Download Your Copy The Heyday Of The Insensitive Bastards Drafted By Robert Boswell Available In Audiobook
am not usually a fan of short stories but I am a big fan of Boswell, And my book club is reading this, And the author is coming to the book club! in just a few hours!! Will update this post then, The stories are quite varied but all are about quirky, flawed and somewhat disturbing characters, Boswell has a knack for developing interesting characters and drawing us into some unusual situations, I prefer a story to be more conclusively tied together at the end, but Boswell leaves us pondering the implications and just exactly how to interpret what the story's title implies.
Though intrigued by the offbeat characters, it took me awhile to appreciate his style, I have been stealthily seduced by the stories, so my rating edged up tostars, perhaps I may need to delve deeper into Boswell's world, Each of these stories was so perfectly attenuated one was exactlypages long!, so complete in and of themselves, that I forgot every story that I wasn't reading a novel.
Truly a sign of a great short story writer, Here's the weirdest thing about this book, Apart from a couple of stories, i really enjoyed them all, Except i can't remember half of them without a prompt,
So, when i think back on the book, my first reaction is 'meh', But then i look at the list of titles, and go 'oh, i loved this one', 'i really enjoyed this one', 'meh', 'oh yes, this one was good'.
The ratio is completely flipped,
Clearly, this review says more about my shortcomings than the The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards's, doesn't it, And the upshot is: the book is better, Thoroughly enjoyed this collection of stories, Boswell has a gift for considering a moment in a character's life and we, the reader, also are forced to consider such whisperings within our own life, I think this is the best a story can be to bottle a moment and allow the reader to experience it and bridge that moment, Quite magical. Had to stop reading this, Couldn't get into his style, even though there was a good line here or there, He's very into character portraits, Also, there were some glaring technical errors in some of the stories that I cannot believe got past an editor, This was my first book by Robert Boswell and this particular book is a collection of short stories that I thoroughly enjoyed,
Boswell's writing is strong and he's great at setting up the tone of the story and the character development is exceptional also, His characters are all broken in some way and the author draws you into an emotional relationship with each one and so there is a level of empathy and a certain sadness that I felt while reading.
I felt like I knew these people,
Boswell's writing style is very distinct and I felt that I was reading something exciting and new, It didn't ever feel like I was reading a recycled story from another author, Boswell has a great way of weaving words together and I often stopped and read sentences again just so that I could feel them further,
"No River Wide" and "Smoke" were my two favorite stories, In "Smoke" I loved the atmosphere of the boys sitting around talking and in "No River Wide" I enjoyed the authors play with time,
It's so much fun reading an author for the first time and now that I've experienced his short stories, I'm really looking forward to one of his novels.
Robert Boswell did an excellent job of engaging me and he toyed with my emotions which is what I enjoyed most about these stories, Excellent read!! well I keep meaning to stick up a review for this great, involving, complicated book, I didn't like every story 'A Sketch of Highway on the Nap of A Mountain' for example, what was all that weird use of language Did I convention how Billy and I were a pair for ten years, but even that was good.
Several stories were just the dog's bollocks the title story, the opening one No River Wide, A Walk in Winter, the wonderful page and a half 'Skin Deep'.
That story appeared in the same issue of sitelinkVestal as one of mine! Haven't really had the time to sit down and think about a proper review yet, but I will come back.
Meanwhile I came across this graphic review of the book:
sitelink barnesandnoble. com/t
Here's one of the pictures from it:
sitelink
actually here's the whole review as one image:
sitelink Boswell is a fine, fine writer.
He's remarkably astute about character, and he's fearless when it comes to structure and style, The title piece is wickedly funny and shrewd and sad, The collection features great range and imagination, I've read several of Boswell's novels and collections, He just gets better and better, Story lovers, check him out, A collection of short stories, mostly strange stories about unusual people, Some are very dark. Some are humorous. Some I didn't get at all, The writing is interestingunexpected turns of phrase, descriptions that are not ordinary at all, Overall, not my favorite. I didn't understand some of these stories and the language in most of them was quite colorful I loved this collection of stories, From the very first story I was hooked, and stayed that way until the last and title story, This is one book I'll be sure to read again and pass on to friends! nearly, no definitelystars, I loved this book. Right up my street. I'd be proud to write such compelling, complex stories, Proper review will come, eventually slowing down I'm afraid for work reasons, .
So thanks Jacob for putting me onto this, I enjoyed two stories: "No River Wide" and "The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards, " Generally they all had interesting ideas, but I did not think much of the execution, "A Walk in Winter" could have been a great story, but Boswell spent half of it on inessential plot, "Lacunae" was promising but wrapped up terribly, and should have been more developed, What most the stories lack is tightness, Boswell explains his characters thoughts too much, includes too many useless details, and places emphasis in the wrong areas,
Take, for instance, the line from "Almost not Beautiful," when Boswell writes that Amanda and Lisa's father died, He mentions that he was an only child, an somewhat important detail because he didn't have to share his parent's estate and was able to buy a nice house.
