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Facing the Music
Facing the Music, Larry Brown’s first book, was originally published in 1988 to wide critical acclaim. As the St. Petersburg Times review pointed out, the central theme of these ten stories “is the ageless collision of man with woman, woman with man--with the frequent introduction of that other familiar couple, drinking and violence. Most often ugly, love is nevertheless graceful, however desperate the situation.”
There’s some glare from the brutally bright light Larry Brown shines on his subjects. This is the work of a writer unafraid to gaze directly at characters challenged by crisis and pathology. But for readers who are willing to look, unblinkingly, along with the writer, there are unusual rewards.
There’s some glare from the brutally bright light Larry Brown shines on his subjects. This is the work of a writer unafraid to gaze directly at characters challenged by crisis and pathology. But for readers who are willing to look, unblinkingly, along with the writer, there are unusual rewards.
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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919 people want to read
About the author
Larry Brown
73 books654 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Larry Brown was an American writer who was born and lived in Oxford, Mississippi. Brown wrote fiction and nonfiction. He graduated from high school in Oxford but did not go to college. Many years later, he took a creative writing class from the Mississippi novelist Ellen Douglas. Brown served in the United States Marine Corps from 1970 to 1972. On his return to Oxford, he worked at a small stove company before joining the city fire department. An avid reader, Brown began writing in his spare time while he worked as a firefighter in Oxford in 1980.
Brown was awarded the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction. Brown was the first two-time winner of the Southern Book Award for Fiction, which he won in 1992 for his novel, Joe and again in 1997 for his novel Father and Son. In 1998, he received a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Award, which granted him $35,000 per year for three years to write. In 2000, the State of Mississippi granted him a Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts. For one semester, Brown taught as a writer-in-residence in the creative writing program at the University of Mississippi, temporarily taking over the position held by his friend Barry Hannah. He later served as visiting writer at the University of Montana in Missoula. He taught briefly at other colleges throughout the United States.
Brown died of an apparent heart attack at his home in the Yocona community, near Oxford, in November 2004.
Larry Brown was an American writer who was born and lived in Oxford, Mississippi. Brown wrote fiction and nonfiction. He graduated from high school in Oxford but did not go to college. Many years later, he took a creative writing class from the Mississippi novelist Ellen Douglas. Brown served in the United States Marine Corps from 1970 to 1972. On his return to Oxford, he worked at a small stove company before joining the city fire department. An avid reader, Brown began writing in his spare time while he worked as a firefighter in Oxford in 1980.
Brown was awarded the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction. Brown was the first two-time winner of the Southern Book Award for Fiction, which he won in 1992 for his novel, Joe and again in 1997 for his novel Father and Son. In 1998, he received a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Award, which granted him $35,000 per year for three years to write. In 2000, the State of Mississippi granted him a Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts. For one semester, Brown taught as a writer-in-residence in the creative writing program at the University of Mississippi, temporarily taking over the position held by his friend Barry Hannah. He later served as visiting writer at the University of Montana in Missoula. He taught briefly at other colleges throughout the United States.
Brown died of an apparent heart attack at his home in the Yocona community, near Oxford, in November 2004.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 105 reviews
September 10, 2021
Larry Brown is a realistic and convincing raconteur. Facing the Music is a book of wistful stories – ten pieces of despair and unhappiness… Ten tales about love and an absence of love.
Absence of love surely makes one unhappy. And love can bring even more unhappiness…
There are too many things capable to make us unhappy…
I’m thinking that your first love is your best love, that you’ll never find any better. The way she did it was like she was saying, here I am, I’m all yours, all of me, forever. Nothing’s changed. She turns the light off, and we reach to find each other in the darkness like people who are blind.
Absence of love surely makes one unhappy. And love can bring even more unhappiness…
She’s another one of the crazy ones. I don’t know why I’m the one who always finds them, goes straight to them like a pointer after birds. They’re not worth the trouble. They drive me nuts with their kids and their divorces and their diet pills and their friends in trouble and their ex-husbands for whom they still carry the torch. They promise and promise and promise.
There are too many things capable to make us unhappy…
January 27, 2014
According to Larry Brown's first collection of short stories Facing the Music, some of the joys of life I get to look forward to over the next two decades are as follows: unfulfilling marriages, infidelity, unwanted children, domestic abuse, back problems, alcoholism, cancer, numbness, loneliness, unexpected run-ins with terminal violence, poverty and, naturally, suicide. Thanks, Larry! The second half of my twenties is already looking promising.
