traces how our closely held desires?for intimacy, atonement, comfort?bloom and wither against the indifferent passing of time. Her characters embark on journeys that leave them indelibly changed?and so do her readers. The Souvenir Museum showcases the talents of one of our finest contemporary writers as she tenderly takes the pulse of our collective and individual lives.

From the day she is discovered unconscious in a New England cemetery at the turn of the twentieth century—nothing but a bowling ball, a candlepin, and fifteen pounds of gold on her person—Bertha Truitt is an enigma to everyone in Salford, Massachusetts. Her mysterious origin scandalizes the townspeople, as does her choice to marry the doctor who revived her. But Bertha is tenacious and entrepreneurial, and the bowling alley she opens quickly becomes Salford’s defining landmark.When Bertha dies in a freak accident, a heretofore-unheard-of son arrives in Salford, claiming he is heir apparent to Truitt’s Alleys. Soon it becomes clear that Bertha’s spirit lives on, infecting and affecting future generations through inheritance battles, murky paternities, and hidden wills.Laced with insight and sharp humor, Bowlaway is a brilliant unraveling of a family’s myths and secrets, its passions and betrayals, and the ties that bind and the rifts that divide.

By turns graceful and knowing, funny and moving, Niagara Falls All Over Again is the latest masterwork by National Book Award finalist and author of The Giant's House, Elizabeth McCracken. Spanning the waning years of vaudeville and the golden age of Hollywood, Niagara Falls All Over Again chronicles a flawed, passionate friendship over thirty years, weaving a powerful story of family and love, grief and loss. In it, McCracken introduces her most singular and affecting hero: Mose Sharp—son, brother, husband, father, friend ... and straight man to the fat guy in baggy pants who utterly transforms his life.To the paying public, Mose Sharp was the arch, colorless half of the comedy team Carter and Sharp. To his partner, he was charmed and charming, a confirmed bachelor who never failed at love and romance. To his father and sisters, Mose was a prodigal son. And in his own heart and soul, he would always be a boy who once had a chance to save a girl's life—a girl who would be his first, and greatest, loss.Born into a Jewish family in small-town Iowa, the only boy among six sisters, Mose Sharp couldn't leave home soon enough. By sixteen Mose had already joined the vaudeville circuit. But he knew one thing from the start: "I needed a partner,” he recalls. "I had always needed a partner.”Then, an ebullient, self-destructive comedian named Rocky Carter came crashing into his life—and a thirty-year partnership was born. But as the comedy team of Carter and Sharp thrived from the vaudeville backwaters to Broadway to Hollywood, a funny thing happened amid the laughter: It was Mose who had all the best lines offstage.Rocky would go through money, women, and wives in his restless search for love; Mose would settle down to a family life marked by fragile joy and wrenching tragedy. And soon, cracks were appearing in their complex relationship ... until one unforgivable act leads to another and a partnership begins to unravel.In a novel as daring as it is compassionate, Elizabeth McCracken introduces an indelibly drawn cast of characters—from Mose's Iowa family to the vagabond friends, lovers, and competitors who share his dizzying journey—as she deftly explores the fragile structures that underlie love affairs and friendships, partnerships and families.An elegiac and uniquely American novel, Niagara Falls All Over Again is storytelling at its finest—and powerful proof that Elizabeth McCracken is one of the most dynamic and wholly original voices of her generation.

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WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE *; LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD *; NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NEWSDAYNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYThe Washington Post *; San Francisco Chronicle *; O: The Oprah Magazine *; The Miami Herald *; Publishers Weekly *; Kirkus ReviewsLook for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader's Circle for author chats and more.From the author of the beloved novel The Giant's House—finalist for the National Book Award—comes a beautiful new story collection, her first in twenty years. Laced through with the humor, the empathy, and the rare and magical descriptive powers that have led Elizabeth McCracken's fiction to be hailed as ';exquisite' (The New York Times Book Review), ';funny and heartbreaking' (The Boston Globe), and ';a true marvel' (San Francisco Chronicle), these nine vibrant stories navigate the fragile space between love and loneliness. In ';Property,' selected by Geraldine Brooks for The Best American Short Stories, a young scholar, grieving the sudden death of his wife, decides to refurbish the Maine rental house they were to share together by removing his landlord's possessions. In ';Peter Elroy: A Documentary by Ian Casey,' the household of a successful filmmaker is visited years later by his famous first subject, whose trust he betrayed. In ';The Lost & Found Department of Greater Boston,' the manager of a grocery store becomes fixated on the famous case of a missing local woman, and on the fate of the teenage son she left behind. And in the unforgettable title story, a family makes a quixotic decision to flee to Paris for a summer, only to find their lives altered in an unimaginable way by their teenage daughter's risky behavior.   In Elizabeth McCracken's universe, heartache is always interwoven with strange, charmed moments of joy—an unexpected conversation with small children, the gift of a parrot with a bad French accent—that remind us of the wonder and mystery of being alive. Thunderstruck & Other Stories shows this inimitable writer working at the full height of her powers.   Praise for Thunderstruck & Other Stories  ';Restorative, unforgettable . . . a powerful testament to the scratchy humor and warm intelligence of McCracken's writing.'—Sylvia Brownrigg, The New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice)';[A] bewitching and wise collection . . . playful, even joyful.'—O: The Oprah Magazine  ';Stunningly beautiful . . . brilliantly moving . . . Moments of joy and pure magic flicker and pitch-perfect humor acts as a furtive SOS signal through the fog of loss.'—Los Angeles Times';Each of Thunderstruck's nine stories is a storm: delightful and destructive, packed with electricity, fascinating to watch unfold.'—Salon   ';The stories here are brilliant, funny and heartbreaking. . . . Elizabeth McCracken is a national treasure.'—Paul Harding, The Wall Street Journal   ';Pure delight: one lyrical, impeccably constructed sentence after another.'—Chicago Tribune   ';Beautifully wrought . . . As painstaking as a watchmaker, McCracken disassembles life down to its smallest parts.'—The Boston Globe

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