Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
In an Uncharted Country
by
Clifford Garstang (Goodreads Author)
The award-winning stories that make up this linked collection showcase ordinary men and women in and around Rugglesville, Virginia, as they struggle to find places and identities in their families and the community. They experience natural disasters, a sun-worshipping cult, Vietnam flashbacks, kidnapping, addiction, and loss. The book's opening story, "Flood, 1978," follow...more
Paperback, 204 pages
Published
August 13th 2009
by Press 53
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
103)
I’ve read a few linked short story collections in the past. Some were very good and others, not so much. As I looked back at what qualities made the difference, I realized that it could be illustrated using what is called “coupling” in computer science. (The computer geeks can read the Wikipedia entry, for others I’ll give my higher-level definition.) In simple terms, coupling is low if different modules or sections of a computer program mostly stand alone with a minimum number of links to other...more
I could easily take each story and sing its praises. Whether you live in rural Alabama or in rural Uzbekistan, you’ll recognize the plot lines, the characters, the conflicts. They don’t end. They never end. The only variation in this theme of grief is how one tells it.
A matryoshka is a Russian objet d’art. At the same time, it’s a tinker toy for tots. Is there a larger metaphorical value to a matryoshka? If there is one, I suspect that tots will discover it only by manipulating the layers. And s...more
A matryoshka is a Russian objet d’art. At the same time, it’s a tinker toy for tots. Is there a larger metaphorical value to a matryoshka? If there is one, I suspect that tots will discover it only by manipulating the layers. And s...more
I was really impressed with these stories! I'm not usually a short story person, but these were so interesting. The characters were complicated, but realistic. And I loved that the stories were connected sometimes, so you'd see some characters in other stories, at other times in their lives. Reminded me of Olive Kitteridge in that way (and Elizabeth Strout actually blurbed the book!). I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I can definitely see myself reading this one again, whic...more
Jun 23, 2011
Sarah Honenberger
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone over 16
Recommended to Sarah by:
WriterHouse
This books packs a wallop as the literary journals who've published Garstang's storie recognize. While the settings in this debut story collection are small town universal, the characters are so much more. Garstang explores some difficult subjects with an eye for the details and voices that make his characters stick in your memory. The anxious crossing over the flooded river, the protective father who misses the danger from his farmhand, the chilling hotel room where loneliness lives, all these...more
Garstang's linked stories prismatically reveal the many lives of a rural Virginia community, moving past the external personas his characters present--tough, silent farmer, hard-drinking wife, pregnant teenager--to uncover the strangeness and uniqueness that make up any set of human lives. Some stories border on wild--"Savage Source," "The Nymph and the Woodsman"-- and make one feel, as fiction should, that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophies.
Garstang knows his characters. That may sound like a simple thing, but I think it might be the most important aspect of fiction. And I don't mean only that he does a great job portraying them (though he does), but I mean that he really gets the unknowable little quirks of their personalities, their histories, and their desires. He understands and is adept at showing how wonderfully contradictory and complex and inexplicable the human heart is. Bravo. I love this.
I like short stories and I don't read them often enough. Clifford Garstang took me to places and to meet people in little bites that were most gratifying. I made an emotional connection with characters in each story despite the fact that they were wildly different. There is a reason that Elizabeth Strout (author of Olive Ketteridge)and Tim O'Brien (author of The Things They Carried) lavished praise on the book.
Jan 30, 2010
Jared
is currently reading it
This book was written by a fraternity brother of mine. Not one I had ever met, but it came recommended from somewhere so i picked it up. It is a compilation of short stories. I started reading the first one, then it got left in my truck and forgotten about and now it is on my bookshelf again. A couple more things to do around my house and then I plan on getting back to it...
Written by a friend who's been on my Leadership Dev. committee for the past 2 years. He has quite the past, including Harvard and The World Bank (and NU, of course). Olive Kitteridge"'s author sez: "...these characters are real, vulnerable, and always, in unique ways, brave." It's astonishingly not what I expected, and I really liked it(his first).
Essentially sweet stories which let you understand a different part of the country. The woods are a character here - the trees. A reoccuring theme is a man trying to understand a woman. I loved it when the stories got supernatural, which they sometimes do.
In an Uncharted Country is an enchanting collection of stories set in the fictionalized small town of Rugglesville, Virginia, a place inhabited by locals named Alice and Hank, Walt and Betsy, but also girls with pink hair, boys with tattooed flames burning across their backs, and antique dealers who talk to their wing chairs. There are stories of loss and new life, of identity and longing, discovery and home. More than just a slice of one human community, these stories also give us dogs and deer...more
An excellent debut, filled with stories of violence and love. Of mystery, secrets, and searching. If you like Appalachian literature, then here is another author to add to the list. A highly recommended read.
While his bio consists of two bios: one, Garstang the writer, and two, Garstang the former world bank advisor for east asian affairs, these stories stay afoot in eastern blue collar farm country. Classical yet fresh in their regionality, domestic relationships are explored in such a way that the meanings at first seem quite clear but retain quite a bit of ambiguity, tension, and intrigue around them, enough that keeps you reading. A very good read.
My review of In an Uncharted Country is now at The Short Review
I heard Clifford read from this book at an event we shared. Looking forward to reading the ending of the wonderful story he began!
May 08, 2013
Nathan
marked it as to-read
Feb 11, 2013
Jonathan
marked it as to-read
Feb 02, 2013
Hina J
marked it as to-read
Jan 22, 2013
Sheri Blume
marked it as to-read
Apr 07, 2013
Anne
added it
Dec 08, 2012
Cindy Cunningham
marked it as to-read
Oct 20, 2012
Mia
marked it as to-read
Sep 27, 2012
Ruth
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Clifford Garstang grew up in the Midwest and received a BA from Northwestern University. After serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in South Korea, he earned an MA in English and a JD, both from Indiana University, and practiced international law in Singapore, Chicago, and Los Angeles with one of the largest law firms in the United States. Subsequently, he earned an MPA in International Development...more
More about Clifford Garstang...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