But before I crawl off into the nearest bottle of Old Grandad, let me say a word or two more about this collection. For the most part, firefighter-turned-gloomy-author Larry Brown, delivers each of the ten stories in this slim collection in a clean, economical prose. A majority of these stories feature first-person accounts of men coming to tiny realizations about the inescapable and disappointing banality and wearisomeness of existence. There is a fair amount of humor to be found in a few of these stories, but the jokes come in droll, sober deliveries.
The other half of the stories in this collection find Brown flexing his experimental chops with varying degrees of success. "Julie: A Memory" is a muddled jumble of events spanning across the relationship between a young man and woman, featuring a sentence by sentence shift in time with the narration flitting around faster than Billy Pilgrim can blink. "Boy and Dog," is written in the lay-out a poem and gives a See-Spot-Run style account of what happens when you are an asshole who hits-and-runs dogs. "Kubuku Rides" plays around with dialect as it shows how a sorry excuse for a mother breaks down her husband's spirit with her abusive bouts of drinking.
All the stories in this collection worked well enough for me. While I wasn't wow-ed at any point, I enjoyed all the Southern pessimism and Leonard Cohen-esque moroseness that carried each of the stories along. I'm looking forward to seeing how Brown's writing develops over the following novels and collections that followed this tender and firm-footed debut.
Did I say Leonard Cohen? I meant Drive-By Truckers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WGu7d...
But before I crawl off into the nearest bottle of Old Grandad, let me say a word or two more about this collection. For the most part, firefighter-turned-gloomy-author Larry Brown, delivers each of the ten stories in this slim collection in a clean, economical prose. A majority of these stories feature first-person accounts of men coming to tiny realizations about the inescapable and disappointing banality and wearisomeness of existence. There is a fair amount of humor to be found in a few of these stories, but the jokes come in droll, sober deliveries.
The other half of the stories in this collection find Brown flexing his experimental chops with varying degrees of success. "Julie: A Memory" is a muddled jumble of events spanning across the relationship between a young man and woman, featuring a sentence by sentence shift in time with the narration flitting around faster than Billy Pilgrim can blink. "Boy and Dog," is written in the lay-out a poem and gives a See-Spot-Run style account of what happens when you are an asshole who hits-and-runs dogs. "Kubuku Rides" plays around with dialect as it shows how a sorry excuse for a mother breaks down her husband's spirit with her abusive bouts of drinking.
All the stories in this collection worked well enough for me. While I wasn't wow-ed at any point, I enjoyed all the Southern pessimism and Leonard Cohen-esque moroseness that carried each of the stories along. I'm looking forward to seeing how Brown's writing develops over the following novels and collections that followed this tender and firm-footed debut.
Did I say Leonard Cohen? I meant Drive-By Truckers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WGu7d...
April 30, 2022
"Estuve un rato por ahí con la camioneta. No quería volver a casa aún. Quería huir pero no tenía ningún sitio al que huir. Hay gente que puede largarse sin más, dan la espalda, echan a andar y nunca vuelven la vista atrás. Yo no. Aunque no dejara de pensarlo.”
Si me habeís leído en el blog ya sabeís que Larry Brown es una de mis debilidades desde que lo descubrí el año pasado, así que no voy a enrollarme mucho en esta reseña porque todo lo importante sobre Larry Brown ya lo he mencionado antes en lo que escribí sobre él, pero sigo reafirmándome en lo brutal que es este escritor, en lo cálidos y humanos que resultan sus personajes por muy duro que sea lo que nos estén contando sobre sus vidas. “Dar la cara” (Facing the music), fue el primero de los libros que publicó, en 1988, y no salgo de mi asombro por cómo es capaz de transmitirnos tanta vida, tanta infelicidad y al mismo tiempo tanta esperanza en muchos momentos.
Esta colección contiene diez relatos de personajes que pasan por diferentes fases en sus vidas y el lector tiene la gran suerte, de estar ahí en ese momento, viviéndo estos instantes con ellos, gracias a la maestria de un escritor como Brown. Amores imposibles o rotos, problemas domésticos, alcohol, paro, violencia, no sé, la vida tal cual es, sin edulcorantes pero con la suficiente humanidad para que el lector se sienta en sintonía. Diez relatos que ya cómo es normal en mis hábitos, iba leyendo uno cada noche y no puedo por menos que volver a decir...¡Larry Brown, maestro!!
A continuación una pequeña reflexión sobre estos relatos.
1. Dar la cara: El relato que pone título a la colección y que admito que me voló la cabeza. El punto de vista es el masculino pero realmente es la mujer quién aparentemente se lleva la peor parte... lo que me hizo volar la cabeza fue captar este punto de vista de él, como hombre. Una maravilla.