He dies, and then Boswell writes "When Snookie died, the paternal line ended, " This line is indicative of how I feel about this collection in general, One, it is stating what can be inferred, The statement is supposed to carry weight, to say that the paternal line ended, It also is not true, The paternal line died when he failed to have any male heirs, And finally, it is such a worthless thing to call attention to, especially because it has no bearing on the story, that the family name won't be carried on, and yet is said significantly.
To be fair,
I recognize that I am being harsh, But this is because Boswell is obviously an intelligent writer, and I can appreciate that he reaches farther than a good amount of writers today, even if he fails.
I am unsure why, but I expected more from him, though this is the first work of his I've read, I feel this way about writers who promise more than they can deliver, The promise is in the tone and the subject matter,
In general, Boswell structures all his stories much the same, with the stories grounded in the present as a frame, In "No River Wide," presenting the past and the present as if they occur at the same time was an exciting technique, and though it dragged I loved the ending.
But it's less interesting in the rest of the stories, "Heyday" is stronger for diverging some from this format, admittedly similar but not the same,
For the writing itself, there are some pretty lines, especially in the two stories I liked and more in the titular, but he also printed some awful stuff.
Boswell does not write action well, By action I mean simple things like the process of throwing a cup into a trash can or of lifting a person into a tub, Some of his metaphors are awful, mostly due to how abstract they are,
I can't help but wonder if Boswell is better as a novelist, seeing as how his longer stories tend to build well, An enthralling and wise new collection from the author of Century's Son and one of America's most respected writers
I was twentynine years old and wanted to change before I hit thirty.
Clete and I developed a plan for me, . . a plan that would work all that summer and beyond, Even after I left the mountain, it stuck,
Robert Boswell's extraordinary range is on full display in this crackling new collection, Set mainly in small, gritty American cities no farther east than Chicago and as far west as El Paso, each of these stories is a world unto itself.
Two marriages end, one by death, the other by divorce, and the two wives, lifelong friends, become strangers to each other, A young man's obsession with visiting a fortuneteller leaves him nearly homeless, And in the unforgettable title story, a man dubbed Keen recounts the summer he spent on a mountain with his best friend, Clete, and a loose band of slackers, living in a borrowed house, abstaining from all drugs other than mushrooms and beerand ultimately asking just what kind of harm we can do to one another.
Amazing range of characters from a single mind, I've never read Boswell before, but I really got into these stories, Boswell seems to have a knack for finding the cracks in his characters's psyches and putting the reader into the story right at that point and keep the story swimming along in that dark water.
Detailed and fluid, it makes for some good reading, Often I can't get through a whole short story collection because the writer's style becomes so repetitive and predictable and the stories begin to blur together, I love this book because each story is so different from the next one, I'm really impressed with Boswell's range here, And there are great lines like, "Lisa liked to look on the bright side, but she was often too perceptive to find one, " My favorite story in the collection is "City Bus, " Well,i just bought this book, . . And I'm hardly half way through,since I've been busy lately, . now i've seen people's review on this book,im super glad that almost everyone rated this five star,and I've read alot of good feed backs,so i have to start reading this asap! ltThere is no denying Robert Boswell's talent.
His characters are fully formed, very flawed, and buffeted by their bad decisions and lack of self awareness, However, I got bored with every story's stubborn meanness, The women are manipulative, envious, or sad, The men ordinary outlaws in unremarkable circumstances, I wanted some small redemption, some selfawareness, some form of believable recovery, I wanted the man and woman on the cover to stop peeking out the blinds and leave the shadows, An amazing collection. The quality of writing was both refreshing and concise, not a single word was out of place and while I may not have loved every single story in this collection, the one story that resonated the most with me was "Smoke," which is a story about boys talking about sex because they don't know how to talk about anything else, at least not with each other.
Such full characters. Stories that come alive, that read like film, Vivid, nuanced, and powerful scenes, Boswell is also a master of dialogue, This is a book to be studied, but reads like its meant to be enjoyed, Another amazing book that has haunted me and merits a reread, The hubby picked this one out for me when I was ill a couple years ago and wanted some library books to pass the time, I was amazed by the stories and characters and can't get them out of my head, Boswell takes the worst thoughts that all of us have but never share with others, and writes them down for us to read, You'll love and hate these characters for the honesty with which the author portrays them, It's funny how they manage to endear themselves to you when you read them thinking or saying something awful, stupid or narcissistic, or making some ridiculous justification for some horrible action they just committed.
You will definitely not be able to forget them, and you may recognize yourself or people you know amongst them, One of the best books I've read in a long, long time, .