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Come Back If It Doesn't Get Better
Known for her novels, One by One and A State Of Change, Penelope Gilliatt emerges with this book as a master of the classical short story.
Character and narrative have been lately losing ground in fiction, but not in the work of Miss Gilliatt; for her, character is crucial and narrative thrives.
In a period in which observation is thought to have failed us, and we look inwards, she looks out, and sees. And with the written word itself having been called into question, she celebrates word
In these nine stories, eight of which first appeared in The New Yorker, there are no approximations, no evasions, no studied confusions; the characters are in plain view, and their voices carry.
Miss Gilliatt offers us fresh and exact dramatizations of corruption, melancholy, old age, eminence, great friendship, loneliness, and defeat. Disclosing vulnerability of the favored, as well as unfavored, she records particulars of behavior and gradations of feeling that ordinary go unperceived. She does not turn away from the dark disorder of existence, but defiantly brings to bear on it a powerful intelligence, a benevolent wit, passion, and pure sanity.
Character and narrative have been lately losing ground in fiction, but not in the work of Miss Gilliatt; for her, character is crucial and narrative thrives.
In a period in which observation is thought to have failed us, and we look inwards, she looks out, and sees. And with the written word itself having been called into question, she celebrates word
In these nine stories, eight of which first appeared in The New Yorker, there are no approximations, no evasions, no studied confusions; the characters are in plain view, and their voices carry.
Miss Gilliatt offers us fresh and exact dramatizations of corruption, melancholy, old age, eminence, great friendship, loneliness, and defeat. Disclosing vulnerability of the favored, as well as unfavored, she records particulars of behavior and gradations of feeling that ordinary go unperceived. She does not turn away from the dark disorder of existence, but defiantly brings to bear on it a powerful intelligence, a benevolent wit, passion, and pure sanity.
212 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1969
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About the author
Penelope Gilliatt
37 books5 followersBrilliant English short story writer, novelist, critic and screenwriter, Penelope Gilliatt came to represent some of the best of the second generation writing at the New Yorker magazine.
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