false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167322950m/21682.jpg 21682 15 <blockquote> <p> From Dennis Lehane, the award-winning author of <i>Mystic River, Shutter Island,</i> and the Kenzie-Gennaro series, comes a striking collection of five short stories and a play. </p> </blockquote> <p> A small southern town gives birth to a dangerous man with a broken heart and a high-powered rifle. . . . </p> <p> A young girl, caught up in an inner-city gang war, crosses the line from victim to avenger. . . . An innocent man is hunted by government agents for an unspecified crime. </p> <p> . . . A boy and a girl fall in love while ransacking a rich man's house during the waning days of the Vietnam War. . . . A compromised psychiatrist confronts the unstable patient he slept with. . . . A father and a son wage a lethal battle of wits over the whereabouts of a stolen diamond and a missing woman. . . . Along with completely original material, this new col-lection is a compilation of the best of Dennis Lehane's previously published short stories, including "Until Gwen," which was adapted for the stage in 2005 and appears in this book as the play <i>Coronado</i>. </p> <p> At turns suspenseful, surreal, romantic, and tragically comic, these tales journey headlong into the heart of our national myths&#8212about class, gender, freedom, and regeneration through violence&#8212and reveal that the truth waiting for us there is not what we'd expect. </p> 1294140 1 9 2006 Coronado: Stories total:413|5:33|4:146|3:145|2:73|1:16| 413 1346 607 66 3 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 14 21:19:37 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 14 21:20:35 -0800 2009
I read these short stories across a few weeks: in those awkwardly shaped blocks of time where a short story is a neat fit and no great commitment of concentration is required. I felt that some of these short stories could...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Feb 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 03 14:34:06 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 03 14:42:21 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jul 05 16:33:07 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 20:12:34 -0700 2009 -“Until Gwen,” p. 111

Everyone seems to agree that Dennis Lehane easily quali...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:48:12 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:48:12 -0800 2009 Dennis Lehane, one of the best crime and literary fiction writers alive today, successfully answered the question most critics asked when eyeing this new collection: Can a novelist write good short stories? The answer here is a resounding yes. Reviewers agree that these stories, some previously publ...

more...]]> 4 1 true false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 24 12:54:59 -0800 2007 Sun Jan 06 18:12:45 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Thu Nov 05 13:39:41 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 08 21:58:27 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Aug 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 21 15:26:08 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 27 12:19:50 -0700 2009
It is true that the stories are uneven. Until Gwen is brilliant and Coronado is an excellent retelling of the story. Mushrooms, Down to Corpus, and Running Out of Dog, are not as s...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Oct 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 06 05:00:36 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 06 05:05:44 -0700 2009
I ended up reading a couple other stories before giving the book back. I think the blurb from Entertainment Weekly found in the first few pages says it best:
...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Sep 13 06:32:51 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 13 07:12:24 -0700 2007
The most unusual story here is "Gone Down to Corpus"...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Mar 19 20:54:22 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 19 21:06:32 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false true Wed Jan 07 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 23 11:08:02 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 23 11:11:20 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Feb 13 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 08 22:54:58 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 13 21:37:11 -0800 2009
The downside: the story that he adapted into a play - the titular Coronado - did not work for me in play format. As a story, it was just fine - m...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Aug 05 09:32:16 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 04 09:29:48 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 05 09:32:16 -0700 2008 Dot rat in each of his characters, so the ubiquitous Southern accent is...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Apr 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 24 15:05:06 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 27 07:41:43 -0700 2009
I could have done without the play, but it did help me ...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Feb 09 17:43:55 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 16 13:52:14 -0800 2007 Sat Feb 09 17:43:31 -0800 2008 ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 24 07:22:48 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 24 07:27:51 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 22 19:31:58 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 22 19:31:58 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Jan 12 10:19:56 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 12 13:07:24 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Mon Mar 09 07:17:41 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 09 07:18:49 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sun Jul 05 14:40:06 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 04 08:52:18 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 05 14:40:06 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=21682