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19 Knives
With characters ranging from the desperate to the obsessive and wildly comic, Mark Anthony Jarman's 19 Knives employs dazzling linguistic verve and staggering metaphoric powers in every sentence. Jarman doesn't just write about people. He puts us in their skin so that we feel their frailty and courage. No other contemporary Canadian short story writer slices up the imaginative excitement, cultural hybridity, and Joycean play of language we see in 19 Knives. Including one story shortlisted for the U.S.'s prestigious O. Henry Prize, and several other prize-winners, this collection brings a major emerging fiction writer to the fore.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
154 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1997
About the author
Mark Anthony Jarman
36 books24 followersMark Anthony Jarman is the author of Knife Party at the Hotel Europa, My White Planet, 19 Knives, New Orleans Is Sinking, Dancing Nightly in the Tavern, and the travel book Ireland’s Eye. His novel, Salvage King Ya!, is on Amazon.ca’s list of 50 Essential Canadian Books and is the number one book on Amazon’s list of best hockey fiction.
He has won a Gold National Magazine Award in nonfiction, has twice won the Maclean-Hunter Endowment Award, won the Jack Hodgins Fiction Prize, and has been included in The Journey Prize Anthology and Best Canadian Stories and short-listed for the O. Henry Prize and Best American Essays.
He has published in Walrus, Canadian Geographic, Hobart, The Barcelona Review, Vrij Nederland, and reviews for The Globe & Mail. He is a graduate of The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a Yaddo fellow, has taught at the University of Victoria, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and now teaches at the University of New Brunswick, where he is fiction editor of The Fiddlehead literary journal.
A.S. BYATT on Mark Jarman:
At last. It is very irritating to discover a wonderful book published too long ago to be an official "book of the year". I was talking to a German friend, a few years ago, and we were trying to think of the greatest short story ever. We agreed enthusiastically that it was Henry James's "The Beast in the Jungle". Martin then said reflectively, "Unless it is 'Burn Man on a Texas Porch'." I had never heard of that, nor of its author, Mark Anthony Jarman, a Canadian. (Canadians specialise in great short stories - Munro, Atwood.) Jarman's collection is called 19 Knives, and it is brilliant. The writing is extraordinary, the stories are gripping, it is something new. And now I can say so.
—The Guardian, November 24, 2007
He has won a Gold National Magazine Award in nonfiction, has twice won the Maclean-Hunter Endowment Award, won the Jack Hodgins Fiction Prize, and has been included in The Journey Prize Anthology and Best Canadian Stories and short-listed for the O. Henry Prize and Best American Essays.
He has published in Walrus, Canadian Geographic, Hobart, The Barcelona Review, Vrij Nederland, and reviews for The Globe & Mail. He is a graduate of The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a Yaddo fellow, has taught at the University of Victoria, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and now teaches at the University of New Brunswick, where he is fiction editor of The Fiddlehead literary journal.
A.S. BYATT on Mark Jarman:
At last. It is very irritating to discover a wonderful book published too long ago to be an official "book of the year". I was talking to a German friend, a few years ago, and we were trying to think of the greatest short story ever. We agreed enthusiastically that it was Henry James's "The Beast in the Jungle". Martin then said reflectively, "Unless it is 'Burn Man on a Texas Porch'." I had never heard of that, nor of its author, Mark Anthony Jarman, a Canadian. (Canadians specialise in great short stories - Munro, Atwood.) Jarman's collection is called 19 Knives, and it is brilliant. The writing is extraordinary, the stories are gripping, it is something new. And now I can say so.
—The Guardian, November 24, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 26, 2019
Excellent short fiction. Cormac McCarthy mixed with a rambling western Canadian. Jarman has an incredibly unique voice that lends his stories a structure/feel unlike anybody else. Excellent character studies. Burn Man more than lives up to its reputation. The titular 19 Knives is also quite harrowing. Cougar is another highlight as is The Scout’s Lament. The opening story, Guided by Voices, sets the tone for the rest of the collection, intertextual music references, first person narrator, and almost Lynch-ian plots.
