MARC Record from marc_columbia

LEADER: 03121fam a2200397 a 4500
001 1880554
005 20220609015039.0
008 960426s1996 nyu 000 1 eng
010 $a 96018979
020 $a1559703571 (alk. paper)
035 $a(OCoLC)34669326
035 $a(OCoLC)ocm34669326
035 $9ALW9520CU
035 $a(NNC)1880554
035 $a1880554
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dNNC$dOrLoB-B
043 $an-us---
050 00 $aPS3569.P4458$bA87 1996
082 00 $a813/.54$220
100 1 $aSpencer, Brent.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n94074807
245 10 $aAre we not men? /$cstories by Brent Spencer.
250 $a1st ed.
260 $aNew York :$bArcade Pub.,$c1996.
263 $a9609
300 $a218 pages ;$c22 cm
336 $atext$btxt$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$bn$2rdamedia
505 00 $tAre We Not Men? --$tBabyman --$tSave or Turn to Stone --$tThe Hazards of Poetry --$tAll I Ever Wanted --$tHaven't You Ever Seen Cary Grant? --$tAll Along the Watchtower --$tThis Is the Last of the Nice --$tDreamers --$tGo Long --$tThe Small Things That Save Us --$tEncantado --$tBlues for Marie.
520 $aThe B-movie in the title story is the 1932 classic Island of Lost Souls. Charles Laughton plays a sadistic scientist whose experiments in the House of Pain have turned a tropical island's wild animals into a tribe of beast-men. Laughton tries to strengthen his piteous creations' tenuous grip on humanity by leading them in pep rallies. Their eyes frantic with a hunger for conviction and approbation, the beast-men repeat the refrain, "Are We Not Men?
520 8 $aAre We Not Men?" You don't know if you should laugh or cry.
520 8 $aSpencer's stories make you do both. In a review of his first novel, The Lost Son, Kirkus declared that Spencer "achieves what most debut writers merely attempt: He gives personal experience universal meaning and makes small-town tragedy profound." Whether the setting is a failing farm, a prison yard, a leaky apartment complex, or an overflowing canal in Venice, these thirteen stories offer the full range of Spencer's gifts, establishing him as a master of the form and one of our finest comic writers.
520 8 $aNo one else could make a B movie not only profound, but profoundly, achingly funny.
520 8 $aAll of Spencer's characters painstakingly construct their own Houses of Pain. They, too, are yearning for conviction and approbation, seeking the defining moments of their lives, "victims and perpetrators of a patriarchy in flux," as Marly Swick describes them. A few stories echo The Lost Son in their devastating yet redemptive depiction of blue-collar angst; others are exotic, urban, even urbane.
520 8 $aWhat they share is Spencer's ability to make us care passionately about men and women fumbling with their self-delusions and self-discoveries, lost souls learning to do the best they can with the beast within.
651 0 $aUnited States$xSocial life and customs$y20th century$vFiction.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2007100002
852 00 $boff,glx$hPS3569.P4458$iA87 1996