2. Kubuki a las riendas: Una pareja con un hijo, dónde ella es alcohólica ¿se puede contar mejor la tensión familiar producida por esta adicción? Larry Brown retrata como nadie la naturaleza humana con sus altos y bajos. Leo por ahí que Dylan, muy fan de Larry Brown, usó una cita de este relato para su canción Sugar Baby: Lots of places to hide things (if) you want to hide them bad enough.
3. Los Ricos: El señor Pellisher debido a que trabaja en una agencia de viajes se relaciona con gente con mayor poder adquisitivo que él, gente rica que se lo puede permitir casi todo. Una reflexión sobre ellos comparado con su vida.
4. El viejo Frank y Jesús: Este relato me llegó al alma. Un granjero, veterano de guerra, desesperado y cansado y de cómo somos testigos de sus reflexiones sentado en un sofá. Joya.
"Pero a decir verdad al señor P le preocupa todo bastante. Se pasa todo el santo día preocupado. Es muy probable que no pase un solo minuto, estando despierto, en que no haya alguna cosa que le preocupe. Es como si cargase con un peso del que no va a poder librarse ni aun queriendo porque no hay manera de quitárselo de encima."
5. Niño y perro: Un relato en forma de poema y de cómo la infancia conserva una cierta inocencia a pesar de la dureza de la vida.
6. Julie: un recuerdo: Para ser un relato de sus inicios yo diría que es un cuento maestro sobre Larry Brown experimentando con la forma. Cada frase pertenece a una linea temporal diferente y así y todo el lector que participa activamente, lo va captando todo. Una genialidad de relato
7. Samaritanos: Otro relato de los que se me quedará grabado. Tiene su punto de humor, pero eso no signfica que sea menos duro. El narrador tomándose una cerveza sumido en sus problemas, es testigo de una situación que impactará al lector, igual que le impacta a él. Grande!!
8. Vida Nocturna: Encuentros en un bar y a partir de aquí, Larry Brown construye una historia que podría ser como la de cualquiera de nosotros:
“Me doy cuenta de que hay algo que le molesta. Solo quiere que la dejen en paz. No quiere bailar. Tiene su propia botella y su propia mesa, sus propios problemas de los que yo no sé nada.”
9. Adiós a la ciudad: La historia de otro encuentro contada desde los dos puntos de vista: la de él y la de ella. A veces me sorprende la forma en que Brown es capaz de darnos tanta información sobre los estados emocionales de sus personajes en tan pocas páginas. Personajes desesperanzados en crisis y sin embargo, hay un momento determinado que gracias a un encuentro inesperado, surge un resquicio de luz.
10. El fin de una historia de amor: la historia de una pareja que está ya rota, y el punto de vista de él, es tan directo y cercano, que cuando llega el final, no puedes por menos que sonreir. Larry Brown tiene una habilidad asombrosa por mezclar la infelicidad con estos resquicios de luz y de humor. Brillante final para una colección asombrosa. Te adoro Larry!!
La traducción es de Javier Lucini.
"Si ella se largaba podría irme a casa, abrir todas las puertas, poner la música a todo trapo, ser libre. Si se me antojaba podría dormir por el día y volver a escribir por la noche, sin parar durante ocho o diez horas
(...)
Todo volvería a ser diferente y lo mismo."
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2022...
Si me habeís leído en el blog ya sabeís que Larry Brown es una de mis debilidades desde que lo descubrí el año pasado, así que no voy a enrollarme mucho en esta reseña porque todo lo importante sobre Larry Brown ya lo he mencionado antes en lo que escribí sobre él, pero sigo reafirmándome en lo brutal que es este escritor, en lo cálidos y humanos que resultan sus personajes por muy duro que sea lo que nos estén contando sobre sus vidas. “Dar la cara” (Facing the music), fue el primero de los libros que publicó, en 1988, y no salgo de mi asombro por cómo es capaz de transmitirnos tanta vida, tanta infelicidad y al mismo tiempo tanta esperanza en muchos momentos.
Esta colección contiene diez relatos de personajes que pasan por diferentes fases en sus vidas y el lector tiene la gran suerte, de estar ahí en ese momento, viviéndo estos instantes con ellos, gracias a la maestria de un escritor como Brown. Amores imposibles o rotos, problemas domésticos, alcohol, paro, violencia, no sé, la vida tal cual es, sin edulcorantes pero con la suficiente humanidad para que el lector se sienta en sintonía. Diez relatos que ya cómo es normal en mis hábitos, iba leyendo uno cada noche y no puedo por menos que volver a decir...¡Larry Brown, maestro!!
