DECEMBER 2013 - AudioFile
Narrator Christian Baskous infuses this short story collection by a much acclaimed writer with vitality that brings its characters to life. The prose is tight and sparse; Baskous's narration gives us much more. His interpretation of Spanish-accented English is realistic, adding to the ambiance, rather than distracting us. He’s excellent at differentiating characters, particularly in the lengthy dialogue exchanges in various scenes. This is a volume that travels around Latin America from story to story, and Baskous is flexible as he brings across the angst of male youth in one story, the boredom of middle age in another. An outstanding book is matched by an equally strong delivery. M.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
bn.com
The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
With current affairs growing more painful by the day, and our reputation abroad tarnished, American readers naturally turn to literature with a global perspective. Who better to help us understand who we are and where we're going than our most articulate, thoughtful writers? It's our pleasure to introduce Ben Fountain, a writer with a sharp, provocative mind whose debut, a collection of eight short stories, offers both a journey to places most of us have never seen, and a view on life and war that's full of ambiguity.
Moral quandaries serve as a theme in Fountain's stories, spun in such a way as to raise the ire of readers, if not to leave them disillusioned with how things work in third-world countries and the way prosperous countries, like our own, bully their way in, regardless of the cost. The power of Wall Street is showcased in "Asian Tiger," in which a mediocre American golfer in Burma serves as a front man for a shady business transaction. In "Near-Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera," a financial executive intent on striking a lucrative business deal with Colombian revolutionaries remains powerless to affect the release of an American hostage. With each story a fascinating portrayal of ordinary men and women wrestling with difficult moral decisions, Fountain has produced a collection that is not to be missed.
(Fall 2006 Selection)
Liesl Schillinger
Each of these eight stories is as rich as a novel -- high praise when you consider how many of today’s novels could be distilled into a short story. Throughout his book, Fountain makes the strange familiar and the familiar strange, showing the human factor that links seemingly diverse nations. Heartbreaking, absurd, deftly drawn, his stories bear out the offhand remark of one of his memorable minor characters, a Burmese golf pro named Tommy. "You know . . . this is what I think. I think most days the truth is just another possibility."
— The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Six of these eight debut short stories feature Americans abroad, on modified grand tours stopping in Colombia, Haiti, Myanmar and Sierra Leone. As aid workers, soldiers and hangers-on, they grapple with some of the darkest circumstances in the contemporary world, their struggles made absurd by the ease with which they can and do return home. A few are honorably conflicted, including the NGO worker who betrays her diamond-smuggling lover. Others, including an indolent golfer who sells his soul along with his game, and a writer nursing an obsession with Che Guevara, draw less sympathy. Fountain seems to see both travel and introspection as amoral indulgences, which means there's serious writerly self-hatred here, since those indulgences feed his tales. The stories that avoid moral writhings for postmodern fable are his most memorable. When a Haitian fisherman discovers a drug runners' drop-off and tries to alert the police, only to find them driving shiny new SUVs, he turns next to the village's voodoo revelers-who have better ideas about what to do with the dope. Lively work, with much to detest and much to enjoy. (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Many a protagonist in this solid, aptly titled debut collection from Fountain (fiction editor, Southwest Review) seems to carry a deep guilt about privilege. Whether a graduate student kidnapped by guerrillas while doing fieldwork on a rare species of bird in Colombia or a relief worker in Sierra Leone caught up with a diamond smuggler, these characters navigate the moral minefield of doing good deeds while being very human. Fountain quietly builds a story so that the cultural reality of its setting seeps into the most mundane love affairs, golf tournaments, or fishing trips (the excellent "Bouki and the Cocaine"). Despite their various international settings and plots, the stories are not overweeningly ambitious and are rarely emotional or enlightening. If anything, they fall away from conclusions or epiphanies, which may be their most potent aspect. Only one story, the anomalous and well-paced "Fantasy for Eleven Fingers," about a piano prodigy in fin-de-siecle Vienna, strives for a Roald Dahl finale. Recommended for most fiction collections.-Prudence Peiffer, Cambridge, MA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Eight powerful stories, most of them set in the world's grimmest corners. Well-traveled American writers can be hard to come by these days, and fewer still would go to the places where many of Fountain's characters languish. In "Asian Tiger," a golf pro who blew his shot at the big time gets work the only place he can-a resort in Myanmar, where he helps toxically corrupt military leaders work on their swings while they strike deals with equally immoral foreign profiteers; in "The Lion's Mouth," a charity worker in Sierra Leone struggles to make her relationship with a diamond smuggler jibe with her altruistic efforts to help the women who are victimized by that very trade. It would be easy enough to turn these plots into pat lectures about the injustices of globalization in general or Ugly Americans in particular, but Fountain's smarter than that; much like Graham Greene, he has a nuanced understanding of how these circumstances affect both native and visitor, and like Greene, he can approach this kind of material with a light touch, even humor. In the title story, the narrator learns that one of his coworkers at a moving company claims to have killed the famous Cuban revolutionary, and in "The Good Ones Are Already Taken," a special-ops soldier returns from Haiti to his wife in Fayetteville, N.C., where he tells her he's now married to a lwa, or voodoo goddess, to whom he'll now have to devote himself on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The closing story, "Fantasy for Eleven Fingers," initially seems to be the outlier: It's the story of Anna Kuhl, an Austrian Jewish piano prodigy with 11 fingers who becomes a phenomenon in the classical-music world. But the author's main theme is alienation, andthe story's conclusion proves its effects can be as savage in a German concert hall as in the Colombian jungle. An impeccable debut collection; if Fountain can keep it up, he's an heir to Paul Theroux.
