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The classic debut collection from Pulitzer Prize winner James Alan McPhersonHue and Cry is the remarkably mature and agile debut story collection from James Alan McPherson, one of America's most venerated and most original writers. McPherson's characters -- gritty, authentic, and pristinely rendered -- give voice to unheard struggles along the dividing lines of race and poverty in subtle, fluid prose that bears no trace of sentimentality, agenda, or apology.First published in 1968, this collection includes the Atlantic Prize-winning story ?Gold Coast? (selected by John Updike for the collection Best American Short Stories of the Century). Now with a new preface by Edward P. Jones, Hue and Cry introduced America to McPherson's unforgettable, enduring vision, and distinctive artistry.

Jenny Diski's prose is as sharp and steely as her imagination is wild and wondrous. When she died of cancer in April 2016, after chronicling her illness in an unforgettable series of essays in the London Review of Books, she was mourned by readers, admirers, and critics around the world, who had come to love the cool and unflinching tone that defined her singular voice. She explored the subjects of sex, power, domesticity, femininity, hysteria, and loneliness with humor and honesty.The stories in The Vanishing Princess showcase a rarely seen side of this beloved writer. In a Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale turned on its head, a miller's daughter rises to power and wealth to outwit the title villain. ?Bath Time? tells the story of a woman's life through her attempts to build the perfect bathtub, chasing an elusive moment of peace. In ?Short Circuit,? the author mines her own bouts in mental institutionsoutside London to question whether those we think are mad are really the sanest among us. Sharper, more experimental than her novels, The Vanishing Princess presents Jenny Diski as we knew her but also as we could never quite capture her irreverent, bizarre, political, morose, and gloriously unruly on the page.

The debut title in Ecco's the art of the Story Series?a collection of twelve short works of fiction that showcase Tobias Wolff's extraordinary craftIn the Garden of the North American Martyrs, Tobias Wolff's first collection of short fiction, hailed the arrival of a major talent and the beginning of an acclaimed, bestselling career. In each of these sharply crafted stories, his characters, drawn from everyday life, stumble over each other in their baffled yet resolute search for the "right path." Among the characters in these twelve stories are a teenage boy who tells morbid lies about his home life; a timid professor who, in the first genuine outburst of her life, pours out her opinions in spite of a protesting audience; a prudish loner who gives an obnoxious hitchhiker a ride; and an elderly couple on a golden anniversary cruise who endures the offensive conviviality of the ship's social director.

From master storyteller Paul Bowles comes a new addition to ecco's the art of the story series?"essential reading" for any witness to the magic of the short form, writes vendela vidaAll the tales are a variety of detective story," writes Bowles of this, his first short story collection, "in which the reader is the detective; the mystery is in the motivation for the characters' behavior." In such stories as "A Distant Episode" and "How Many Midnights," Bowles pushes human character beyond socially defined limits, mapping a transformed?often horribly transformed?reality. Bowles captures the duality of human frailty and cruelty in these seventeen taut and atmospheric tales, written between 1939 and 1949. Brutal and gorgeous, visceral and profound, this timeless collection is "one of the most profound, beautifully wrought, and haunting collections in our literature... at once austere, witty, violent, and sensuous....His language has a purity of line, a poise and authority entirely its own, capable of instantly modulating from farce to horror without a ruffle" (Tobias Wolff).

From one of Russia's greatest writers, Anton Chekhov, an indispensable collection of stories, full of humor, truth, and vast insight, selected and introduced by modern American virtuoso Richard Ford, available in a deluxe paperback edition--part of the Ecco Art of the Story series.One of the most beloved Russian writers, Anton Chekov had an indelible influence on many revered modern writers, including Richard Ford, Raymond Carver, Robert Stone, Nadine Gordimer, William Maxwell, and Ernest Hemingway. In this superb anthology, Ford, a master of short fiction in his own right, has chosen twenty of his personal favorites from among more than two hundred of Chekhov's tales and short novels.Though they were composed more than a century ago, Chekhov's stories hold timeless lessons and insights invaluable in our own age. The Essential Tales of Chekhov Deluxe Edition includes familiar masterpieces "The Kiss," "The Darling," and "The Lady with the Dog," as well as several brilliant lesser-known tales--"A Blunder," "Hush!," and "Champagne." These stories, ordered chronologically from 1886 to 1899, are drawn from Chekhov's most fruitful years as a short story writer. The translation is done by the renowned Constance Garnett, who also brought Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Turgenev to the English-speaking world.

