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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jan 2005, 224 pages
Paperback:
Jan 2006, 224 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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Sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic, but always eerily affecting, these stories show us deeply foreign lands and peoples through our own eyes.
Here are six
fictional stories about Americans colliding with a remote and often perilous
part of the world:
Sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic, but always eerily affecting, these
stories show us deeply foreign lands and peoples through our own eyes.
Impressive in both range and emotional acuity, God Lives in St. Petersburg is a
stunning fictional debut by a "wildly talented" (Outside) young writer.
Death Defier
Graves had been sick
for three days when, on the long straight highway between Mazar and Kunduz, a
dark blue truck coming toward them shed its rear wheel in a spray of
orange-yellow sparks. The wheel, as though excited by its sudden liberty,
bounced twice not very high and once very high and hit their windshield with a
damp crack. "Christ!" Donk called out from the backseat. The driver,
much too late, wrenched on the steering wheel, and they fishtailed and then spun
out into the dunes alongside the road. Against one of the higher sandbanks the
Corolla slammed to a dusty halt. Sand as soft and pale as flour poured into the
partially opened windows. The shattered but still intact windshield sagged like
netting. After a moment Donk touched his forehead, his eyebrow bristles as
tender as split stitches. Thin watery blood streaked down his fingers.
From the front passenger seat Graves asked if the other three men--Donk, Hassan,
the driver--were all right. No ...
Six stories set in Central Asia, one of them a Pushcart Prize winner, written with deadpan irony and packing quite a punch...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
About the author & the Aral Sea: In 2001 Tom Bissell traveled throughout Uzbekistan, spending some time in Muynak. Forty years ago Muynak was a busy fishing port on the edge of the Aral Sea, which was formerly the fourth largest inland sea in the world but now, due to 40 years of Soviet irrigation policy, is mostly polluted desert. He recorded his thoughts and observations in a memoir, Chasing The Sea, published in 2003, which combined the story of his travels with a chronicle of Uzbekistan's culture and history. His second book, God Lives in St Petersburg,...
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