A continuación una pequeña reflexión sobre estos relatos.
1. Dar la cara: El relato que pone título a la colección y que admito que me voló la cabeza. El punto de vista es el masculino pero realmente es la mujer quién aparentemente se lleva la peor parte... lo que me hizo volar la cabeza fue captar este punto de vista de él, como hombre. Una maravilla.
2. Kubuki a las riendas: Una pareja con un hijo, dónde ella es alcohólica ¿se puede contar mejor la tensión familiar producida por esta adicción? Larry Brown retrata como nadie la naturaleza humana con sus altos y bajos. Leo por ahí que Dylan, muy fan de Larry Brown, usó una cita de este relato para su canción Sugar Baby: Lots of places to hide things (if) you want to hide them bad enough.
3. Los Ricos: El señor Pellisher debido a que trabaja en una agencia de viajes se relaciona con gente con mayor poder adquisitivo que él, gente rica que se lo puede permitir casi todo. Una reflexión sobre ellos comparado con su vida.
4. El viejo Frank y Jesús: Este relato me llegó al alma. Un granjero, veterano de guerra, desesperado y cansado y de cómo somos testigos de sus reflexiones sentado en un sofá. Joya.
"Pero a decir verdad al señor P le preocupa todo bastante. Se pasa todo el santo día preocupado. Es muy probable que no pase un solo minuto, estando despierto, en que no haya alguna cosa que le preocupe. Es como si cargase con un peso del que no va a poder librarse ni aun queriendo porque no hay manera de quitárselo de encima."
5. Niño y perro: Un relato en forma de poema y de cómo la infancia conserva una cierta inocencia a pesar de la dureza de la vida.
6. Julie: un recuerdo: Para ser un relato de sus inicios yo diría que es un cuento maestro sobre Larry Brown experimentando con la forma. Cada frase pertenece a una linea temporal diferente y así y todo el lector que participa activamente, lo va captando todo. Una genialidad de relato
7. Samaritanos: Otro relato de los que se me quedará grabado. Tiene su punto de humor, pero eso no signfica que sea menos duro. El narrador tomándose una cerveza sumido en sus problemas, es testigo de una situación que impactará al lector, igual que le impacta a él. Grande!!
8. Vida Nocturna: Encuentros en un bar y a partir de aquí, Larry Brown construye una historia que podría ser como la de cualquiera de nosotros:
“Me doy cuenta de que hay algo que le molesta. Solo quiere que la dejen en paz. No quiere bailar. Tiene su propia botella y su propia mesa, sus propios problemas de los que yo no sé nada.”
9. Adiós a la ciudad: La historia de otro encuentro contada desde los dos puntos de vista: la de él y la de ella. A veces me sorprende la forma en que Brown es capaz de darnos tanta información sobre los estados emocionales de sus personajes en tan pocas páginas. Personajes desesperanzados en crisis y sin embargo, hay un momento determinado que gracias a un encuentro inesperado, surge un resquicio de luz.
10. El fin de una historia de amor: la historia de una pareja que está ya rota, y el punto de vista de él, es tan directo y cercano, que cuando llega el final, no puedes por menos que sonreir. Larry Brown tiene una habilidad asombrosa por mezclar la infelicidad con estos resquicios de luz y de humor. Brillante final para una colección asombrosa. Te adoro Larry!!
La traducción es de Javier Lucini.
"Si ella se largaba podría irme a casa, abrir todas las puertas, poner la música a todo trapo, ser libre. Si se me antojaba podría dormir por el día y volver a escribir por la noche, sin parar durante ocho o diez horas
(...)
Todo volvería a ser diferente y lo mismo."
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2022...
May 18, 2022
Okay. Alright. Stop. You know who you are and what you must be. Wherever you are, in an imagined better place or otherwise. Stop whatever you have been doing and read this fine collection of short stories, the erstwhile fireman's first published work if I'm not mistaken.
Right off the bat, from the get-go, a few pages in unlike the Black Eyed Peas he Got Me laughing, then immediately afterward I felt bad because the situations within these papery borders were definitely not funny, but rather poignant. That's the power of Brown's writing ( this guy opted I think ( a disclaimer I know) not to attend college, but oh boy such talent ! Just being smug that talent is inherent hehe something that I keep saying ) and this amazing dry southern wit that he possessed, sense of humor that was him and on the money, always.
