New and Selected Stories
by Thom Jones
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Oct 2018
432 pages
Genre: Short Stories
Publication Information
From the award-winning author of story collections The Pugilist at Rest, Cold Snap, and Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine, a scorching posthumous collection featuring Jones's best new works, alongside a selection of older stories.
Jones's stories are high-octane, prose-drunk entertainment. His characters are grifters and drifters, rogues and ne'er-do-wells - some lovable, some not - but each with a voice that never fails to grab you by the collar. They include Vietnam soldiers, amateur boxers, pill poppers and veterans of the psych ward, and an unforgettable adolescent DJ radio host, among others.
Night Train perfectly captures the essence of this iconic American master, showcasing in a single collection the breadth and power of his inimitable stories.
"Starred Review. Jones is uneven, but at his best he offers a poignant, compelling view of the human condition." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. This superb volume, richly introduced by Amy Bloom, will renew appreciation of Jones' literary power." - Booklist
"While perhaps more Jones than the casual reader will want to handle, this collection condenses his literary output into an accessible volume with some standout stories." - Publishers Weekly
"Thom Jones is a one of a kind real deal genius. I would scream it from a skyscraper if it would help, I'd sell his books door to door just to let people know, and if I had enough copies I'd break into every motel and hotel I came across and leave a copy. He's one of America's great short story masters.' - Willy Vlautin, author of Lean on Pete and Don't Skip Out On Me
"Like Denis Johnson or Barry Hannah, Thom Jones's fiction thrusts you into nerve-racking proximity with the wild, the broken and the sick. His stories are so funny and so sad, and too-little read these days. If you don't know his work, this is a great place to start. If you do, you'll be glad of the chance to tune in to the final transmissions from a unique writer." - Chris Power, author of Mothers
"The stories in this collection are sometimes profane, sometimes hilarious, and always brilliant. Thom Jones was an extraordinary writer." - Kevin Powers, National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of A Shout in the Ruins and The Yellow Birds
"Thom Jones was a master of the short story, a master of the same brand of incandescent, hallucinatory creation of voices that made his contemporary Denis Johnson famous. It is a great gift for all of us to have the best of his work, new and old, here in one place. Night Train will be an amazing discovery for anyone who cares about literature." - Philipp Meyer, Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Son
"Thom Jones wrote like his hands were on fire. The stories collected in Night Train are radioactive with soul, bleak humor, and savage truth. This book affirms Jones's standing as one of short fiction's timeless masters." - Wells Tower, author of Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
This information about Night Train was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Thom Jones was a National Book Award finalist, O. Henry Award winner, and the author of the three story collections The Pugilist at Rest, Cold Snap, and Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine. He received an MFA from the University of Iowa in 1973, and worked an array of jobs from copywriter to janitor until he was published for the first time, in The New Yorker, in his mid-forties. His stories went on to be published in other magazines such as Harper's, Esquire, Playboy, and Story as well. Jones died in 2016 and was eulogized in The New Yorker by Joyce Carol Oates.
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