You Think That's Bad: Stories

You Think That's Bad: Stories

Following Like Youâ€™d Understand, Anywayâ€”awarded the Story Prize and a finalist for the National Book Awardâ€”Jim Shepard returns with an even more wildly diverse collection of astonishingly observant stories. Like an expert curator, he populates the vastness of human experienceâ€”from its bizarre fringes and lonely, breathtaking pinnacles to the hopelessly mediocre and desperately below averageâ€”with brilliant scientists, reluctant soldiers, workaholic artists, female explorers, depraved murderers, and deluded losers, all wholly convincing and utterly fascinating.

A â€œblack worldâ€ operative at Los Alamos isnâ€™t allowed to tell his wife anything about his daily activities, but he canâ€™t resist sharing her intimate confidences with his work buddy. A young Alpine researcher falls in love with the girlfriend of his brother, who was killed in an avalanche he believes he caused. An unlucky farm boy becomes the manservant of a French nobleman whoâ€™s as proud of his military service with Joan of Arc as heâ€™s aroused by the slaughter of children. A free-spirited autodidact, grieving her lost sister, traces the ancient steps of a ruthless Middle Eastern sect and becomes the first Western woman to travel the Arabian deserts. From the inventor of the Godzilla epics to a miserable G.I. in New Guinea, each comes to realize that knowing better is never enough.

Enthralling and unfailingly compassionate, You Think Thatâ€™s Bad traverses centuries, continents, and social strata, but the joy and struggle that Shepard depicts with such devastating sensitivityâ€”all the heartbreak, alienation, intimacy, and accomplishmentâ€”has a universal resonance.
Country USA
Manufacturer Knopf
Binding Hardcover
ReleaseDate 2011-03-22
UnitCount 1
Format Deckle Edge
EANs 9780307594822

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Knopf
Binding	Hardcover
ReleaseDate	2011-03-22
UnitCount	1
Format	Deckle Edge
EANs	9780307594822

You Think That's Bad: Stories

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