Even when he's killing us with so much bleak reflection of us, and where we are. Where we are stranded for now. Maybe he is just making us sad about where we are headed. Where we must not go and where we must.
I totally loved the first Song in this collection. I enjoyed how our hero was enjoying the movie on his TV as the narration unfolded. The sadness in that short story made me sad. It was the kinda sadness that comes with experience, with having experienced something, with aging, sage, and bittersweet. Feeling you get after living a while. You could tell something had happened with this couple. Something tragic had come to pass. Maybe love that's gone now or the love that won't go away. A story of a centuries-old war between men and women; a war of giving in and then the ultimate defeat; acceptance. Things we do to each other. We need one another but not what we give.
It reminded me of Hemingway's short story, Hills like White Elephants ( one of my favs) only better, well clearer with more open motivations and a wow ending. Wow as in the spine-tingling wordlings.
Tell me, how can this book not make you think of you? It made me think of you, that I know. It made me think of you and make you up. Damn, Larry Brown can write. He used to anyway, he's dead now. And that's saddening and maddening right about now. Want more of him. Nope girls, no reference to your amazing band, my favorite, in this review. A band that features my beloved Jenny Lee * wink wink *
I was rereading this book earlier, sort of (not important which one) and I picked this up. Ugh, this is real, so sooo realistic. Characters that are animated in a way that makes the books that are blessed with them..... hum. As it ought to be. Usually, I am deeply suspicious of the short story genre but I am really appreciative of this book. Boy, his writing is real, so real. I needed that.
Oddly enough, Brown reminds me of Jack Kerouac. Just, just read the books by Larry Brown.
We are riven no more. We are better than ourselves. Insolent nation, now heal.
codicil: In the light of now, in the light of day that never came, those few words above do seem naive. Innocent no more. But Writer still is. There.
We are not going anywhere.
But whoever is having this nightmare, who is there to wake them up? There is no Alice's sister to wake us up from this, there is no Alice dreaming all this either.
July 16, 2022
4.3☆
*Dar la Cara *Los ricos * El viejo Frank y Jesús *Adiós a la ciudad
Que manera de usar el humor negro para hablar de las cuitas de todos estos personajes, si bien el ritmo de sus cuentos es increíble, y a veces hasta sueltas la carcajada, pero al llegar al cierre de cada uno se te borra la expresión de la cara, por esos finales inesperados.
Nuevo descubrimiento para bien.
*Dar la Cara *Los ricos * El viejo Frank y Jesús *Adiós a la ciudad
Que manera de usar el humor negro para hablar de las cuitas de todos estos personajes, si bien el ritmo de sus cuentos es increíble, y a veces hasta sueltas la carcajada, pero al llegar al cierre de cada uno se te borra la expresión de la cara, por esos finales inesperados.
Nuevo descubrimiento para bien.
April 3, 2014
Some very fine writing here. Larry Brown reminds me of Denis Johnson. Facing the Music is Southern grit lit with a dash of dark humor occasionally thrown in when you're not expecting it. These are sad souls, down on their luck, but full of desire and hot with yearning. Brown has a gift for character and dialog. One senses that he is absolutely capturing reality. I'm looking forward to reading one of his novels next.
March 13, 2023
Tão duro quanto magnífico.
November 21, 2014
One of the most common mistakes one can make in judging a story is to base his/her judgment on whether or not he/she likes the subject matter or characters. Using such criteria has no place in serious criticism. I mention this only because fine writers like Raymond Carver and Larry Brown are occasionally dismissed because they often write about coarse or even disreputable major characters.
Still,focusing on the less than enviable folks who show up on the pages of so many of Larry Brown's stories is in my view a classic case of mistaking the forest for the trees. Brown is a writer of significant talent. His use of dialogue is spot on, and his sentences move effortlessly and rhythmically. His use of humor sometimes reminds me of Flannery O'Connor's.
Picking a favorite in Facing the Music is a lot like choosing between one's son and one's daughter. You love then both but in different ways. Check out "The End of Romance," or the title story, "Facing the Music." Then tell me coarse characters or depressing settings do anything to diminish the power of an exceptionally interesting writer.
Still,focusing on the less than enviable folks who show up on the pages of so many of Larry Brown's stories is in my view a classic case of mistaking the forest for the trees. Brown is a writer of significant talent. His use of dialogue is spot on, and his sentences move effortlessly and rhythmically. His use of humor sometimes reminds me of Flannery O'Connor's.