From the Publisher
...exceptional story collection...” — New York Times Book Review
“In this first collection the author brings the virtuosity of Greene and le Carre to tales of foreign adventures.” — Boston Globe
“Brilliant...” — Seattle Times
“An impressive and entertaining book of short stories...” — Newsday
“An impeccable debut collection; if Fountain can keep it up, he’s an heir to Paul Theroux.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Exhilarating first story collection.” — New York Newsday
“…exceptional story collection…” — Raleigh News & Observer
“Ben Fountain writes deftly about fear and disorientation abroad in his first story collection.” — Outside magazine
“[Fountain] is a gifted storyteller and his collection will blow your literary socks off.” — Tucson Citizen
“Wildly plotted, astutely observed, and beautifully rendered.” — Daivd Means, author of Assorted Fire Events and The Secret Goldfish
“Fountain has the storytelling gifts to bring the world home to us and a moral compass set to true north.” — Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan
“Fountain’s confidence in taking on real world problems is matched by his reluctance to pontificate or judge.” — Nell Freudenberger, author of The Dissident
“It is such an unexpected joy, in this age of introspection, to discover an American writer with a global outlook.” — Jim Crace, author of Genesis and Being Dead
“Ben Fountain...blew me out of the water. These stories are absolutely jaw-dropping.” — Audrey Bullar, team leader, Jospeh-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati, Ohio, for PW's Galley Talk
“[A] brilliant...exhilarating book, filled with heavenly language and insight.” — Tom Bissell, author of Chasing the Sea and God Lives in St. Petersburg
“. . .finely crafted. . . irony abounds in Fountain’s mini-theaters of the absurd.” — Texas Monthly
“Fountain ... gets his message across without forsaking characterization and vivid descriptiveness. . .a revealing view of the human condition.” — Miami Herald
“...Fountain’s stories reach for a broader engagement...This book is a step in the right direction.” — Boston Sunday Globe
“. . .wonderful. . .lush, sophisticated...very funny. . .Fountain is an original...” — Boston Herald
“Ben Fountain writes the kind of stories that Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene used to write.” — Dallas Morning News
“. . .grand. . . darkly funny. . . important as anything you will see on the nightly news.” — Deseret Morning News
“[Fountain’s] really a bright light on character in extreme conditions.” — Will Blythe, The News and Observer
“An exceptional story collection. . . Heartbreaking, absurd, deftly drawn. . .” — New York Times Book Review
“Ben Fountain writes the kind of stories that Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene used to write... — San Diego Union-Tribune
“... Fountain[’s]excursions into foreign infernos have an innocence all their own.” — Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Superb debut story collection... Fountain knows the Third World; he [writes] with a precision that suggests firsthand knowledge.” — Salon
“The work of a talented writer pursuing compelling and complicated themes.” — Austin Chronicle
“...an author with a gift for reaching into the past and producing something compelling and new.” — Los Angeles Book Review
“Fountain is a writer to watch; better, a writer to read.” — Buffalo News
“ ... Fountain chooses just the right details, metaphors, similes and descriptions...life rendered in sentences seem[s] as life lived.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“... an author with a gift for reaching into the past and producing something compelling and new.” — Baltimore Sun
“Ben Fountain takes readers all over the world, navigating the alleys of the human soul with an expert’s hand.” — The California Aggie
” ...the ambition and global outlook of Fountain’s fiction marks a welcome addition to the literature produced in our state.” — Houston Chronicle
“Short-story collections don’t come much better than this. Brief Encounters With Che Guevara offers pointed prose, nimble revelation...” — Philadelphia Inquirer
“Fountain... is the perfect author to convert people who don’t read short stories.” — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
“He imbues each narrative with an understanding of international politics and conflicts, and the sticky moral complexities involved.” — Cleveland Plain Dealer
New York Times Book Review
...exceptional story collection...
