Bücher von Russell Banks

A masterly collection of new stories from Russell Banks, acclaimed author of The Sweet Hereafter and Rule of the Bone, which maps the complex terrain of the modern American familyThe New York Times lauds Russell Banks as "the most compassionate fiction writer working today." Long celebrated for his unflinching, empathetic works that explore the unspoken but hard realities of contemporary culture, Banks now turns his keen intelligence and emotional acuity on perhaps his most complex subject yet: the shape of family in its many forms. Suffused with Banks's trademark lyricism and reckless humor, the twelve stories in A Permanent Member of the Family examine the myriad ways we try?and sometimes fail?to connect with one another, as we seek a home in the world. Moving between the stark beauty of winter in upstate New York and the seductive heat of Florida, A Permanent Member of the Family charts with subtlety and precision the ebb and flow of both the families we make for ourselves and the ones we're born into. One of our most acute and penetrating authors, Banks is a virtuosic writer whose stories are profoundly humane, deeply?and darkly?funny, and absolutely unforgettable.

"At once a harrowing mystery, an illuminating psychological novel of subverted love and family dysfunction, and a powerful commentary on class structure in America . . . [Banks is] one of America's finest contemporary fiction writers." --Boston GlobePart love story, part murder mystery, set on the cusp of the Second World War, Russell Banks's sharp-witted and deeply engaging novel raises dangerous questions about class, politics, art, love, and madness--and explores what happens when two powerful personalities, trapped at opposite ends of a social divide, begin to break the rules.Vanessa Cole is a stunningly beautiful and wild heiress. Twice-married, she has been scandalously linked to rich and famous men. On the night of July 4, 1936, inside her family's remote Adirondack Mountain enclave known as the Reserve, Vanessa will lose her father to a heart attack--and meet Jordan Groves, a seductively carefree local artist. Jordan is easy prey for Vanessa's electrifying charm. But when Vanessa becomes unhinged by her father's unexpected death, she begins to spin out of control, manipulating and destroying the lives of all who cross her path.Moving from the secluded beauty of the Adirondacks to war-torn Spain and fascist Germany, and filled with characters that pierce the heart, The Reserve is a clever, incisive, and passionately romantic novel of suspense and drama.

"The most convincing portrait I know of contemporary America . . . a great American novel." -- James Atlas, The Atlantic MonthlyFrom acclaimed author Russell Banks, a masterful novel of hope lost and gained--a gripping, indelible story of fragile lives uprooted and transformed by injustice, disappointment, and the seductions and realities of the American dream.Banks's searing tale of uprootedness, migration, and exploitation in contemporary America brings together two of the dominant realms of his fiction--New England and the Caribbean--skillfully braided into one taut narrative. Continental Drift is the story of a young blue-collar worker and family man who abandons his broken dreams in New Hampshire and the story of a young Haitian woman who, with her nephew and baby, flees the brutal injustice and poverty of her homeland.Continental Drift is a powerful literary classic from one of contemporary fiction's most important writers.

The Relation of My Imprisonment is a work of fiction utilizing a form invented in the seventeenth century by imprisoned Puritan divines. Designed to be exemplary, works of this type were aimed at brethren outside the prison walls and functioned primarily as figurative dramatization of the test of faith all true believers must endure. These "relation," framed by scripture and by a sermon explicating the text, were usually read aloud in weekly or monthly installments during religious services. Utterly sincere and detailed recounting of suffering, they were nonetheless highly artificial. To use the form self-consciously, as Russell Banks has done, is not to parody it so much as to argue good-humoredly with the mind it embodies, to explore and, if possible, to map the limits of that mind, the more intelligently to love it.

Exploring the spectrum of responses felt by the inhabitants of a small Adirondack town in the wake of a tragic school bus accident, "The Sweet Hereafter" is a compelling morality tale that wrestles with the timeless questions of life, responsibility and human hope. Russell Banks has received numerous awards, including the O. Henry Award and the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in upstate New York and Princeton, NJ."Banks poses many questions, and his canvas is far larger than any thumbnail sketch of its components can suggest." "--San Francisco Chronicle" "Without sentimentalizing them in the least, Banks has extended the themes explored in his previous novels . . . to show that wiser, possibly even better people can emerge from the ordeal: that some old American decencies still prevail, against all odds." "--Chicago Tribune" "Russell Banks is a writer of extraordinary power."--Gail Caldwell, "Boston Globe"

With The Angel on the Roof, Russell Banks offers readers an astonishing collection of thirty years of his short fiction, revised especially for this volume and highlighted by the inclusion of nine new stories that are among the finest he has ever written. As is characteristic of all of Bank's works, these stories resonate with irony and compassion, honesty and insight, extending into the vast territory of the heart and the world, from working-class New England to Florida and the Caribbean and Africa. Broad in scope and rich in imagination, The Angel on the Roof affirms Russell Banks's place as one of the masters of American storytelling.