Picking a favorite in Facing the Music is a lot like choosing between one's son and one's daughter. You love then both but in different ways. Check out "The End of Romance," or the title story, "Facing the Music." Then tell me coarse characters or depressing settings do anything to diminish the power of an exceptionally interesting writer.
June 23, 2010
Anyone seeking warm, fuzzy, reassuring stories should go elsewhere. Brown goes to the disturbingly honest places most people spend a lifetime trying to cover up. His spotlight on the darkness of our urges is mesmerizing. It's all done with economy, too -- this slim volume packs a surprising punch, and the characters haunted me for days. Brown is also willing to take risks with form, making the reader even more off-kilter.
February 21, 2021
Ce recueil de neuf nouvelles de Larry Brown, indépendantes les unes des autres, présente l’Amérique des paumés et des laissés-pour-compte qui affrontent, comme ils le peuvent, l’orage de leurs existences …
J’ai trouvé toutes ces tranches de vie un peu trop portées sur la boisson pour que je puisse pleinement les apprécier. Le thème de l’alcoolisme est effectivement abordé dans presque toutes les nouvelles et cela m’a tout bonnement lassé au fil de ma lecture.
Je n’ai absolument rien compris à la nouvelle intitulée "Julie : un souvenir", qui semblait pourtant être l’une des plus intéressantes de par sa construction complexe (mais je n’avais visiblement pas les clés pour l’élucider).
Côté positif, puisqu’il y en a tout de même, je dois reconnaître que j’ai apprécié la nouvelle "Vie nocturne" car elle a créé en moi une attente, dès les premiers paragraphes, qui m’a tenu en haleine jusqu’à la fin, même si ce que j’attendais n’est finalement jamais venu. L’avant-dernière nouvelle du recueil, "Partir", sur l’extrême solitude, est ma préférée.
En définitive, je pense que le format des nouvelles ne me correspond pas car il ne m’a pas permis de m’attacher aux différents personnages. Voici donc ma toute première déception du catalogue Gallmeister !
J’ai trouvé toutes ces tranches de vie un peu trop portées sur la boisson pour que je puisse pleinement les apprécier. Le thème de l’alcoolisme est effectivement abordé dans presque toutes les nouvelles et cela m’a tout bonnement lassé au fil de ma lecture.
Je n’ai absolument rien compris à la nouvelle intitulée "Julie : un souvenir", qui semblait pourtant être l’une des plus intéressantes de par sa construction complexe (mais je n’avais visiblement pas les clés pour l’élucider).
Côté positif, puisqu’il y en a tout de même, je dois reconnaître que j’ai apprécié la nouvelle "Vie nocturne" car elle a créé en moi une attente, dès les premiers paragraphes, qui m’a tenu en haleine jusqu’à la fin, même si ce que j’attendais n’est finalement jamais venu. L’avant-dernière nouvelle du recueil, "Partir", sur l’extrême solitude, est ma préférée.
En définitive, je pense que le format des nouvelles ne me correspond pas car il ne m’a pas permis de m’attacher aux différents personnages. Voici donc ma toute première déception du catalogue Gallmeister !
January 19, 2018
I thought a few of these stories were fantastic, and a couple a mess. And too many dead dogs.
August 22, 2023
Tremendo.
Probablemente el libro de relatos que más me ha gustado hasta la fecha. Leed a Larry Brown si queréis un poco de esa cara menos amable del sur de USA.
Probablemente el libro de relatos que más me ha gustado hasta la fecha. Leed a Larry Brown si queréis un poco de esa cara menos amable del sur de USA.
July 27, 2010
I enjoyed Big Bad Love a lot, and but I think this collection, Brown's first, is even better. It's what you would expect if you've ever read any of Brown's stories--lots of drinking, down-and-out men and women in failing relationships/marriages, violence, and, perhaps surprisingly, humor. Though he doesn't do this in every story, it's Brown is not afraid to allow a story to be funny, even if it's a deadly serious situation for the characters. That's hard to do.
Brown "experiments" in two stories: "Boy and Dog," a story written like a poem in five word lines; and "Julie: A Memory," a stream-of-consciousness story dealing with an extrmemely violent act (this one bears rereading).
"Samaritans," "Night Life," and "Facing the Music" are all excellent stories.
I highly recommend the collection.
Brown "experiments" in two stories: "Boy and Dog," a story written like a poem in five word lines; and "Julie: A Memory," a stream-of-consciousness story dealing with an extrmemely violent act (this one bears rereading).
"Samaritans," "Night Life," and "Facing the Music" are all excellent stories.
I highly recommend the collection.
