MARCH 2019 - AudioFile
Anthony Ferguson narrates this debut collection of 10 stories, all set in the fictional town of Glass on the coast of England. With a pace as steady as a metronome, he lets each story flow into the next. The stories focus on damaged characters who are preoccupied by hurts, secrets, and missed opportunities but still hopefully reaching out for human connection and finding grace. Ferguson gives voice to Owen’s exploration of the many aspects of love and longing. With a variety of accents he gives characters their own voices and personalities, and his careful, concise delivery allows the listener to revel in Owen’s exquisite language. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
06/18/2018
Owen’s debut gathers lonely hearts from a town called Glass on England’s southern coast and dissects their melancholy across 10 stories. Among those characters “who’d never managed to disguise their disappointment with life” is Eleanor. She’s a kind nurse who, in “Lovers of a Kind,” becomes fond of a local vagrant she suspects was in love with her missing, deranged mother. Tony, an orphan, spends a troubling afternoon at the circus with his only friend, Mr. Avery, in “At the Circus.” There is May, a broken-hearted chanteuse who tolerates her besotted boss in “Virginia’s Birthday,” and the humiliated Kenneth, a dentist whose spirited ex-wife insists upon remaining his patient in “What Is Meant to Remain.” One or two stories veer into the macabre, as when a solitary caregiver takes comfort—pleasure almost—as her elderly ward comes to believe she is his dead wife in “Housekeeper.” And in the title story, Erma comes to the devastating conclusion after the death of her companion Violet that she was never loved in the way she, herself, loved. Owen populates his stories with those who drift, unmoored or lost—folk who believe themselves invisible, obsessed with memories and paths not taken. Though readers may wish for some light to balance the sadness, his is a lovely work of quiet, heart-wrenching prose. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
“Owen’s ability to convey the beauty and grace in small moments of loss and connection, heartbreak and triumph, signals a rare new literary voice, whose words will echo in your head long after you read them.” —Nylon.com “D. Wystan Owen writes exquisite stories that lodge somewhere in my chest and keep detonating—loudly, devastatingly—again and again.” —Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You “D. Wystan Owen has a keen eye for what falls outside the spotlight and what's hidden underneath the surface. Writing in the tradition of Chekhov, William Trevor, and Alice Munro, Owen's stories remind us that the thrills and the dangers of living oftentimes go hand-in-hand with the everydayness of life. In these stories no loss is too small, each moment counts. Owen is not a trendy writer, but a classic one.” —Yiyun Li, author of Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life “D. Wystan Owen’s sentences are so breath-catchingly elegant, his paragraphs so honed for gut-punching power and depth, reading him is a full body experience. The stories of Glass, as subtle as they are profound, reveal us to ourselves in all our emotional complexity, all our loneliness and striving. Think Munro, think Welty, think even, Mansfield—and understand that like the collections by those masters of the short form, this book is strong medicine for a heart-broken world.” —Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted "D. Wystan Owen's stories are studies in quiet perfection. They seem simply to go about their business, with no interest at all in breaking your heart, which makes it all the more devastating when they do. They are deep and honest and graceful, and above all unpitying, yet there is an ache at the center of each one."—Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Illumination "Owen’s characters mostly live in a small town and might themselves claim to live small lives but there is nothing small about the stories he creates on their behalves. His beautifully cadenced stentences plumb the depths of their affections, their ambitions, their defeats; he captures their souls and sets them free. A truly dazzling collection.”—Margot Livesey, author of Mercury “Owen’s stories are uniformly moving.” —Kirkus Reviews
MARCH 2019 - AudioFile
Anthony Ferguson narrates this debut collection of 10 stories, all set in the fictional town of Glass on the coast of England. With a pace as steady as a metronome, he lets each story flow into the next. The stories focus on damaged characters who are preoccupied by hurts, secrets, and missed opportunities but still hopefully reaching out for human connection and finding grace. Ferguson gives voice to Owen’s exploration of the many aspects of love and longing. With a variety of accents he gives characters their own voices and personalities, and his careful, concise delivery allows the listener to revel in Owen’s exquisite language. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-05-28
Lonely people look for love.Where do all the lonely people come from? The answer seems to be from Glass, the English seaside town that serves as a backdrop for debut author Owen's short stories. In one, a nurse meets a poor, unkempt man who was once in love with her mother. He asks to volunteer in her hospital, but she refuses him. In another, the owner of a failing nightclub has been in love with a singer for decades after their one-night stand. In yet another, an old man returns to a movie theater where he once fell in love before his date had to return home to her infirm husband. These characters are alone, unhappy, and, deep down, so very good. Owen's stories are uniformly moving (how could you not feel for these people?), but they often border on sentimentality. A few, however, show a bit more steel. In "The Patroness," the hostess of a salon and a formerly beautiful film star snipe at each other. At the end of the party, the hostess gives the actress some much-needed money, and the narrator wonders at her show of "such generosity and malice." In the standout story of the collection, "Housekeeper," an unmarried woman named Louise cares for an old man, who suffers from increasingly severe strokes. As his mental faculties decline, she takes on the persona of his late wife: "She began, then, to read aloud in the voice of another woman, as she had long imagined it. She felt as though she were taking part in a grand and exquisite drama." Louise is sweet and kind, to be sure. She's also more than a little bit creepy. It's an intriguing duality.While sometimes overly sentimental, this collection shows promise in its darker moments.