Back in print in this deluxe edition, the former Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet's only collection of short fiction, now part of the Ecco Art of the Story series."Imagine a writer who combines Woody Allen's sense of exaggeration--his ability to extrapolate situations to their funniest extremes--with the perspective and self-consciously elegant language of John Updike. That's right, you'd have a creature who is never very likely to walk the face of the earth. But Strand, the prize-winning Canadian-born poet and professor of English at the University of Utah, comes close to that model. The stories in this first collection, originally printed in Vogue, The New Yorker, and Michigan Quarterly Review, vary widely. Yet several of them share a spirit of stubborn determination in the pursuit of idiosyncratic meanings of happiness. In one story a U.S. President noted mainly for reading Chekhov to his Cabinet and creating the 'National Museum of Weather, ' resigns. . . . Another tale is about a man who says he has been married five times and in love six, with none of the 11 experiences overlapping. Then there's Stanley R., the killer poet who murders his parents so he can write a poem about the experience. . . . . Few writers, though, can manage to make one of man's favorite pastimes' futile longing seem to be so hilarious, touching and ultimately admirable as Strand does, in very succinct ways" (People magazine).

"From the first page you know you're in the hands of an exceptional writer... I adored this book." --Zadie Smith"Sexy and radical and intimate." --Miranda July Named a Best Book of 2016 by VICE, Elle, Nylon, Publishers Weekly and NPRNamed one of the most anticipated books of the fall by the Huffington Post, New York, The Boston Globe, Lit Hub, and The Millions Now available in Ecco's Art of the Story series: a never-before-published collection of stories from a brilliant yet little known African American artist and filmmaker--a contemporary of revered writers including Toni Cade Bambara, Laurie Colwin, Ann Beattie, Amy Hempel, and Grace Paley--whose prescient work has recently resurfaced to wide acclaim.Humorous, poignant, perceptive, and full of grace, Kathleen Collins's stories masterfully blend the quotidian and the profound in a personal, intimate way, exploring deep, far-reaching issues--race, gender, family, and sexuality--that shape the ordinary moments in our lives.In "The Uncle," a young girl who idolizes her handsome uncle and his beautiful wife makes a haunting discovery about their lives. In "Only Once," a woman reminisces about her charming daredevil of a lover and his ultimate--and final--act of foolishness. Collins's work seamlessly integrates the African-American experience in her characters' lives, creating rich, devastatingly familiar, full-bodied men, women, and children who transcend the symbolic, penetrating both the reader's head and heart. Both contemporary and timeless, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? is a major addition to the literary canon, and is sure to earn Kathleen Collins the widespread recognition she is long overdue.

Jim Crace's imaginative first book?seven linked stories?now available in deluxe paperback as part of Ecco's The Art of the Story seriesJim Crace's internationally acclaimed Continent explores the tribes and communities, conflicts and superstitions, flora and fauna of a wholly spellbinding place: an imaginary seventh continent. In these seven tales Crace travels through strange and wonderful landscapes: ?Talking Skull? takes the reader to a tiny agrarian village renowned for the sexually charged, mystical milk of its calves; ?Electricity? introduces a remote region where a monumental ceiling fan changes an entire town's attitude toward modernization. From acacia scrubland to a city bazaar jammed with vegetable stalls, tourists, and beggars, Crace's invented world is as fabulous as it is eerily familiar.