December 17, 2012
Larry Brown has a distinct voice and tone to his work. The voice speaks to you from the page and the reader gets inside the heads of Brown's characters in an almost obsessive way. His stories of alcohol, infidelity, women, and romance never fail to amuse me. He is a masterful writer of the short story and this book is a nice sample of his work. I like some of these stories better than others, but I couldn't give this a lower rating because of the ones I did enjoy. When Brown is on point, he is a joy to read.
May 24, 2013
Great collection. Seems like Brown was trying on voices with these stories. Hints of the masterful storytelling to come later in his novels. Funny, gritty, real. Classic Brown is glimpsed as he works in a variety of voices; maybe trying to settle on the one that would best tell the stories he was to tell later.
Liked this a great deal.
Liked this a great deal.
August 30, 2014
Brown was a great southern writer - these stories spin around a theme of people coming to a crux in their life - whether self created or not. Almost all come from a history of the stereotypical rough side of southern life, but the reader understands Brown has lived there, known these people, and been respectable honest about them.
December 6, 2021
Tremendo.
Larry Brown es un escritor increíble. Él bebe con sus personajes y cuenta historias íntimas, llenas de violencia, exceso, desborde. No hay un juicio, solo los hechos que suceden. El sur de Estados Unidos en su gran diversidad.
Siento que estos cuentos fueron, y siguen siendo, una nueva, diferente y genial forma de hacer relatos.
Larry Brown es un escritor increíble. Él bebe con sus personajes y cuenta historias íntimas, llenas de violencia, exceso, desborde. No hay un juicio, solo los hechos que suceden. El sur de Estados Unidos en su gran diversidad.
Siento que estos cuentos fueron, y siguen siendo, una nueva, diferente y genial forma de hacer relatos.
February 26, 2017
Rough as a cob, smooth as a cold beer after a day of shoveling coal, and very much a redneck state of mind. Larry Brown was a master of down home, rough life Southern fiction. Absorbing, not always enjoyable, but ultimately rewarding for fans of the genre.
May 29, 2017
Larry Brown was a really good Southern writer. He captured those who are down and out, the outsiders, the beleaguered with clarity and wit. These stories were all compelling and very good reading.
August 17, 2024
Ce livre, c'est une sensation.
Est ce que vous connaissez ce sentiment d'être au bout de ce que vous pourriez supporter, mais sans raison particulière. Cette impression d'avoir touché le fond, cette envie de tout abandonner, de tout lâcher. Et pourtant, toujours sans aucune raison, vous vous relevez et vous affrontez une journée de plus.
Et bien ce livre, c'est ça.
C'est un recueil de nouvelles qui m'a totalement bouleversé. Je n'en lis jamais, parce que j'ai toujours cette impression de "trop peu". Alors qu'ici, pas du tout. Les fragments de vie choisis se suffisent à eux même. Chaque personnage ou situation évoquée, l'est pleinement. Sans avant, sans après. Juste l'instant.
On entre dans l'intimité de 9 personnages, on frôle le désespoir, on touche du doigt la désolation, on effleur la détresse. On affronte l'orage et on attend le retour du soleil, d'un "mieux" qui tarde à venir nous relever de la chute.
Le talent d'écriture de Larry Brown m'a convaincu. J'ai maintenant très envie de découvrir ces romans.
Est ce que vous connaissez ce sentiment d'être au bout de ce que vous pourriez supporter, mais sans raison particulière. Cette impression d'avoir touché le fond, cette envie de tout abandonner, de tout lâcher. Et pourtant, toujours sans aucune raison, vous vous relevez et vous affrontez une journée de plus.
Et bien ce livre, c'est ça.
C'est un recueil de nouvelles qui m'a totalement bouleversé. Je n'en lis jamais, parce que j'ai toujours cette impression de "trop peu". Alors qu'ici, pas du tout. Les fragments de vie choisis se suffisent à eux même. Chaque personnage ou situation évoquée, l'est pleinement. Sans avant, sans après. Juste l'instant.
On entre dans l'intimité de 9 personnages, on frôle le désespoir, on touche du doigt la désolation, on effleur la détresse. On affronte l'orage et on attend le retour du soleil, d'un "mieux" qui tarde à venir nous relever de la chute.
Le talent d'écriture de Larry Brown m'a convaincu. J'ai maintenant très envie de découvrir ces romans.
September 11, 2021
Facing the Music by Larry Brown (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 1998) (Fiction - Short Stories) (3569).
This was notorious Southern author Larry Brown’s first book. It is a collection of ten short stories. The gem of this bunch is “Samaritans.” It is the perfect fable for our times.
