Tea obreht biography of william hill
•
Thomas McGuane on Not Living the Writer&#;s Life
It might be convenient, perhaps even tempting, to compare the characters in Cloudbursts, Thomas McGuane’s mammoth new compendium—mammoth owing not only to its pages, but because how else to describe the planerat arbete of anthologizing a lifetime of short stories, some of them the best American literature has to offer?—to Ernest Hemingway “types.” Many of them tend to be sportsmen, wanderers, lovers of the outdoors, and representative of a very particular type of American masculinity. But below these surface-level similarities one finds McGuane’s fiction lensed with a great deal more vulnerability and heart, sorrow, and awe. His work, unlike Hemingway’s, resists instruction—be this kind of man, not that. His characters are aware of and baffled by the world’s absurdities—and, touchingly, they seem to realize they are not entitled to answers.
Article continues after advertisement
Remove Ads
Don’t get me wrong—even now, inom like reading Pa
•
“The dreamlike novel draws on elements of folklore and fairy tales for a narrative set eerily close to present day that explores environmental collapse and human resilience.”—Time
“I marveled at the subtle beauty and precision of Obreht’s prose. . . . By weaving in folklore and ample wonder, Obreht gives her climate fiction ancient roots, forcing us to reckon with the ruined world that future generations will inherit, while reminding us that even in the face of catastrophe, there’s solace to be found in art.”—Jessamine Chan, The New York Times
“A touching, inventive novel about belonging and loss.”—People
“A beautiful examination of displacement, identity, and the effects of unchecked political power, enriched with touches of magical realism and dystopia.”—Bustle
“This touching and inventive novel follows a young woman searching for meaning and belonging, both through her loving aunt’s stories and the enigmatic resident of the building’s penthouse suite.”—Oprah Daily
“An astound
•
Something might seem missing by the novel’s end, and that’s a clear sense of what larger narrative Obreht offers us about the genre she is at once using and revising. What story is Inland ultimately telling us about the American West, or about the tropes and limitations of the Western?
“Camel. Camel. How could anyone have guessed?” thinks Nora Lark, one of the two main characters in Téa Obreht’s Inland. I certainly couldn’t, at first: there’s nothing in the way Lurie, the novel’s other protagonist, speaks to his companion Burke that gives it away; there’s nothing in the conventions of the genre to which Inland more or less belongs, the Western, that prepares us for it. Inland has another surprise for us too, something about Lurie himself that we learn only after his story and Nora’s have finally intersected. In both cases, shock quickly gives way to understanding, and to appreciation of Obreht’s ingenuity. While Inland includes many elements of the classic Western—there