Between Here and the Yellow Sea

by Nic Pizzolatto Narrated by Kirby Heyborne

Overview

A reissue of Nic Pizzolatto's debut short story collection, now featuring two previously uncollected stories.

Set in variety of Southern landscapes, these startling stories excavate the ambiguous terrain of the human heart. Pizzalotto finds beauty in loneliness as his characters attempt to bridge the gulfs between themselves and others, past and present, and, the even wider chasms that separate them from their true selves.

In this stunning debut, a base-jumping, samurai park ranger parachutes off the St. Louis arch. A stained-glass artist struggles over his masterpiece for a castle in Southern Missouri and learn through great loss what his true subject will be. A schoolteacher searchers for her missing son, her only clue a mysterious, paint-smeared  stencil left behind. And, in the title story, which first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, an orphaned young man and his former high school football coach set out the kidnap the coach's daughter from Los Angeles and bring her back to East Texas.

With a forceful and compassionate voice, Pizzolatto places us at the crossroads of memory and desire, longing and loss, somewhere between here and the Yellow Sea.

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

Debut collection of nine dispassionate short stories from a 2004 National Magazine Award finalist in fiction. In "A Cryptograph," Sharon searches for her missing son, wandering the city with her only clue: a paint-dusted stencil in the shape of a tank. One of Sharon's elementary-school students, Eaton Slavin, remembers seeing the image painted on a telephone pole and offers to take Sharon there. At the site, Sharon paints a message for her son; when stopped by the police, she lets them believe that Eaton is responsible and watches silently as he is taken away. "1987, The Races" recounts an unusual joint-custody afternoon. After seeing his gambler father humiliated at the track, an 11-year-old boy decides to desert dad and telephones his mother to come pick him up. In the title story (first published in the Atlantic), Bobby, a sewer-treatment employee, reunites with his former high-school football coach in a hare-brained scheme to kidnap the coach's daughter from the world of pornography. Once they arrive at her Los Angeles home, Bobby discovers he doesn't know the full extent of the father and daughter's past. The best of the lot is the almost-novella "Nepal." A glazier named Thomas, hired to finish a castle in southern Missouri in 1922, is restoring the greenhouse when he meets Carmen, English niece of the wealthy owners. She was sent to Missouri to recover from the death of her fiance, killed in the war, and Thomas bears more than a passing resemblance to the dead man. While Carmen's obsession with him lands Thomas a prestigious stained-glass assignment, it also culminates in a near-tragedy. As stand-alone stories, they mostly work, but in the context of a collection, the author's lackof empathy for his characters becomes off-putting.

Publishers Weekly - Audio

07/27/2015
Reader Heyborne brings just the right amount of vocal tidings to this debut story collection, originally published in 2005, by True Detective creator Pizzolatto. The author’s storytelling has a lyrical truth to it and touches on themes of loss, loneliness, and alienation, whether it be a mother searching for a missing and deeply troubled son (“A Cryptograph”), a park ranger who uses base jumping to work through his addiction and physical pain (“Ghost Birds”), or a young son discovering that his father is all too human (“1987, the Races”). Heyborne uses a straightforward, low-key delivery in his narration that fits well with the author’s reflective tone. His reading brings an almost dreamlike melancholia to these tales, elevating their emotional content and drawing the listener deep into the lives of these characters and their world. A Dzanc paperback. (May)

From the Publisher

"Pizzolatto’s powerful fiction harkens back to the golden age of short stories when O’Connor and the rest were working. He possesses an apparently unlimited imagination and the narrative skills to bring it to bear." —William Gay, author of Twilight and The Lost Country

"Nic Pizzolatto is one of the most exciting young writers to come along in ages. If, like me, you read his first stories when they appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and were wondering whether or not he could sustain such excellence over the course of a book, wonder no more. This collection is first-rate, and Pizzolatto is going to be wowing us for a long, long time to come." —Steve Yarbrough, author of Prisoners of War and The Realm of Last Chances

"These stories are violent, sad, and beautiful. They hang around long after you've read them, like a long kiss, or a bruise." – Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish and Ray in Reverse

"Nic Pizzolatto’s beautiful, lucid prose seems to flow like water or like music. He knows how to write in the marrow of his bones. This will be the first of many brilliant books. Hooray for talent, that rare and lovely gift of the gods." —Ellen Gilchrist, author of Victory Over Japan and Nora Jane

"These are bold, tender, and intelligent stories. Nic Pizzolatto writes about people who don't take loss lightly; they fight it. Whether searching for a disappeared daughter or underground son or for their own abandoned illusions, Pizzolatto's characters try to retrieve and recover their bets. That they rarely succeed doesn't matter. Interesting and beautiful things happen in Between Here and the Yellow Sea." —Molly Giles, author of Iron Shoes

"The stories in Between Here and the Yellow Sea are clear of vision and death-defyingly beautiful. They ring like folded steel and reveal themselves in bold flashes. It's said that a well told story honors the living. The stories in Pizzolatto's debut collection are alive – veins apulse, hearts brimmed with desire, voices still singing." —Adam Johnson, author of The Orphan Master's Son and Emporium

"These stories are so exquisite they ache with longing." —Tom Franklin, author of Hell at the Breach and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

"Nic Pizzolatto is a born storyteller of the first order. His characters are so authentic you know if you prick them they will holler, and if you cut them they will bleed. He penetrates the heart of ‘the old, weird America’ with the insight of Dylan and the soul of Doc Boggs. Between Here and the Yellow Sea marks the debut of one of our most exciting new writers." mdash;Randall Kenan, author of Let the Dead Bury Their Dead

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171734947
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	05/12/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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