My rating: 7/10, finished 9/11/21.
July 14, 2022
calling the horny police
January 20, 2025
Classic American realism .. blue collar, working class stuff.. a lot of people getting drunk in bars and being sad.. really good
December 27, 2024
En Larry Brown és un mestre. Vaig llegir "Trabajo sucio" i vaig flipar. Ara he llegit "Dar la cara" i reafirm que ha estat el descobriment de l'any. Tots editats per Dirty Works Editorial.
10 relats plens de vida, de gent comuna (a vegades no tant), d'humanitat, però molts cops de la més crua: alcoholisme, violència, amors impossibles, problemes domèstics, gent que no arriba a final de mes... tot contat amb senzillesa, algun toc d'humor i molta agilitat.
Vull més Larry Brown! 🖤
10 relats plens de vida, de gent comuna (a vegades no tant), d'humanitat, però molts cops de la més crua: alcoholisme, violència, amors impossibles, problemes domèstics, gent que no arriba a final de mes... tot contat amb senzillesa, algun toc d'humor i molta agilitat.
Vull més Larry Brown! 🖤
November 25, 2014
Whether he is writing the inner dialogue of a drunk black woman or a white farmer at the end of his rope or a boy seeking revenge for the death of his dog, there is something so raw and intimately, delicately human here. Brown distills the most private human confusion, shame, hubris, hurt, anger, and self-delusion into spare writing that goes into the reader like emotion pushed through an IV. I found myself rocking and moaning. The range and diversity of the writing is also perfection. He’ll play with the short story form, turning it into a lyrical poem or, in a story recalling a memory, disorganized fragments — as if he wrote a story, tore it into individual sentences, then pieced them together randomly. And the creation relays the way memory really works. One of my favorite stories in this collection, “Night Life,” left me gasping. And the last story, “End of Romance,” was one of the most violent and hilarious pieces of work I’ve ever read. There is no way to intuit where Larry Brown will take you. This is magnificent writing, and the book’s title is perfect.
The edition I read ends with Brown’s letters to his publisher. Larry Brown (1951–2004) was a fireman and family man who loved to write. His letters make you moan in a different kind of way; you just wish he could have lived longer and that you could have met him.
The edition I read ends with Brown’s letters to his publisher. Larry Brown (1951–2004) was a fireman and family man who loved to write. His letters make you moan in a different kind of way; you just wish he could have lived longer and that you could have met him.
December 25, 2009
An underrated collection of short stories: "The Rich" is an uproarious profile of a travel agent who serves the wealthy, "Night Life" is an affecting examination of the barriers between men and women, and "The End of Romance" is the most innovative break-up story I've ever read. I despise these "sorta like A and sorta like B" descriptions, but Brown is best understood as a cross between Hubert Selby Jr. and Raymond Carver: He's more understated than the former and more sincere than the latter. Facing the Music is another reading project that can be completed in less than two hours, so what are you waiting for?
September 20, 2011
"Facing The Music" is Larry Brown's first published book. Reading a Larry Brown's stories are like talking to a rural Mississippi white guy down on his luck. He has the wonderful gift of writing exactly like a person would talk...people with coolers of beer iced down in the back floorboards of their cars, always struggling with their women, jail, or losing their job...he could take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. He authored 10 books before his death in 2004, at the age of 53. He is high on my list of favorite authors because of his writing style.
December 11, 2016
Larry Brown is a remarkable and innovative writer. His stories in this volume are raw, human, and evocative. Human desperation is at the heart of many of them, whether desperation for love, money, or simple peace. He writes with a lean style and an eagle eye for hidden emotion. Some of his stories are straightforward, while others toy with the form, as though he'd decided to see how much he could rearrange a story and still have it make sense. This collection of stories is a wonderful read, a slice of sun-baked southern life that sizzles with vitality.
March 9, 2015
There's a story that is him getting ready to write Joe - which I wanna read as I enjoyed the movie with Nicolas Cage plus some real people. Joe has the most true to life wino to wino murder you'll ever want to see, and the short story Samaritans is some true to life hardcore preview of all the low behavior the permanently betrayed betrayers are capable of. Pretty good loaner from Cassandra Dallett.
January 26, 2009
The story "Kubuku Rides" scared the crap out of me, so much in fact, that I actually started drinking less! I thought this story and the title story were best, but overall a wonderful book.
p.s. If anyone can tell me what "Kubuku" means or where Larry Brown got that title I'd be very grateful.
p.s. If anyone can tell me what "Kubuku" means or where Larry Brown got that title I'd be very grateful.
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