W9 and Other Lives

by Carlo Gébler

Overview

The characters depicted in this volume lead lives which are quintessentially modern; lonely, rootless and uncertain. These are not, however, stories of complaint or lament or melancholy. On the contrary, they illuminate and celebrate the courage and joy that are to be found flourishing in the most unlikely corners of human existence.

An essential primer for the way we live today, W9 and Other Stories spans the entire globe as each story gently shifts the reader's attention from one location to the next. A good number of them are situated in the author's native Ireland, where possessing a keen sense of place has a special significance all of its own.

Novelist, playwright and broadcaster Carlo Gébler was born in Dublin in 1954, the son of famous Irish novelist Edna O'Brien. A graduate of York Universityand the National Film and Television School, Gébler has directed a number of television documentaries and contributed articles to many prominent newspapers and magazines. He now lives in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. His other works include How to Murder a Man, published by Marion Boyars in 1999.

"Gébler at his disturbing best."?The Sunday Times

"Powerfully memorable."?Daily Telegraph

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780714530352
Publisher:	Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd
Publication date:	07/01/2000
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.80(d)

Editorial Reviews

This is a collection of finely crafted stories from Irish author Gbler, son of Edna O'Brien. Gbler's finest quality is to take the ordinary and infuse it with the pain and misfortune that permeates everyday life. In stories that move from London to Ireland to Mexico to Cuba, Gbler's characters grapple over lost Christmas bonuses, vicious dogs, fear of roadblocks, dead bodies, and lost family. In every story, there is a marked poignancy in the way characters relate to one another and how their relationships flourish or fade in times of crisis. Gbler skillfully negotiates his characters through the landmine of life, somehow leaving them better off for the experience. This is the first North American printing of these stories, and one hopes that more of Gbler's works will become available in the United States. Highly recommended.Dianna Moeller, WLN, Lacey, Washington

Library Journal

A first collection of 18 stories from novelist G‚bler (The Cure, 1994, not reviewed; etc.), writing from Northern Ireland, ranges near and far to provide gritty closeups of life's less-distinguished moments, when desperation most overwhelms. The title piece presents an elderly ‚migr‚ couple in London who are all but consumed by guilt at their only son's suicide a few years earlier. Their inability to release their sadness by acknowledging a share of the blame is finally ended when the son's widow stops by to tell them she's remarrying. This is about as cheery as these stricken tales get. The opener, "The Chekhov Student," is more typically lugubrious. It presents another elderly couple, unhappily married for decades, whose moment of enlightenment comes when the meek husband ('My name is Douglas Peter. I am extremely miserable. I need to describe the troubles of my life'), having stood up at last to his spouse in one of their rows, concludes on reflection that he's about to die. "Puerto Vallarta,"set in that Mexican resort, centers on a deranged, child-chomping Rottweiler, whose spectacular electrocution in a violent storm (as it gnaws on a pilfered chicken) is greeted with cheers by the neighbors. "Four Pesos," which takes place in a Cuban coastal town, concerns a petty but disastrous betrayal by a Canadian tourist, on holiday to forget her just-failed marriage, who agrees to buy forbidden goods from the tourists-only store for the maid who cleans her room, then turns her in when the woman comes up a few pesos short in their exchange. The message here, "It's a grim world, after all," albeit precisely rendered, at the same time suffers from too narrow a focus on the bruised or brokenmarriage theme: tellingly, the one suggestion of a joyous union, between a journalist and the daughter of the landed gentry he's interviewing ("A Short Story"), comes across as utterly fatuous.

Kirkus Reviews