In these powerfully rendered, prizewinning stories, working-class African Americans across the South strive for meaning and search for direction in lives shaped by forces beyond their controlThe ten stories in this resonant collection deal with both the ties that bind and the gulf that separates generations, from children confronting the fallibility of their own parents for the first time to adults finding themselves forced to start over again and again.In "Highway 18" a young Jehovah's Witness going door to door with an expert field-service partner from up north is at a crossroads: will she go to college or continue to serve the church? "If You Hit Randall County, You've Gone Too Far" tells of a family trying to make it through a tense celebratory dinner for a son just out on bail. And in the collection's title story, a young girl experiences loss for the first time in the fallout from her father's relationship with her babysitter.Startling, intimate, and prescient on their own, these stories build to a kaleidoscopic understanding of both the individual and the collective black experience over the last fifty years in the American South. With We Are Taking Only What We Need, Stephanie Powell Watts has crafted an incredibly assured and emotionally affecting meditation on everything from the large institutional forces to the small interpersonal moments that impress upon us and direct our lives.

In this darkly comic and surreal collection from celebrated author Alissa Nutting, misfit women scramble for agency in a series of uncanny circumstancesThroughout these breathtakingly creative seventeen stories spread across time, space, and differing planes of reality, we encounter a host of women and girls in a wide range of unusual jobs. A space cargo deliverywoman enlists the help of her cybersex partner to release her mother from cryogenic prison. Desperate for affection and a more lavish lifestyle, a young woman falls under the corrosive spell of the fashion model for whom she's given up everything to assist. A woman submits to a procedure that will turn her body into a futuristic ant farm, only to discover the sinister plans of her doctor. Though the settings these women find themselves in are as shocking and unique as they come, the emotional battles they face are searing and real. Some are trying to fight their way out of the cycle of abuse, while others must cope with the anguish brought on by infertility or the aftershocks of an abortion. Still others confront and embrace their most depraved desires, carving out power for themselves in worlds that relentlessly ask for conformity. Wickedly funny yet ringing with deep truths about gender, authority and the ways we inhabit and restrict the female body, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls is a brilliant commentary on the kaleidoscope of human behavior and a remarkably nuanced satire for our times.

The singular, enchanting debut story collection from Elizabeth McCracken, now back in print as part of Ecco's "Art of the Story" series, and with a new introduction from the author.Called "astonishingly assured" by The Guardian, the nine stories that make up Elizabeth McCracken's debut story collection deal with oddball characters doing their very best to forge connections with those around them.In "It's Bad Luck to Die" a woman marries an older tattoo artist and finds comfort in agreeing to act as a canvas for his most elaborate work. "Some Have Entertained Angels, Unaware" follows a young girl as she comes face to face with a cast of eccentrics her recently-widowed father has invited to live in their expansive but dilapidated home. And in the title story, a young man and his wife are perplexed when an outspoken old woman shows up on their doorstep for a visit, claiming to be a distant aunt, even though she can't be traced on a family tree.At once captivating and offbeat, Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry is a dazzling showcase of the early years of Elizabeth McCracken's prodigious talent.

The debut collection of Nell Freudenberger, who first came to national attention with the 2001 New Yorker publication of the title story, Lucky Girls encompasses five stories set in Southeast Asia and on the Indian subcontinent. They each bear the weight and substance of a short novella and are narrated by young women who find themselves, often as expatriates, face-to-face with the compelling circumstances of adult love. Living in unfamiliar places, according to new and often-frightening rules, these characters become vulnerable in unexpected ways and learn, as a result, to articulate the romantic attraction to landscapes and cultures that are strange to them.In ?Lucky Girls,? an American woman who has been involved in a five-year affair with a married Indian man feels bound, following his untimely death, to her memories of him and to her adopted country. And in ?Letter from the Last Bastion,? a teenage girl begins a correspondence with a middle- aged male novelist, who, having built his reputation writing about his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam, confides in her the secret truth of those experiences, and the lie that has defined his life as a man.Now in a new edition with a preface by the author, Lucky Girls marked the arrival of a writer of exceptional talents, one whose generosity of spirit, clarity of intellect and emotion, and skill in storytelling set her among our most gifted and exciting voices.