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On the Yankee Station: Stories
by
William Boyd
Wiliam Boyd, winner of the Whitbread and Somerset Maugham Awards, introduces unlikely heroes desperate to redeem their unsatisfying lives.
From California poolsides to the battlegrounds of Vietnam, here is a world populated by weary souls who turn to fantasy as their sole escape from life's inequities. Stranded in an African hotel during a coup, an oafish Englishman impres...more
From California poolsides to the battlegrounds of Vietnam, here is a world populated by weary souls who turn to fantasy as their sole escape from life's inequities. Stranded in an African hotel during a coup, an oafish Englishman impres...more
Paperback, 224 pages
Published
January 26th 2011
by Vintage
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I’m not normally a fan of short story collections but an exception can always be made for the excellent writing of William Boyd. This is a good deal more conventional and accessible than the later collection ‘Fascination’ and I enjoyed it a lot more. Largely about sex (or a quest for it), the stories have a beginning, middle and an end, and are easy to understand. In some cases too easy – I was sure I must be missing something profound. I am constantly amazed by the breadth of this author’s rang...more
This was the second book of Boyd's that I'd read. After reading An Ice-Cream War I was ready to be disappointed but this book of short stories was excellent. I was gripped by the title story in which an American pilot with a penchant for napalm is paid back for his brutality by one of his mechanics. In another tale a cruel young boy is forced to look closely at himself when he sees his mother having a affair. The stories in On The Yankee Station are superbly told and one or two different enough ...more
A mixed bag of stories, some I really enjoyed and others were either too raunchy or just baffling. I think I may stick to his novels.
Look out for the 2 short stories in this featuring "Morgan Leafy" .. that famous flabby civil servant from "A good man in Africa"....
Although I prefer novels, I reallyed enjoyed a lot of these short stories, he's a good writer.
A couple of not so good stories towards the end, but most of them are great. Close to being a five-star book.
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Of Scottish descent, Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana on 7th March, 1952 and spent much of his early life there and in Nigeria where his mother was a teacher and his father, a doctor. Boyd was in Nigeria during the Biafran War, the brutal secessionist conflict which ran from 1967 to 1970 and it had a profound effect on him.
At the age of nine years he attended Gordonstoun school, in Moray,...more
More about William Boyd...
At the age of nine years he attended Gordonstoun school, in Moray,...more
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“We all possess, like it or not, the people we know, and are possessed by them in turn.”
—
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