Conjunctions founding editor Morrow (The Diviner’s Tale), creates beautifully dark and soulfully intimate stories in his first collection, featuring characters who, though hardly citizens of virtue, reveal their true colors with little remorse. Each tale is told close at hand, with first-person narrators drawing the reader into their confidence, making readers complicit in shadowy inner workings that they don’t completely understand. A man who enjoys collecting trinkets sets his sights dangerously on his brother’s girlfriend in “The Hoarder.” A blind man, in “Amazing Grace,” regains his sight only to realize that the enlightened life he had imagined for himself is actually shrouded in darkness. After misplacing his mind, a man finds that, “whereas before he was dependable (had been with the same accounting firm for fifteen years, was the star shortstop on their interleague softball team), he now became not just unreliable, but entirely unpredictable,” in “Mis(Laid).” In the sinister “Tsunami,” a wife and mother relays the details of her unraveled marriage, remaining matter-of-fact: “This story doesn’t get any better, so if you wanted to stop here I certainly wouldn’t blame you. I can even tell you what happens so you won’t have to bother.” Morrow’s stories are hauntingly honest and linger in the consciousness. (Dec.)
The Uninnocent: Stories
Narrated by Charlie Thurston, Joe Barrett, Rachel Warren
Bradford MorrowUnabridged — 8 hours, 52 minutes
The Uninnocent: Stories
Narrated by Charlie Thurston, Joe Barrett, Rachel Warren
Bradford MorrowUnabridged — 8 hours, 52 minutes
Overview
Bradford Morrow's stories have garnered him awards such as the O. Henry and Pushcart prizes and have given him a devoted following. Now gathered here for the first time is a collection of his finest gothic tales.
A young man whose childhood hobby of collecting sea shells and birds' nests takes a sinister turn when he becomes obsessed with acquiring his brother's girlfriend, in “The Hoarder,” which was selected as one of the Best American Noir Stories of the Century.
An archeologist summoned to attend his beloved sister's funeral is astonished to discover it is not she who has died, but someone much closer to him, in “Gardener of Heart.”
A blind motivational speaker has a crisis of faith when he suddenly regains his sight, only to discover life was better lived in the dark, in “Amazing Grace.”
Editorial Reviews
"The Uninnocent is a masterpiece of empathy and of storytelling. I love this chapel of unholy stories with their charming, monstrous, wholly sympathetic characters."
"Original and chilling. Vividly realized and morally complex tales [with an] intricately built sense of character and place."
Original and chilling. Vividly realized and morally complex tales [with an] intricately built sense of character and place.
This collection of dark tales explores the knife edge between sanity and insanity. Each story highlights the very reasonable nature of those who have fallen over the edge. From the jilted lover, to mischievous sisters who see ghosts, to the mother who drowns her children, these chilling vignettes will make the listener consider their own sense of balance. This is the first collection of short stories from O. Henry and Pushcart Prize winner Morrow (The Diviner's Tale). The text is well read (with one exception) by Charlie Thurston, Joe Barrett, and Rachael Warren. The final story, however, is told by multiple characters, but, unfortunately, the reader makes so little distinction among the players that this listener was completely baffled. VERDICT This collection will appeal to readers of noir fiction. ["Hanging on the voices of their narrators—at once fascinating in their fixations and repelling in their twisted logic—and mixing elements of Southern gothic and noir, these powerful tales will linger in the reader's mind," read the review of the Pegasus hc, LJ 9/1/11.—Ed.]—Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
A teenage boy obsessively (and surreptitiously) photographs his older brother's girlfriend. An electrical worker who turns motivational speaker after he's blinded in an accident miraculously regains his sight and discovers that life was better when he couldn't see. A young wife prone to fugue states is at the center of a series of murders that involve her husband, her children, and her husband's lover. A teenage boy murders his grandmother's male friend, whom he believes to be a Martian landed on Earth as part of the invasion that captivated the country in Orson Welles's broadcast of War of the Worlds—and no trace of the body can be found. What links all these dark tales from Morrow (The Diviner's Tale) is that the main characters live in the shadowland where normalcy and mania and at times even depravity meet. VERDICT Hanging on the voices of their narrators—at once fascinating in their fixations and repelling in their twisted logic—and mixing elements of Southern gothic and noir, these powerful tales will linger in the reader's mind.—Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, North Andover, MA
A set of neo-Gothic tales that seek out the line between sanity and madness in modern suburbia. The stories in this collection by Morrow (The Diviner's Tale, 2011, etc.) consistently cultivate a tone of creepy unease. The narrator of "Tsunami" coolly explains why she killed her husband, but it slowly becomes clear to the reader that she's unaware of the degree to which she's become undone by a series of tragedies in her life, while her fixation on global catastrophes underscores her loss of perspective. "Ellie's Idea" gives this slow kind of mental decline a slightly comic pitch: Determined to put her life in order after her husband leaves her, the narrator calls people she feels she's slighted, which does more harm than good. Adolescents abound in these stories, and it's easy to see why Morrow finds them appealing--they exemplify a mix of growing confusion about and awareness of the world. The title story focuses on two young sisters who pine for a brother they never had, while "The Enigma of Grover's Mill" centers on a 15-year-old boy who's struggling to negotiate the new man in his grandmother's life and his own awkward sexual awakening. Each story is skillfully turned, though a sameness to the insanity emerges--nearly everybody who loses it is hyperliterate and heartbroken, and ghoulish twists have a way of leaping from the final paragraphs. The best stories play with form: In "(Mis)laid," parenthetical comments offer retorts to an official narrative about a man taking his estranged wife hostage, and the closing "Lush" smartly alternates narratives between an alcoholic's grueling path to sobriety and a woman who becomes an unlikely part of his life. The eeriness of these stories grows overly familiar, but there's no question Morrow knows how to conjure a mood.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169718119 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 01/01/2012 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Videos