Outside Magazine
Ben Fountain writes deftly about fear and disorientation abroad in his first story collection.
Boston Globe
In this first collection the author brings the virtuosity of Greene and le Carre to tales of foreign adventures.
Tucson Citizen
[Fountain] is a gifted storyteller and his collection will blow your literary socks off.
Daivd Means
Wildly plotted, astutely observed, and beautifully rendered.
Seattle Times
Brilliant...
Newsday
An impressive and entertaining book of short stories...
Raleigh News & Observer
…exceptional story collection…
New York Newsday
Exhilarating first story collection.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
... Fountain[’s]excursions into foreign infernos have an innocence all their own.
Los Angeles Book Review
...an author with a gift for reaching into the past and producing something compelling and new.
Boston Sunday Globe
...Fountain’s stories reach for a broader engagement...This book is a step in the right direction.
San Francisco Chronicle
... Fountain chooses just the right details, metaphors, similes and descriptions...life rendered in sentences seem[s] as life lived.
Will Blythe
[Fountain’s] really a bright light on character in extreme conditions.
Tom Bissell
[A] brilliant...exhilarating book, filled with heavenly language and insight.
Baltimore Sun
... an author with a gift for reaching into the past and producing something compelling and new.
Gary Shteyngart
Fountain has the storytelling gifts to bring the world home to us and a moral compass set to true north.
Boston Herald
. . .wonderful. . .lush, sophisticated...very funny. . .Fountain is an original...
Philadelphia Inquirer
Short-story collections don’t come much better than this. Brief Encounters With Che Guevara offers pointed prose, nimble revelation...
Salon
Superb debut story collection... Fountain knows the Third World; he [writes] with a precision that suggests firsthand knowledge.
Austin Chronicle
The work of a talented writer pursuing compelling and complicated themes.
Buffalo News
Fountain is a writer to watch; better, a writer to read.
The California Aggie
Ben Fountain takes readers all over the world, navigating the alleys of the human soul with an expert’s hand.
Deseret Morning News
. . .grand. . . darkly funny. . . important as anything you will see on the nightly news.
Audrey Bullar
Ben Fountain...blew me out of the water. These stories are absolutely jaw-dropping.
Jim Crace
It is such an unexpected joy, in this age of introspection, to discover an American writer with a global outlook.
San Diego Union-Tribune
Ben Fountain writes the kind of stories that Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene used to write...
Houston Chronicle
” ...the ambition and global outlook of Fountain’s fiction marks a welcome addition to the literature produced in our state.
Dallas Morning News
Ben Fountain writes the kind of stories that Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene used to write.
Nell Freudenberger
Fountain’s confidence in taking on real world problems is matched by his reluctance to pontificate or judge.
Texas Monthly
. . .finely crafted. . . irony abounds in Fountain’s mini-theaters of the absurd.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Fountain... is the perfect author to convert people who don’t read short stories.
Miami Herald
Fountain ... gets his message across without forsaking characterization and vivid descriptiveness. . .a revealing view of the human condition.
Texas Monthly
. . .finely crafted. . . irony abounds in Fountain’s mini-theaters of the absurd.
Miami Herald
Fountain ... gets his message across without forsaking characterization and vivid descriptiveness. . .a revealing view of the human condition.
San Francisco Chronicle
... Fountain chooses just the right details, metaphors, similes and descriptions...life rendered in sentences seem[s] as life lived.
Outside magazine
Ben Fountain writes deftly about fear and disorientation abroad in his first story collection.
DECEMBER 2013 - AudioFile
Narrator Christian Baskous infuses this short story collection by a much acclaimed writer with vitality that brings its characters to life. The prose is tight and sparse; Baskous's narration gives us much more. His interpretation of Spanish-accented English is realistic, adding to the ambiance, rather than distracting us. He’s excellent at differentiating characters, particularly in the lengthy dialogue exchanges in various scenes. This is a volume that travels around Latin America from story to story, and Baskous is flexible as he brings across the angst of male youth in one story, the boredom of middle age in another. An outstanding book is matched by an equally strong delivery. M.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