July 16, 2015
I bought this from a second-hand bookshop while on holiday in the small Norfolk village of Wells-next-the-Sea. This isn’t especially relevant to any feelings I have about it, but it seems worth noting for posterity regardless. I confess my interest in this book was entirely prompted by the combination of its unusual title with a name I’d never heard before. I bought it, and read up on it further only after I’d finished; turns out it had reviewed very well at the time, and I was pleased to note that all the author’s other books have titles that are similarly odd and compelling. But anyway: this is really quite good, and I enjoyed it in unexpected ways.
It’s a slim collection of stories, some of which are very short. The place is small-town Canada, the people are mostly working class, occasional small-time crooks, or family men and women. There are drugs and there are incidents of violence and terrible accidents. The style is somehow both florid and concise; there's generally few words on each page, but the writing is effusive, strange and evocative in a very particular way. There’s a feeling of noir about it, but there’s also that certain rambling, stoned quality associated with writers like Burroughs and Ginsberg, perhaps even Pynchon. Yet perhaps stoned is the wrong association: as I’ve suggested, there is a care and a precision at work here, even when the writing is doing its best to suggest a freewheeling ease.
Some (but not all?) of the tales assembled here are named after songs; some of the songs have something to do with the stories, but not all of the stories have anything to do with the songs. ‘Song from Under the Floorboards’ and ‘Burn Man on a Texas Porch’ are probably the finest and most complex offerings here: both offer rich meditations on sickness, ageing and the painful mundanities of life. Others are somewhat slight, reading more like tone poems or monologue routines: ‘Love is All Around Us’ is an amusing riff on the omnipresence of Margaret Atwood as one of Canada’s most celebrated literary figures, while ’19 Knives’ is a ghastly sketch of a methadone addict’s life with his son.
It’s good stuff; sometimes very good. Memorable in moments more than in its entirety, but such is the way of these things.
It’s a slim collection of stories, some of which are very short. The place is small-town Canada, the people are mostly working class, occasional small-time crooks, or family men and women. There are drugs and there are incidents of violence and terrible accidents. The style is somehow both florid and concise; there's generally few words on each page, but the writing is effusive, strange and evocative in a very particular way. There’s a feeling of noir about it, but there’s also that certain rambling, stoned quality associated with writers like Burroughs and Ginsberg, perhaps even Pynchon. Yet perhaps stoned is the wrong association: as I’ve suggested, there is a care and a precision at work here, even when the writing is doing its best to suggest a freewheeling ease.
Some (but not all?) of the tales assembled here are named after songs; some of the songs have something to do with the stories, but not all of the stories have anything to do with the songs. ‘Song from Under the Floorboards’ and ‘Burn Man on a Texas Porch’ are probably the finest and most complex offerings here: both offer rich meditations on sickness, ageing and the painful mundanities of life. Others are somewhat slight, reading more like tone poems or monologue routines: ‘Love is All Around Us’ is an amusing riff on the omnipresence of Margaret Atwood as one of Canada’s most celebrated literary figures, while ’19 Knives’ is a ghastly sketch of a methadone addict’s life with his son.
It’s good stuff; sometimes very good. Memorable in moments more than in its entirety, but such is the way of these things.
August 25, 2008
It's always hard to rate a collection of short stories because the quality often varies greatly. "Song from Under the Floorboards" was the best followed by "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "Brighten the Corners". Those three were good but the others ranged from forgettable to terrible. I got this book after reading the reviews and was a bit disappointed.
May 22, 2009
The Margaret Atwood as every-woman story where the narrator goes for beers with Don Cherry at the revolving restaurant in Calgary story is probably my favourite ever.
June 16, 2024
Some good stories with memorable lines and good scenes mixed with some very forgettable stuff. "Skin a Flea for Hide and Tallow" feels like it could have been a novel and should be one. It's great. The title "19 Knives" is also memorable and kind of sickly funny. "Cougar" has elements of a true story that happened a few years ago, though was obviously written 20+ years earlier.
January 1, 2022
Love it. Reading this inspired me to write more. This book is definitely amongst the favorites, 💖
Want to Read
July 4, 2009Added to my shelves for the enthusiastic recommendation of "Burn Man on a Texas Porch".
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews